Last year, Kenley Janson was the Netherlands’ starting catcher in the World Baseball Classic. Now he’s pitching for the LA Dodgers.
Janson is among a short list of guys who used to be position players but couldn’t hit their weight or perhaps field their position, so they turned into pitchers instead.
Meanwhile, there were other guys who switched from pitcher to position player, though not all of them did so because they couldn’t pitch, as we will see.
Jansen recorded a save on Sunday in his second big-league game, so he’s the story du jour. But he’s not the first, or only major league player to have started his career one way and then was converted.
Here are some of the other guys…you may recognize some of these names.