Starting Pitcher Blake Beavan #49
23 years old; Experience: one year
Blake Beavan was the other piece to the trade that brought Justin Smoak over here. It can only be assumed that Beavan and Smoak are best of buds or kindred spirits or something because there isn't a lot to suggest that Beavan can ever really function as a useful major league pitcher over the course of the season - at least in the starting role.
But Beavan is one of those guys Spring Training is made for. The third rotation spot was largely assumed to be going to Hisashi Iwakuma, and Beavan had a better spring and as such finds himself penciled in - for now. Most likely, this won't last forever. Beavan is a starting pitcher. He isn't a great one like Felix Hernandez or an atrocious one like Carlos Silva - he just is one. Blake Beavan pitching is like calling your girlfriend's friends nothing at all. They aren't even nice - just entities in your life. Blake Beavan is an entity in the Seattle Mariners roster.
Beavan doesn't even benefit that much from pitching in Safeco. In fact his ERA at home last year was 4.81 compared to 3.46 on the road. Beavan doesn't even know how to use the benefit of Safeco Field correctly! With that said, Beavan is a contact pitching guy who could theoretically use Safeco Field correctly if he learned how. He doesn't get a whole lot of strikeouts at all so his room for error becomes slimmer with every ball issued. He was worth 0.7 WAR last year, so that is at least something to the meat of the matter that is Blake Beavan.
He isn't someone that is expected to make much of an impact at all, or be around on the roster very long either - this assumes of course that the Mariners absolute haul of prized pitching works its way through the minors according to plan. But just like rebuilding teams have pitchers like Kevin Millwood on them, they also have pitchers like Blake Beavan on them - stopgaps at best for the next person to fill their shoes and hopefully make us forget they were even on the team in the first place. It's a harsh reality, but such is the life of professional sports for people that aren't at the top of the game.