SAN ANTONIO, T.X. — When Joe Beimel announced his return to professional baseball, he made sure to include the role that he would be filling upon joining the San Diego Padres organization.
The 44-year-old left-hander took to Instagram to share that he would be returning to the game to pitch, not coach, and that he had signed a minor-league contract with the Padres. The 13-year MLB veteran and St. Marys, Pennsylvania native was assigned to the San Antonio Missions, San Diego’s Double-A affiliate.
Beimel hasn’t pitched in the major leagues since 2015, but after retiring in 2017, now feels that he has more to give to the game. Or, perhaps, the game has more to give to him.
“When I retired in 2017, I had zero desire to play,” Beimel wrote in an Instagram post on Friday.
Since his 2018 co-founding of Beimel Elite Athletics, the company under which Beimel trains aspiring pitchers, however, the former reliever realized that he may have been wrong.
“It filled the void of playing and I looked forward to going to the gym every day and helping our athletes get better,” Beimel wrote. “It gave me an opportunity to experiment with different mechanics, workout programs and recovery methods to try and make our athletes the best they could be.”
The result has been newfound velocity that Beimel said he hadn’t had at any point in his 30s. If he stayed home instead of pursuing a comeback, Beimel said, his newfound energy would simply go to waste.
Beimel’s most recent MLB experience came in the form of a two-year stint with the Seattle Mariners in 2014 and 2015. In those seasons, Beimel compiled a combined 5-2 record and 3.12 earned run average, slightly below his career ERA of 4.03.
Beimel, who played at Allegheny College of Maryland before transferring to play for Duquesne, was drafted first in the 1996 MLB Draft’s 26th round. He was drafted again in 1998’s 18th round by the Pittsburgh Pirates, for whom he played his first four MLB seasons and turned in a 5.03 ERA across 288.1 innings.
Beimel’s best year came in 2008, at age 31, with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That year, the lefty specialist was 5-1 with a 2.02 ERA in 49 innings across 71 appearances.
He became a reliable asset for manager Joe Torre out of a bullpen that helped the Dodgers to an NL West division championship and a 3-0 National League Division Series sweep of the Chicago Cubs. He was recently named a member of the Olean Oilers’ 14-member Board of Directors, which is set to re-launch the city’s summer collegiate league franchise for the 2022 season.
However, six years after his last MLB appearance, will Beimel make it back to the majors?
The least he can do is give himself a chance.
“Words can’t describe what I’m feeling right now,” Beimel shared with his 13,000+ Instagram followers. “All I know is I wouldn’t be doing it if there was not a chance of getting back to the big leagues.”
