It’s been a caveat since Dylan Beavers was drafted three years ago this month that, if the swing started to work and if the power came, the athleticism and approach he already boasted would give the Orioles quite a player.

It seems as if that’s no longer a hypothetical. For nearly three months at Triple-A Norfolk, Beavers has been driving the ball all over and out of the park, a result of a tweak that seems to have been years in the making.

“It’s been an awesome season for Dylan so far,” Orioles Director of Player Development Anthony Villa said. “You’re starting to see him showcase a complete offense, beating you in a variety of ways. The calling card still remains pretty strong, high line-drive ability, but he’s tapping into a little bit of some more slug. He’s continuing to control the strike zone and draw walks. Really proud of him.”

From the time he was drafted 33rd overall in 2022 out of Cal, Beavers — who went to the MLB draft combine and was open with teams about the work his swing needed — has been receptive to everything the Orioles have presented him. He changed his stance shortly after signing at Low-A Delmarva in 2022, spent that offseason implementing feedback from a biomechanical study and further adjusting his swing and movements, and took that approach of tweaking all through his first full season.

He spent all but the last week of 2024 in Double-A and fared fine, but his power came and went. All it took was one week at Triple-A Norfolk at the end of the season to inform his offseason work.

“I felt like being able to cover the three fastball shapes would put me in a good spot to be able to cover everything else, too,” he said.

Higher bands of velocity gave Beavers trouble in 2024, and he went to work on fixing that this winter in Sarasota, Florida, where he now lives and trains at the Orioles’ facility. Villa said the coaches “grinded through what the swing looks like,” and most of Beavers’ work centered around his first move.

Beavers said it came back to a point the club had been making to him for a while. His first move was a slight drift back to the catcher, which impacted his timing because he’d ultimately have to slide forward as he was swinging.

Beavers’ mental cue to fix it is to focus on his first move being into the ground with his left foot, which gives him a strong base for the rest of his swing to build from and allows him to catch up to velocity without the slight sway.

“I had to have the mobility first, and the stability in my back hip to even hold that, so that was really what I worked on a lot this offseason, and then a little bit on my back shoulder too,” Beavers said. “I really think just having mobility everywhere unlocks a lot in the swing, especially for me.”

He said the exercises meant to do that are almost like what someone doing physical therapy for those areas of the body would do, working to make the muscle groups strong and mobile at the same time. He carried that through a good spring as he participated in major league camp for the first time but started slowly as Norfolk’s season got underway. His timing was a tick off, and he wasn’t helping himself by laying off backdoor sliders and giving away strikes.

Through 14 games, Beavers had a .568 OPS with 22 strikeouts — nearly half of his season total. But, working with hitting coach Mike Montville, he refocused on how he started his move.

“When I cleaned that up, it just put me in a more consistent spot to be on time,” Beavers said. “My body is just a little bit more ready to hit, so it kind of increased the consistency and put me on time a little bit more from that one little cue.”

Beavers swung back into form with a two-homer game and a pair of multihit games in a mid-April series. Since that series began April 15, he has a .999 OPS, 10 home runs and as many walks (27) as strikeouts.

It’s been even better of late. Since June 1, he has a 1.081 OPS with seven home runs and as many walks (11) as strikeouts in 101 plate appearances.

When it comes to those three fastball shapes — four-seam, two-seam and cutter — he’s hitting .336 with a .487 slugging percentage — and that’s contributing to an overall increase in his quality of contact. His hard-hit rate of 40.4% is up from 32.6% a year ago, and while he’s not going out of his way to seek power, it’s coming as a result of him being better able to do the things he’s done well.

“He can use his back side,” Montville said. “The power wasn’t the first thing to come. It was more consistency in the barrel and making sure he was swinging at better pitches. Started seeing the ball better, making better contact.

“More recently, he’s been able to take some chances and been able to use his back side the right way so he can really get into some balls. It’s a lot of balance, a lot of focus on that first move that he’s making so he’s in a good position throughout the whole move and the whole swing.”

That power complements an offensive profile that’s plenty impressive. Beavers has a 6.7% swinging strike rate, illustrating how rarely he whiffs, and he is chasing 21.1% of the time. He’s stolen 19 bases in 23 tries, and his 146 wRC+ is seventh best in Triple-A among qualifiers. The six players above him are at least two years older than Beavers.

“He’s got a good approach,” Montville said. “He’s got a good eye. He’s got good bat-to-ball skills. He’s adjustable. He’s got a lot of really good qualities. It’s just making sure he’s in the right position to be able to be adjustable to see the ball well and drive the pitches he’s supposed to drive.”

Beavers believes the ability to do so presents him as the type of ballplayer he wants to be.

“It makes it feel like I’m a more reliable player,” he said. “Teams value consistency, and I feel like, when I hit like this, it’s consistent. You kind of know what you’re going to get when you show up to the park, so it’s definitely satisfying.”