2019 MLB Season: The Rise of the Two-Way Player
By Ryan Sanders
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.