Christian Bethancourt

The Padres sent catcher/outfielder/reliever Christian Bethancourt outright to Triple-A earlier this week after he cleared waivers with the hope that he’d continue to hone his mound skills, and as Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union Tribune writes, Bethancourt has informed general manager A.J. Preller that he is indeed open to that. Bethancourt only recently began experimenting as a pitcher, and Preller tells Lin that the organization involved the 25-year-old in the decision process.

“It’s his career,” Preller tells Lin. “…Talking to him, he said, ‘I want to give it a go.’ I think he understands he can always go back to catching and he wants to see how it plays out on the pitching front if he has regular practice and outings.”

Coming up through the Braves’ system, Bethancourt rated as one of the game’s top 100 prospects as a catcher, thanks largely to his rocket arm. Multiple scouting reports, in fact, placed an 80 grade on his arm (on the 20-80 scouting scale). An issue with passed balls and his struggles at the plate, however, may have contributed to San Diego’s preference to get a look at Bethancourt on the mound; in 489 Major League plate appearances, he’s batted just .222/.252/.316.

Unsurprisingly, Bethancourt is a work in progress on the mound. Though he allowed just two runs in 8 1/3 innings in Spring Training, he also issued four walks against just three strikeouts in that time. His work as a pitcher during the regular season has been unsightly, as Bethancourt has logged a 10.13 ERA with three strikeouts against 11 walks in just 5 1/3 innings. That’s not necessarily indicative of the hard-throwing Bethancourt’s potential on the mound, though. Learning to pitch at the Major League level with scant mound experience elsewhere is obviously a daunting task, which no doubt factored into his removal from the 40-man roster. (Bethancourt was out of minor league options, thus the exposure to outright waivers.) Despite those struggles, Bethancourt did offer a glimpse of his potential on the mound during his 2017 work, as he averaged better than 94 mph on his fastball and topped out at 98 mph (per Brooks Baseball).

According to Lin, Bethancourt will continue to pinch-hit and take batting practice while in Triple-A, but the vast majority of his focus will be on his work as a reliever. “He’ll get a chance to face the next-best league to the big leagues,” says Preller of the decision to throw Bethancourt into the fire of the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. “It’s going to be a test for him, but I’m confident as far as him going out and being able to perform.”

If Bethancourt is able to successfully make the transition, he’d join Jason Motte, Chris Hatcher and, most notably, Kenley Jansen as big league relievers that opened their careers as catchers. Carlos Marmol and Troy Percival are other recent examples of relievers who found success after (much more briefly) working as catchers early in their careers.

Earlier this month, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union Tribune reported that the Padres were mulling a role change for catcher Christian Bethancourt that would allow him to catch, play third base and also pitch. Today, Lin reports that Bethancourt has been up to 97 mph in while facing live hitters and is planning to pitch in the Panama Winter League as the next step in the process (Twitter links).

Bethancourt is working to develop a changeup, Lin writes, but it’s no surprise to see that his velocity is already lighting up the radar gun. As a prospect, Bethancourt was lauded for having one of the best arms in all of baseball and routinely drew an 80 grade for his arm strength (on the 20-80 scouting scale). That, of course, doesn’t mean that he’ll be able to command his fastball effectively if he does attempt to pitch in the Majors, and he’ll need at least one additional pitch in order to succeed, hence the work on the changeup.

While not all transitions of this nature are successful, Bethancourt would hardly be the first player to start his career behind the plate but end up working on the mound. Kenley Jansen is the most notable instance of that jump, but others such as Chris Hatcher, Jason Motte and Troy Percival began their careers as catchers. Of course, this type of conversion is also typically made earlier in a player’s career; Jansen’s final game as a catcher came in 2009 at the age of 22, for instance. Hatcher did catch up until the year 2010 — his age-25 season and the same age at which Bethancourt presently finds himself. That similarity notwithstanding, Hatcher caught just five games in the Majors before making a permanent move to the mound. Bethancourt, on the other hand, has already played in 153 Major League games and racked up 482 plate appearances.

There’s little in the way of recent precedent for a player being able to work as a pitcher, a catcher, an infielder and even an outfielder — the Padres put Bethancourt in the outfield 12 times this season, and he logged a combined 73 2/3 innings between the two corners — but if Bethancourt is able to pull it off with any degree of success, he’d become an enormously valuable asset for the Friars. Certainly, there’s quite a bit of work to be done on his end before that notion even approaches reality, but pitching in Panama this winter will give the club a chance to evaluate him in a game setting and determine the viability of Bethancourt serving as a mound option in the near future. Gaining experience in Panama and during Spring Training will be especially important for Bethancourt, as he’s out of minor league options and therefore can’t be sent down to further hone his skills as a pitcher in the minors.