Two prospects in this year's draft have skills to be taken seriously on both sides of the ball: Louisville's Brendan McKay, a left-handed pitcher and a first base/designated hitter type, and high school phenom Hunter Greene, a right-handed pitcher with 100 mph heat and the athleticism to play shortstop. Then there's Shohei Otani, the Japanese pro who is a starting pitcher and outfielder for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Some MLB teams appear ready to spend nine figures to sign Otani if his parent club makes him available through the posting system for MLB teams to bid on his services.
So does baseball have space to bring back the two-way player? Not so fast. We spoke with four professional player evaluators to see how they view the possibilities.
Can it work?
"Could your league-average first baseman or DH also be your third or fourth starter? It's worth testing because we don't really know yet. I'm not sure I see the harm in either player DH'ing on their non-pitching days, at least through A-ball. I'm intrigued by the notion and think someone like McKay, who is already doing it in college, would be worth giving it a shot with." -- Pro scout who has worked for both American League and National League teams
"It would be a challenge, for sure. I think it would be hard to have a guy who started 32 games and then played first base the other 130; I think that would be almost impossible. I think to have a guy who is primarily a pitcher and has the athletic ability to play a position, and come off the bench if needed, I think there's room for a player like that -- for some flexibility or because you don't have better bench options. But the concept of an every-day, both-ways guy? I can't see it." -- AL team official
"I could see it with a guy who is just shy of being a legit MLB player on one side of the ball; with ever-expanding bullpens, roster spots themselves are at a premium, and some teams will try to maximize the value they get by having a two-way player. At the same time, you may be pretty much committing the prospect to a role as a bench and bullpen guy. It might be hard to get buy-in from the player if they think they can be a regular or star." -- MLB senior team executive
"Absolutely, it's tempting. There are a lot of mistakes that are tempting." -- AL team official, on evaluating Greene as an infielder as well as a pitcher
Developmental hurdles
"I view each player as an individual with their own development path. In the case of a two-way player such as McKay, he can develop to be either a pitcher or hitter, so that is a solid baseline. The key question is if he can or should be developed to be both simultaneously. ... The organization that drafts him must make that choice, and if looking to develop both ways make a customized development plan. Typically, pitchers and hitters have different full-time routines, instructions, conditioning and so on. They will need to craft a specialized hybrid if the goal is two-way." -- Ari Kaplan, co-founder (with former Los Angeles Dodgers general Fred Claire) of the Scoutables consulting agency for managing injury risks to players in multiple sports and a long-time baseball professional
"Say you want to pull him aside or throw a bullpen on the side because your pitching coordinator is in town, and we want him to work on his mechanics and improve that slider, well, you find out he's already had fielding drills and batting practice that day. ... It could get frustrating. If things start not going as expected one way or another, that's where an organization is going to start asking, maybe he should start putting more time into that. Except that he can't, because he's pitching. That's a problem." -- AL team official
"It's certainly more physically demanding, but there is a mental component, as well, that has to be accounted for. If you go 0-for-4 with three K's the day before your next start, does that affect you [on the mound]?" -- Pro scout
Logistical and physical challenges
"There's fatigue, recovery and injury risk. If we already 'baby' pitchers with workload management, are we really going to let a quality starting pitcher prospect take actual swings on his off days, let alone play a position on the field where he could need to make max-effort throws?" -- MLB senior team executive
"Thinking that you're going to play this guy at first base the four days a week that he isn't starting is silly on the developmental side, but it's also kind of risky. You really want to expose the guy to hit by pitches, first-base collisions, running down the line to try to beat something out and maybe tweaking a hamstring, the 800 things that could go wrong? And suddenly, you've lost your first baseman and a starting pitcher." -- AL team official
"How much of a physical toll is extracted by throwing your third-day bullpen and then taking a full batting practice?" -- Pro scout
"It's just too much to ask of one human being. There's not enough hours in the day and not enough energy in the human. I think if you want to be great at one thing, you've got to dedicate yourself to it, whether that's being a position player or being a pitcher." -- AL team official
"I don't think being a DH would prevent an ultra-talented guy from having some major league success [doing both], but I wonder if the extra demands would shorten his peak. It's like the catcher who catches 140 games three years in a row and then when it goes, it's gone. Or the reliever who blows past his career high in innings and is then awful for a year or two. Would the decline phase for a two-way player be significantly steeper?" -- Pro scout
What about Otani?
"Even with what Otani's doing, people aren't running around thinking that guy can hit third in a major league lineup. I understand Otani can hit and he's got some real power, and that's all fine and dandy, but every team in baseball is talking about the pitcher. They might let him hit, and he might have some value there, but everyone in baseball is evaluating him as a pitcher. Otani as a pitcher is incredible; everybody's going to want him. But the hitter thing, if he didn't hit, his desirability to a major league team would be exactly the same as it is today." -- AL team official
The call
"I think that if a player is really considered a prospect, an organization would be reluctant to try something that experimental." -- MLB senior team executive
"The conventional wisdom is that it's somehow detrimental, but I'm not sure we know enough to really have a firm answer there." -- Pro scout
"We don't do it, and I think there's a reason why. It's not some sort of weird, stubborn old-school thing. Major League Baseball is really hard. Pitchers are doing work every day that they're not starting. It's going to be one or the other. I just think you're in a situation where, if you want [a prospect] to be great at something, he's going to have to concentrate at one or the other. If you want him to be OK at two things, he can probably do that, but you ask yourself, 'What do we want?' If you want an impact talent, you need him to focus on that side of the game." -- AL team official