Two Way the Right Way

I find the Angels use of Kaleb Cowart as a two-way player one that makes sense:

The moment provided some relief for Cowart. He began training as a pitcher during the offseason because he’d spent the last four years of his professional career struggling to hit major league pitching. His toiling at the plate — he had a .293 on-base percentage, a 30% strikeout rate and only six home runs in 162 games — at times made it hard to justify his presence on the 25-man roster. He had no minor league options remaining on his contract either, further complicating his future with the team that decided to draft him as an infielder in spite of his elite ratings as a pitcher.

So the Angels came up with a solution, one they also visited under previous general manager Jerry Dipoto: spend the 2019 season developing Cowart as a pitcher, and allow him to continue to hit and provide Gold Glove-caliber defense on other days. It’s a “super, super utility” role, Cowart said.

LATimes.com

The increased number of pitcher carried by teams leaves little room for position player substitutions. This solves that problem by providing pitching and utility play in the same person. Cowart could provide both roles in the same game, coming into relieve, then moving to the infield. He could even be used to skip a batter with a platoon advantage, moving to second, then returning to the mound. He provides flexibility.

from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2ELkRCI