Clayton Beeter had just finished a start that didn’t meet his standards, the kind that no pitcher walks away feeling great about. He threw too many pitches. He didn’t get enough outs. A couple of balls cleared the fence. He made an early exit and was eventually saddled with a loss.

But before his postgame media session began inside the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders’ clubhouse at PNC Field, Beeter made a request: He wanted to be asked the difficult questions. The kinds of questions that would get him ready for New York.

He wanted to be held accountable.

Beeter is a competitive person. He likes to win. But early in his Minor League career in the Dodgers organization, winning took a back seat. Stats seemed more important, and Beeter wasn’t alone in that mindset -- sometimes the Minor Leagues can make a player feel that way. Do whatever you need to do to get to the next level.

Then, a 2022 trade to the New York Yankees landed him right in the middle of a Double-A pennant race. The Somerset Patriots rolled to the Eastern League championship, partly because Beeter was throwing the ball better than ever. That winning feeling, of being a key part of a talented starting rotation, made an impression on him.

This was going to be the new standard for the next season and beyond.

“We had a good group of guys in Somerset that I started with, and we all talked about it, too. Like, ‘Hey, why can’t we do it again?’” the 25-year-old right-hander says. “And let’s make it fun, about winning. It’ll only make us better. And so, we cared a lot.

“And once I felt like I put the game on my back and tried to go out there and give my team a chance to win, I started doing better. And so, I just tried to keep carrying that.”

Beeter has been at his best since joining the Yankees organization. He became a true starting pitcher, not just the once-through-the-order guy he was while in the Dodgers’ system. After starting the 2023 season 6-2 with a 2.08 ERA at Somerset, he earned a promotion to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre as well as an invite to the MLB All-Star Futures Game in Seattle, where he retired both batters he faced -- top Padres prospect Jackson Merrill and top Brewers prospect Jackson Chourio. Last November, the Yankees added Beeter to their 40-man roster, and after Gerrit Cole was sidelined by elbow trouble during Spring Training, he found himself in an unexpected fifth-starter competition. Beeter made New York’s Opening Day roster and had a three-up, three-down, three-pitch Major League debut out of the bullpen against the Houston Astros in his home state of Texas.

What pleased Beeter even more was that the Yankees won that game.

“He doesn’t back down,” RailRiders pitching coach Graham Johnson says. “He wants the ball all the time. He wants the challenge. He wants to face the good lineups. Righties, lefties -- he knows what he wants to do. He definitely has some of that in his character, for sure.”

Part of Beeter’s challenge following his trade from the Dodgers for Joey Gallo on Aug. 2, 2022, was a new role. Even though he started games as a Los Angeles farmhand, it was rare for him to be used for more than nine outs. He completed four innings just four times in 46 outings.

But the Yankees saw the potential for more and started to push him. In his final 2022 regular-season start with Somerset, Beeter threw five scoreless innings. In his lone postseason outing that year, he allowed one earned run over another five innings.

The leash was off.

“I liked it,” Beeter says of his role with the Dodgers, “but I’d rather do what I’m doing here, going deeper into games with a higher pitch count if I’m starting.”

Beeter’s strong start to the 2023 season for Somerset, during which he allowed just three home runs in 60 2/3 innings and held opponents to a .204 average, led to him being named an Eastern League postseason All-Star even though he wouldn’t return to the level after his June promotion to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

“I’ve always been very competitive in everything I do,” Beeter says. “And I realized I hadn’t been getting that through baseball as much. I was getting it as far as competing against myself, trying to get so many strikeouts and not walk this many people and put up certain stat lines. But it wasn’t ever about, ‘OK, let’s just solely focus on preventing runs.’ Once I did that, it’s just a lot easier mindset to pitch in.”

The transition to Triple-A was a bumpy one. He allowed three home runs over his first two starts, then watched his ERA balloon to 7.04 when he allowed 11 runs in his fifth outing, against Buffalo.

He had to get back to doing his job, back to putting his team in position to win games.

“I think there was some frustration, and he was dealing with some other physical stuff that was holding him back,” Johnson says. “I think those [issues] are all behind him now; the velo is really good. It wasn’t anything with his arm, just stuff with the body transitioning to a starter workload more so than anything. So, everything’s a little bit easier when you’re throwing 94, 96 instead of 92, 93. But I definitely think that is a credit to him.”

Beeter said Johnson eventually helped to get him dialed back in, and the rest of the way, he pitched to a 3.94 ERA. His competitiveness showed up the next time he faced Buffalo, too -- he put up five scoreless innings and overpowered the Bisons to the tune of a career-high 13 strikeouts and 20 swings and misses.

Beeter doesn’t overcomplicate any turning point or magic switch he pulled. “Just fill up the zone with good stuff, and it’s hard to hit,” he says. “I don’t have to make hitters get out. They’ll get themselves out as long as I’m throwing my best stuff in the zone. Obviously, you’re going to have bad ones every now and then, but that mindset in the long run, I think, is better.”

This year, Beeter went into his first big league Spring Training with an open mind. Before Cole’s injury, the starting rotation had seemed set, so his plan was simply to pitch well enough so that, should the Yankees need someone during the season, he would be on the short list for a promotion.

“Aside from pitching well [in spring], I actually feel like I got a lot better, which is good,” he says. “[Better] mindset; confidence in everything that I throw. Realizing that I don’t have to do too much, I just kind of took some pressure off myself, and that gave me more confidence.”

While Luis Gil ultimately won the spot in the rotation that had opened due to Cole’s injury, Beeter kept himself in the mix. He put up a 3.18 ERA in 17 innings, including a scoreless four-inning start against the Philadelphia Phillies’ A-lineup on March 11 -- coincidentally, the very same game in which Gil wowed with eight strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings out of the bullpen to move into pole position in the competition.

But Beeter continued to take steps forward.

“Obviously, a lot of growth,” Johnson says. “I think he took some mechanical things and just more so than that, the overall attack, took a lot of that to heart this offseason. You saw trends of it late in the season in Triple-A, but better overall attack, especially fastball in the zone early, trying to utilize more positive locations that he had. I think he’d kind of just been able to out-stuff people for the large majority of his career, and then getting against some veteran hitters and them being able to have a plan against him, we saw that kind of rear its head a little bit. And I thought he did a great job with that in the offseason.”

His debut against the Astros was the only game Beeter pitched for the big club before being sent back to Triple-A, where a one-hit, eight-strikeout performance on April 13 led to him being named Pitcher of the Week by Minor League Baseball. The Yankees wanted to keep him stretched out and on a regular schedule in the rotation, and yet Beeter knows it’s possible he’ll be summoned sometime this year when a need arises in the bullpen.

There’s still work to be done, too. Johnson said he’s intrigued by Beeter’s changeup. It’s his fourth pitch, but the pitching coach thinks the movement profile and shape could put it on par with Beeter’s bread-and-butter fastball and slider. It’s the kind of thing that could help him as a starter -- another weapon at his disposal.

If it helps him get to New York, there’s a good chance Beeter will do it.

Rotation? He’s ready. Bullpen? He’s ready.

“Once I’m on the mound, it’s the same game,” Beeter says.

Conor Foley is a contributing writer to Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the May 2024 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.