Nationals top prospect Bryce Harper played catcher before being drafted, whereupon the Nats have turned him into an outfielder. AFAIK, he was a good catcher, but the demanding physical side of that position means most catchers don’t play as many innings (or years) as fielders, and you don’t want to tie one of your biggest bats to that.
–Cliffy
He was playing right field in the minors early on, but it sounds like they (or just Davey Johnson) wants him to play centerfield. I’m not sure how that is going to work out. The saying is that the CF is the quarterback of the outfield and is responsible for alignments and things like that in addition to fielding his position. On the other hand Buster Posey of the Giants became a catcher in the minors, and his relative lack of experience playing catcher and positioning himself for plays at the plate may have contributed to his catastrophic injury last season.
There are a few players in the league who can play both forward and defence well enough to stick in the big league but they are role players, not stars. They are often used as a replacement for injured players: for example dressing 11 forwards and 7 defencemen where one D-man fills the fourth line forward spot.
I think this guy usually only plays one position or the other in a given game, though maybe not. I know Yanick Weber played both lines at least once this season for the Habs as the players around him were dropping like flies :smack:
I’d love to see it done once, just for fun. Patrick Roy tried once, but his career as a forward was short-lived…
MIKE SQUIRES!
Sorry to be a pedant. Had to be done.
IIRC, the Mariners drafted Raul Ibanez as a catcher and then converted him to an outfielder. In his first couple seasons with the M’s, I heard it mentioned more than once that he was the “emergency catcher”, i.e. able to take over the position in the event that both the starting catcher and the backup got injured in the same game.
It is interesting to note than when an NHL team is stuck in a situation where a goalie is hurt just before a game and they can’t get a guy up from the minors in time, they’ll sign a one-day contract with a beer league goalie or someone like that just to have a second goalie, just in case. It happens a few times a year.
But what they never, ever do is simply take one of the extra skaters that every team ALWAYS has on hand and say “You’re a backup goalie.” Never.
That’s how different the positions are; an NHL team would rather have, as its emergency backup, a 39-year-old stooge from a beer league team than give an actual NHL player a shot at goalie.
Similarly, any other player converting to a catcher in baseball. It’s a specialized skill set that has little in common with other positions in the game. The “emergency” catchers have all played the position before, even if only in high school.
Maybe I’m being repetitive but a lot of players change position but almost always they are moving to a position that demands less skill. There are three reasons:
1.) They are the best player on a lower level team. When they move up they are still good but not the best player at that skilled position. They get moved to another position where they can excel.
Ex: The NFL has many cases of guys like that. QB’s get moved to a defensive back position. A basketball center in college may be playing as a forward in the pros. A hockey forward may be moved back to defense for his size and the fact that he just isn’t quite fast enough as a forward at the higher level.
2.) Age and time erode their skills but they are still good.
Ex: This is very common in baseball. A catcher will start playing first base. A SS will move to third. In infielder (other than 1st base) will move to the outfield. A first baseman will move to DH.
3.) A better player at the position will be signed by the team.
Ex: Think of the Jeter/A-Rod controversy. When Magic came to the Lakers Norm Nixon had to move off of point guard. He didn’t take well to it, got traded and it cost him some championship rings.
Then there is the issue of specialization. A lot of great football players were playing offense and defense in high school. Very few go on to do that in college or the pros. Brad Van Pelt, an all-pro linebacker for the Giants was the kickoff guy in college. He used to just boom them out of the end zone. I heard that Walter Payton was the best punter (he was the 3rd string QB) on the Bears but they wouldn’t let him punt because they didn’t want someone taking a cheap shot at him.
Rarely to you hear of a player moving from a less skilled position to a higher skilled position unless there are extraordinary circumstances. A 1st basemen doesn’t move to short stop. A running back doesn’t move to QB. A hockey defense-man doesn’t start taking face-offs unless he is instigating a fight.
All this just indicates how rarefied the air is at the top levels of competitive sports.
Brooks Robinson was one. Going the other way, there are three big stars who threw lefthanded but wrote righthanded – Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Stan Musial. Not a star, but Tom Underwood was another. Don’t know about Gehrig or Musial, but Ruth was forced to write righty as a child.