Christian Bethancourt and Two-Way Players of the Past, Future

Christian Bethancourt made the Padres! This is exciting, because he’s making the team as a catcher and a reliever at the same time. His existence challenges norms in a sport that’s known for the specialized roles of its participants. That said, we’ll have to see if he’s more Brooks Kieschnick or more Kenley Jansen eventually. Because hitter-slash-pitcher Kieschnick was nearly a unicorn, while Jansen — though a special reliever since abandoning his work as a catcher — has a story that’s been told in baseball’s history before.

If Bethancourt gets 20 plate appearances as anything other than a pitcher this season, and adds 20 innings pitched, he’ll join a list of just eight players who have ever managed the feat. You’ll recognize a couple of these names — the rest did their very best to stay in the game, bless them. Not a Bullet Joe Rogan in the bunch.

Most of these players were clearly better at one thing than the other. Lindell was a hitter who pitched a little near the end of his career. Ankiel has one of the more triumphant , but it’s because he became a decent hitter years after losing his command on the mound — not because he became great both at both hitting and pitching at the same time. O’Brien might be the closest in style to Bethancourt: he wasn’t great at hitting or pitching, but he added value by being able to play up the middle defense.

Bethancourt would be the first to catch and pitch for more than 20 PA and IP, respectively, in the same season. There’s a reason for that, and you can see it in the roster construction. Bethancourt is the fourth catcher on the Opening Day 25-man roster.

The team is famously carrying three Rule 5 picks, so it’s a team in transition. Catcher Luis Torrens may be an asset for them down the road, so he’s going to make the team as the third catcher behind Austin Hedges and Hector Sanchez, and the latter two will probably be auditioning for their future all season long.

Even as a third catcher, Bethancourt might not get a lot of reps behind the plate. Managers generally prefer to keep a catcher on the bench as long as possible into any given game. Given the specific set of skills required by the position, there’s plenty of reason to keep a catcher in the holster as long as possible. Even if Bethancourt were the third catcher, he’d spend a lot of time on the bench.

It would be difficult to move Bethancourt around the diamond, too, if that included playing him at catcher. Moving him from pitcher to left fielder to pitcher in consecutive plate appearances would actually work — manager Andy Green could maneuver his way around a lefty this way and not burn another pitcher — but pitcher to catcher to pitcher would cause all sorts of problems in a three-catcher setup.

Even as the fourth catcher it may cause hiccups. Would Green call on Bethancourt to pitch if the third catcher is playing in the game?

Dennis Lin, who covers the team for the San Diego Union-Tribune, already hints that though the story is fun, Bethancourt’s actual role on the team may be more conventional. “While he hasn’t hung up his catching gear, Christian Bethancourt will primarily function as an eighth reliever,” he pointed out on Saturday. He adds that “Bethancourt’s budding versatility could be a boon for the Padres, who will have just one off-day this month.”

His versatility as a catcher means the ability to leave him on the bench and play Luis Torrens some. His versatility as a left fielder means they can use him to avoid burning two right-handed relievers to get through an inning. But in all likelihood, we probably don’t have a guy who can hit like Rick Ankiel and pitch like Rick Ankiel (or, the non-Steve Blass version).

We might not even have a guy who can pitch and hit as well as Brooks Kieschnick, who had the best bat among the pitchers who were better than league average on the bump.

Does Bethancourt have the stuff? We have some spring data, and with that data, we can say:

• His 94-95 mph fastballs are low spin but have great sink and fade.
• His changeup has poor velocity gap, poor fade, and below-average drop.
• His breaking ball has curveball velo (80 mph) but less drop than a slider.

As a hitter, Bethancourt had below-average patience, pop, and contact ability. As a pitcher, Bethancourt will have to improve his secondary stuff or rely almost solely on getting grounders from his big sinking fastball. As a catcher, Bethancourt’s defensive skills will be difficult to use given the need to save a catcher on the bench.

It’s a great story! Not often has a player been able to prove useful on both sides of the ball, and Bethancourt has very specific skills that could end up being very useful. But when you drill down you realize that his particular skill set may not end up being the future. Most likely, he’ll have to decide to be one or the other, a decision that baseball thrusts upon its players regularly — just usually earlier in their lives.