After changing teams twice over ‘surprising’ month, Bethancourt ready to produce for Marlins

It’s safe to say it has been a hectic month-plus for Christian Bethancourt.

The catcher has changed teams twice over the past five weeks, first being picked up on waivers by the Cleveland Guardians on Nov. 6 after being designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays and then getting traded to the Miami Marlins on Sunday, with Miami sending cash to Cleveland in return.

“Especially the last two weeks have been a little more — I don’t want to say crazy but more surprising for me,” Bethancourt said Wednesday.

Now that the dust has settled, Bethancourt is ready to build individually off the past two seasons of being an everyday player and help the Marlins as a whole build on their 2023 season that resulted in a surprise playoff appearance.

“We have a team good enough to keep competing,” Bethancourt said.

Bethancourt, 32, appears to be an integral piece in helping the Marlins maximize one of their strengths heading into 2024. He’s a defense-first catcher who has experienced the grind of being a team’s primary backstop.

After finally breaking back into the big leagues in 2022 after a four-and-a-half-year hiatus from MLB, he played in 205 games over the past two seasons with 136 starts at catcher in that span.

Bethancourt and Nick Fortes are the only catchers on Marlins’ 40-man roster after Jacob Stallings was non-tendered last month. Fortes built a strong rapport with Jesus Luzardo and Braxton Garrett last season. Bethancourt, who is bilingual, could be key to helping the likes of Eury Perez and Edward Cabrera getting more comfortable on the mound as they continue their development. While the Marlins know they need to improve on offense, keeping the pitching staff stable and on an upward trajectory — especially with ace Sandy Alcantara sidelined for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery — is critical as well.

“You want a catcher that is a leader that pitchers love throwing to that can figure out how guys can [improve], like, [Edward] Cabrera can throw more strikes or that [Jesus] Luzardo can now be a Cy Young or whatever it is, and can hold guys accountable,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said during MLB’s winter meetings when evaluating the catcher position. “That’s a big position. It’s not just strictly an offensive position to me because we are so pitching-heavy that you need to be able to throw to a guy that you love throwing to. The offensive part obviously we would love to have, but I think having a leader back there that it’s really, really important that’s done it before.”

Bethancourt’s defensive metrics provided a mixed bag of results.

He was credited with zero defensive runs saved last season according to FanGraphs and struggled with blocking pitches (he had a combined 37 wild pitches and passed balls last season) but was one of the league’s top catchers in throwing out runners. He ranked tied for fourth in MLB in runners caught stealing above average per Baseball Savant.

His average pop time — the time it takes for a catcher to throw to second base from the time the ball hits his glove — of 1.87 seconds was the second-fastest in MLB last season behind only J.T. Realmuto (1.83 seconds). His average arm strength of 88 mph was also the second-best in MLB among catchers behind only Yanier Diaz (88.5 mph).

Offensively, Bethancourt posted a .239 batting average and .663 on-base-plus-slugging mark with 22 home runs, 67 RBI and 88 runs scored over the past two seasons.

“My first plus is defensively,” Bethancourt said. “Obviously I’m working and willing to get better offensively. Offense is a very important part of the game. No player will want to be more successful at the plate than a catcher just because of all the things we do and all the things we’ve got to go through. We work on a lot of things. I’m working on improving, not just offensively, but also defensively. There are some parts of my game that I need to get better at. I’m working on it. Hopefully, I can put it all together.”