2019 MLB Season: The Rise of the Two-Way Player
The 2019 MLB Season is bearing witness to the newest trend that is starting to point towards two-way players who can contribute on the mound and with a bat.
Baseball teams are always trying to gain a competitive advantage over each other to propel themselves to the World Series. Every year there always seems to be a new trend. The 2019 MLB season, it seems, is no different
Looking back at prior trends, you’ll find that in 2015 and 2016 the Royals/Indians “bullpenned” their way through the postseason. Soon after, the launch angle revolution took over with the advent of Statcast. Then, last season the Tampa Bay Rays defied pitching roles by using an Opener to start games.
These are trends we are all aware of and have seen over the course of the past few seasons. It would appear now that we are on the cusp of another revolution aimed at improving teams: The Two-Way Player.
Shohei Ohtani provided a blueprint for how someone could contribute at the dish and on the mound. Last season, Ohtani was a force at the plate, hitting .285/.361/.564 swatting 22 homers good for a 152 wRC+ at DH in his first season stateside.
Before the injury, Ohtani also threw 51 innings with a 3.31 ERA and struck out nearly 30% of batters faced. Many people wondered if Ohtani could both pitch and hit at the highest level of baseball and the results were pretty damn good.
Copy Cats
MLB being the copy cat league that it is, teams started to think about ways they could get their own version of Ohtani. Entering the 2019 MLB season, the Cincinnati Reds announced that Michael Lorenzen would come to camp as a two-way player after swatting 4 homers as a reliever.
Then, the Los Angeles Angels got in on the experiment too bringing in Kaleb Kowart to do the same thing. The Tampa Bay Rays again found themselves trying to get ahead of a trend, drafting pitching and hitting sensation Brendon McKay out of Louisville in the first round of the 2017 draft. The Rays have been developing McKay on the mound while getting him regular at-bats as a DH.
Now we are seeing more two-way shenanigans in the regular season. The Pittsburgh Pirates are trying to convert fringe outfielder JB Shuck into a pitcher at the minor leagues.
The Rays are used a shortstop as a pitcher in the 2019 MLB season. His name is Jake Cronenworth, who was a two-way player in college at Michigan, opened the game throwing one inning and bringing a fastball that can touch 96.
The ultimate goal of all of finding players like this is to add additional depth to a roster and maximize in-game flexibility. Shohei Ohtani has proven one way the package works, being a DH and pitching every 5 days.
There are other scenarios you can imagine though that would be highly effective and useful for a team. Think about the depth of having a shortstop capable defender that can effectively pitch the 6th or 7th inning and hold his own at the plate.
What about the same package with a power bat, power fastball, and the ability to play the corners of the field. It would give that team’s manager all kinds of flexibility to match up at pivotal points in high leverage scenarios during any inning of the game.
The 26th Man
While there are 25 man rosters, a two-way player, in essence, adds another man to the roster.
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While they can only be brought in once, you could pinch hit someone like JB Shuck or Brendon McKay, trot them out to the mound for an inning or so, then put them into the field. A set up like this would allow teams more flexibility to carry that third catcher, a speedster like Terrance Gore, or some other funky asset that may not necessarily fit on a team right now.
Finding and developing two-way guys obviously is a difficult task or else we would already see its prevalence throughout baseball. It is going to take a proper player development unit, along with the right player to make it work. It’s hard enough to make the major leagues doing one thing. Two-way players have to hone two very different crafts in order to make it to the show.
From the pitching side, you have to show mastery of at least two pitches that can get big leaguers out. This means developing the proper mechanics, learning how your pitches work together, and developing a plan on the hill. From the hitting side, you have to learn the mechanics of your swing, an approach, figure out how pitchers are attacking you, and work to actually produce.
That oversimplifies the process and doesn’t even touch on the team defense, mental conditioning, and physical training/workouts that hitters and pitchers do. Meanwhile, you have to do it over the course of 8 months and ensure you don’t get fatigued physically or mentally while experiencing the highs and lows that go with being a professional baseball player.
Teams will always value flexibility and try to find ways to squeeze the most value out of their roster. Two-way players seem to be the latest avenue teams will explore. In the mid and late rounds of the draft, teams could start preferring guys who have shown two-way ability in high school and college to give themselves in essence, two different prospects. Fringe MLBers are seeing this as a way to extend their career and keep themselves in the game.
As a baseball fan and former terrible two-way player, I think this is an exciting trend to watch. A team is going to figure out the best formula through drafting, player development, and playing time execution so two-way players can thrive.
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Once that happens, we won’t be talking about two-way players as an exciting trend but rather as a staple and a must have on a roster. Hopefully, it happens during the 2019 MLB season.