10:50pm: The Padres’ hope for Bethancourt is that he’ll continue to develop as a pitcher in the minors, manager Andy Green told reporters following Bethancourt’s outright (via the San Diego Union Tribune’s Dennis Lin). That determination remains somewhat up in the air, however, and it seems as if Bethancourt will have a significant say in the decision.
“I think the ball’s in his court on that,” said Green. “Our recommendation and desire as an organization is to see him on the mound, to see him continue on this path that he’s currently on, with almost all of the emphasis placed on the pitching side of things. … Our hope, our belief, is that we see him as a pitcher long-term and see him having success there.”
Lin’s column contains several more quotes from Green on the matter for those that are interested in Bethancourt’s unique career arc.
4:41pm: The Padres announced that utility man/reliever Christian Bethancourt has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A El Paso. In a corresponding move, the Friars have recalled infielder Cory Spangenberg from El Paso.
The 25-year-old Bethancourt, once a top catching prospect with the Braves, began working out as a pitcher with the Padres this offseason and pitched in the Panamanian Winter League. At the plate this year, he’s batted just eight times, going 1-for-7 with a walk. On the mound, he’s tossed 3 2/3 innings but allowing nine runs (six earned) on six hits and eight walks with two strikeouts. Bethancourt has averaged nearly 94 mph with his fastball, but it seems clear that his control remains a work in progress.
Heading to Triple-A should afford him further opportunities not only to work from the mound but also to up his proficiency at other positions. In the past year, Bethancourt has appeared at second base, catcher and in the outfield corners.
Spangenberg, meanwhile, offers an alternative to the slumping Ryan Schimpf (.102/.276/.254). A 26-year-old former first-round pick, Spangenberg is off to a fast start with El Paso, hitting .348/.403/.470. Spangenberg, like Schimpf, has experience at both second base and third base. With Yangervis Solarte’s move to second base this season, Spangenberg’s most immediate path to playing time would seem to be third base, though he does have a bit of experience in the outfield as well.
Can’t hit, can’t pitch. Long overdue.
Only because the Braves rushed him through the system and Yo-yo’d him. The Braves stunted if not completely destroyed his career with the way they handled his development. Hard to blame this one on the player.
Now time for Schimpf to go. Admit that 2016 was a total fluke.
I wouldn’t give up on Schimpf quite yet. Hasn’t even had 100 ab’s and even though he’s slumping hard he still has good eye for strike zone based on walks.
Yeah, he’s still drawing walks. He has an extreme swing angle- by far the most extreme in all of baseball, by a huge margin. Because that data is available to all teams, it just seems like they’re keeping the ball out of the area he can get the bat on the ball. When you have an attack angle of 40+ degrees (major league average is around 12-14) it’s probably pretty easy to exploit that and while that leads to walks, it also leads to lots of Ks and weak contact. He has six hits this year – 3 HRs and three singles. He’s going to have to make adjustments or he won’t be long for the league. He’s not exactly a young guy.
Schimpf is really a mystery because he’s so extreme. His BABIP is the worst in the league (.094) which is impressively bad. He could have value hitting for a low average with all the walks he draws if he was able to rack up more extra base hits, but right now he isn’t doing that.
Fangraphs has an article that came out yesterday on him with explanation for why he’s performing so poorly. He’s just not hitting the ball as hard as he was last year. There’s more soft flyouts and pop ups and unless his power returns, he’s in serious trouble.
The BABIP makes sense because he only has three hits in play (home runs don’t count in BABIP, of course). Because of that launch angle, he’s always going to hit everything in the air, which can be good (homers, sac flies, he never hits into double plays) and bad (pitchers who have studied video of his swing plane are going to be able to put the ball in places he can’t get good wood on it.) It would appear that the latter is what’s happening to him.
That is because he isn’t putting balls in play. He leads the league in SO looking, lowest percentage of swings, and he is third in walks. He is mostly just standing there with the bat on his shoulder. When he has swing its been to strike out or pop out.
That’s pretty much what he did last year, too, but to a greater degree of success, probably because pitchers didn’t have the proverbial book on him yet. And now they do, and he might need to adjust back, although that extreme swing is kind of what made him successful.
Exactly. He’s going downhill fast and unless he does something to make an adjustment, he’s in some serious trouble. Pitchers have figured out that swing of his, and he needs to start doing more that just leaving hit bat on his shoulder, striking out looking all the time.
I would think .102 BA after 3 weeks is time to call the experiment over.
He was good when I watched him play. Hard to get out
Well alright. Didn’t expect him to clear waivers (he was serviceable as a backup catcher last year). I was never a fan of experimenting with him as a pitcher but now he can go do that in AAA.
Obviously not much of a surprise. The pitching experiment has been a total joke and he doesn’t really have much value on a team with 4 catchers on the roster. I hope with Spangenberg coming up the Padres give him a shot at second, move Solarte back to third and figure out if they can fix Schimpf.
I was surprised that the Padres have kept Bethancourt on the roster as just a pitcher. While he throws hard, he hasn’t been very good. He was a decent backup catcher. This should give him a chance to see if he can make it as a pitcher by getting some time on the mound instead of just the bench.
Schimpf needs regular at-bats in the minors. Does he have options?
I’m pretty sure Schimpf can be sent down but I don’t know if he’d be taking away at-bats in AAA from a legit prospect.
Spangenberg played 3B all but 2 games for El Paso so far.
Scouts don’t really think that Spangenberg is much of a third baseman, and the bat certainly doesn’t play there.
Ryan Schimpf has never been optioned in his life. He has all 3 option years remaining.
Thats not true. Weve all been out of options at some point in life.
Schimpf needs to go down too. He has swung at a lower percentage of pitches than any other player in the majors and now when he swings he strikes out.
Why throw so many positions at the guy? Not a great move by the organization.
Rooting for this guy just for entertainment value. How often does a utility player pitch?
How often does a team need a (in this case, poor hitting) fielder to pitch like a low-valued reliever in a ML game?
There is a reason why you don’t see it happen often!
Because the team has absolutely zero use for a 4th catcher, Betancourt doesn’t hit or field well enough to be kept as a backup outfielder and he has never played the infield at any level… Well honestly, the team would probably be better off testing someone else, or even just seeing if one of their pitchers with an okay bat could play OF at all than to try and squeeze some type of value out of a player who doesn’t really have any in him.
In fact, the Pads might even have a guy who may better fit what they are trying to do on the roster – Jhoulys Chacin.
Chacin should not be a starting pitcher at this point, as 5 other teams (Col, Cle, Arz, Atl & LAA) discovered over the last 3 seasons. He might just be a good reliever though. And the thing is, Jhoulys can actually hit!
If I were the Padres I’d have Chacin start testing out fielding a corner OF spot during batting practice and see how he does. Cant hurt, and who knows, he might just be okay at it. He proves adequate with the glove and he instantly becomes a dramatically better RP/OF than Betancourt will ever be
Hopefully Bethancourt can use this time in AAA to keep working on his control. Maybe they can call him back up in a few months to see how he’s progressed. It would be really cool to see this guy end up making it as a decent bullpen arm.