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RJM posted:
I would say it's nearly impossible to craft both pitcher and position player skills that are good enough to compete at the MLB level. There's only so much time in the day, and everyone else at that level is using all of it for their particular skills.
The only way I see as a remote possibility would be for a corner type OF or 1B to split as a 1 inning reliever.
If you are an elite arm, care and training of same is critical, including days off, type of work, etc. If you are a two way player, there is simply no realistic way to control the reps and type of reps on the arm when playing a position.
Also, compare a 30-40 game total HS season, 55-75 college game season and 162 MLB season. It doesn't scale.
You can get away with it in HS, lesser so in college, and I simply can't fathom any way that you'd want to risk a player's health, particularly if that player is blessed with enough talent to play at the MLB level as a position player or pitcher.
It is an interesting time for this topic to come up, with Ohtani, Hunter Greene and Brandan McKay all about to enter MLB next year. I think it can be done in terms of Pitcher/DH.
It depends on the agent. The American League will be priority for their client. It allows the selected team to carry an extra pitcher on their roster.
Bob
"As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy."
Babe Ruth
Batting average: .342
Home runs: 714
Hits: 2,873
RBI: 2,213
Pitching W/L record: 94-46
ERA: 2.28
Ruth won 65 games his first 3 seasons. He still holds pitching records for most shutouts in as season by a lefty with 9 (tied by Ron Guidry in 1978) and most innings pitched (14) in a World Series game, on October 9, 1916, a complete game 2-1 victory.
Ruth was able to do it for a few years but demanded that he not pitch after that. Said it was too much to try to do both. Of course if he hadn't been drinking and womanizing every night all night he might have had more energy for pitching, but then again he wouldn't have been Babe Ruth if he lived a choir boy's life. Gotta accept the full package.
I think a great hitting pitcher could certainly DH in MLB