It’s been an odd start to the 2018 season for Clemson’s divisive power prospect, as Beer currently sits with a slash line of .286/.447/.643 with half of his 16 hits going for extras (six home runs and two doubles). The slugging corner bat continues to wow with his pop and is drawing walks at a solid 18% clip while striking out in just 13% of his plate appearances, though he’s struggling to maintain a batting average over .300 – in part due to bad luck and in part due to issues consistently getting the barrel to the ball.

This past weekend Beer went off on Georgia Tech, going 4-for-11 with three home runs, four walks and a hit-by-pitch, while striking out thrice, but also put some questionable swings on balls and, at times, looked out-of-sync at the dish. In the series’ opening game he launched a grooved full count low-90s fastball deep over the right field wall, but struggled to handle uninspired off-speed offerings latter on in the match. Faced with two fringy full-count curves, Beer top-spun a soft fly to right and whiffed badly on a ball down and out of the zone in his next two at bats. He finished the night rolling over a flat mid-80s change-up, which found its way into right field.

While he was able to double his season home run count in this one series, and no one questions his raw power, the bat speed and pitch-ID concerns expressed by evaluators last summer persist. So long as Beer continues to hit home runs and get on base, he should have a spot reserved for the first day of the draft. His shaky defensive play and too-frequent awkward cuts, however, could place a limit on his ascent up draft boards.