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Jalen Beeks could become an elite reliever

Related Topics: Jalen Beeks, Adam Sanford, Max Fried

Last week, Adam Sanford documented a few minor adjustments that Rays pitcher Jalen Beeks made to his delivery and approach — namely that he had moved even further to the third base side of the rubber and that he was throwing more “cutters” and fewer curves — and noted that with these changes, Beeks has been getting good results. So far, he’s increased his strikeout rate (to 44.1% right now) and decreased his walk rate (to 5.9%) from a year ago.

It’s true that Beeks is only 8.1 innings into his season, and very little weight should be put in any statistics at this point.