The Brewers have signed catcher Christian Bethancourt to a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training.
You may recall that Bethancourt’s old team, the Padres, tried to convert him into a pitcher with an eye toward using him as a two-way player. Made some sense in that the dude hit 96 on the gun in some one-off mop-up appearances. The experiment never took, however, as he posted a 8.21 ERA at Triple-A and walked everyone within shouting distance across 41.2 innings of work. His bat has never been good at the big league level -- he’s a career.222/.252/.316 hitter in 489 plate appearances -- but that’s better than his pitching was.
So it’s back to catching for Bethancourt, who will serve as organizational depth for Milwaukee.
