Free Agent Profile: Jalen Beeks, RP

Jalen Beeks, RP

Position: RP B/T: L/L
Age: 31 (07/10/1993)

2024 Traditional Stats: 71 G, 70 IP, 4.50 ERA, 1.486 WHIP, 7-4, 55 SO, 27 BB
2024 Advanced Stats: 100 ERA+, 17.6 K%, 8.7 BB%, 3.75 xERA, 4.00 FIP, 4.65 xFIP, 0.6 fWAR, 0.0 bWAR

Rundown

Jalen Beeks has faced a string of injuries throughout the 2020s, starting with elbow pain in 2020 that led to Tommy John surgery and caused him to miss the entire 2021 season. Despite these setbacks, he returned in 2022 and delivered the best performance of his career. His 2023 season showed a decline, with a 5.95 ERA, offset by a respectable 3.82 FIP. In 2024, Beeks had a reasonably average year, posting a 4.50 ERA across 70 innings.

Beeks’ standout attribute is his ability to limit hard contact, ranking in the 87th percentile in the league in average exit velocity. He’s also good, if not great, at generating ground balls, with a ground ball rate consistently better than the 60th percentile. However, Beeks embodies the quintessential bullpen arm, which can be tough to hit but struggles with control. Additionally, he doesn’t garner many swings and misses (31st percentile whiff rate), and his strikeout numbers are modest (11th percentile in strikeout percentage). This could be misleading, though, as he’s done that somewhat well before, especially in 2020 and 2022.

Beeks’ arsenal includes a fastball, changeup, cutter, and curveball, though he has tampered with his pitch arsenal over the years. His fastball velocity increased by three miles per hour from 2019 to 2021. He’s experimented with a slider and used his changeup as his primary pitch. Now, he appears to be primarily a fastball/changeup pitcher, mixing in a cutter and possibly another pitch to complement his main offerings.

Another important aspect of Beeks to keep an eye on is his experience as a starter, having made 19 starts in his career. He was not used as a traditional starter (more as an opener), but he did pitch 104 1/3 innings way back in 2019. In these slightly longer outings, Beeks has pitched like a starter, struggling to retire left-handed batters effectively. Over his career, opposing lefties have posted a .248/.329/.386 line against him. However, in 2024, when primarily used as a reliever, lefties began to struggle against him, managing just a .202/.283/.287 line.

Contract

Beeks has switched organizations three times: first in 2018 when the Rays swapped Nathan Eovaldi for him; again in 2023, when Tampa Bay, on the verge of non-tendering him, saw him claimed off waivers by the Rockies; and most recently, when the Rockies traded him to the Pirates midway through last season. Beeks earned $1,675,000 in 2024 and will likely aim for at least that amount in free agency. Left-handed relievers of similar caliber, such as Justin Wilson, Brent Suter, and T.J. McFarland, earned between $1.5 million and $3 million, making this range a reasonable target for Beeks.

Recommendation

To reiterate the fact that the Mets have virtually no major league-level lefty relievers would be redundant, as this issue has been evident since the NLCS when the Mets had no answer for MVP Shohei Ohtani besides a fatigued David Peterson and Danny Young. To fully counter Ohtani, the Mets would need to sign Tanner Scott. That doesn’t seem likely as of now.

If you didn’t like Jake Diekman (who, if the Mets kept, would have held Ohtani in check), Beeks might not be the best fit Of course, Beeks has far more command of the strike zone than Diekman, but they share a similar profile. Both pitchers trade control for the ability to generate softer contact. This doesn’t mean that if Beeks became a Met his tenure would end the same way as Diekman’s did. However, the two pitchers are certainly more alike than different.

Depending on the direction the Mets take with their 2025 bullpen—whether they want to replicate the 2024 group that allowed an absurd amount of walks or transition toward a control-oriented strategy—Jalen Beeks may or may not fit their plans. While he’s unlikely to stand out in any area, his affordability and knack for minimizing hard contact make him a serviceable option for any team seeking left-handed relief.

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