Friday discussion question: Two Way Players

If you like baseball (and you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t like baseball), you are probably fascinated with the concept of two-way players, guys who can/could succeed as both hitters and pitchers.

At Baseball America yesterday, J.J. Cooper answered an “Ask BA” reader question about the top two-way hitters in the 2017 MLB draft, University of Louisville LHP/1B Brendan McKay and California prep RHP/SS Hunter Greene. The reader wanted to know if any teams have considered developing them as two-way talents in the majors.

Cooper’s answer, of course, is no: the risks are too high given the amount of money on the line.

J.J. is entirely right about this, of course, but I’d still like to discuss the topic from a slightly different angle.

Discussion Questions:

A) If you had to take a current major league pitcher and turn him into a full-time position player, who would it be, and at what position? Noah Syndergaard? Madison Bumgarner?

B) If you had to take a current major league position player and turn him into a pitcher, who would it be?