Rule 5 Decision: Tristan Beck

Photo Credit: Kirk Nawrotzky | Richmond Flying Squirrels

This is the third in a series focusing on the Giants’ upcoming Rule 5 protection choices. There’s a fairly large selection of players who present challenging decisions, so we’ll take a look at them one by one. In previous editions, we’ve looked at:

• Hunter Bishop

• Jose Cruz

---

When the prospect world was put on pause in the spring of 2019, Tristan Beck was the Giants’ #14 prospect (on Baseball America), not too far behind Logan Webb (#11) and Sean Hjelle (#9), with all considered to have roughly the same ceiling (which is an object lesson in and of itself). Beck was coming off of an impressive showing in the Arizona Fall League after a terrific second half in High A San Jose, and was considered to be a solid back-end starter candidate primed to move quickly.

The next two years weren’t particularly kind ones for Beck — a pitcher whose career has already been through a few ups and downs, going back to his amateur days. But by the end of 2022, Beck was healthy, throwing as hard as he ever has with as large and effective of an arsenal as he’s ever had. And he had worked his way through nearly 100 innings of the pitching gauntlet known as the PCL. Three years later, he still pairs well Hjelle, and even has some advantages over the Tall Man in his ability to hold quality stuff over more innings and his pure ability to miss bats with multiple pitches.

So, a near-majors ready depth starter with 100 innings of Triple A work that was, in many ways, better than the PCL-battered 5.64 ERA suggests. That sounds like a guy who would be useful on a 40-man. Doesn’t it? That’s what we’re here to find out!

One thing’s for sure: the Stanford-educated Beck already has keen insight into the way to please a Giants’ fan!

Alex Pavlovic @PavlovicNBCS

Shoutout to Tristan Beck's parents 🤣