free agent Michael Lorenson During his career, he served primarily as a pitcher but occasionally dabbled in hitting and outfielding. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that Lorenzen and his agent, CAA’s Ryan Hamill, are promoting him as a two-way player next season. The idea, however, isn’t really to sell Lorenzen as a viable hitter, but rather to get around roster rules that limit how many pitchers a team can have.
Major League Baseball instituted a rule in June 2022 that would limit the number of pitchers on a club’s 26-man roster to 13. The pitching limit will increase to 14 when the roster expands to 28 players in September. For two-way players, they do not count toward the pitcher limit. For example, angels can carry Shohei Ohtani and 13 other pitchers on the roster during his time with the club, giving them an extra arm compared to all other teams. Ohtani did not play this year while recovering from Tommy John surgery, and the Dodgers will be able to do the same in 2025 and beyond.
To become two-way eligible, players need to meet certain criteria. They need to pitch at least 20 innings this season or the previous season and play 20 games as a position player or designated hitter, earning at least three appearances in those games. The status allows clubs to bypass roster restrictions and rules around when position players can pitch.
The plan for Lorenzen and his agent, as laid out by Rosenthal, is for Lorenzen to get the necessary playing time this year to become two-way eligible. Once he achieves this status, it will remain unchanged for the remainder of 2025 and 2026.
It’s a creative plan that theoretically increases Lorenzen’s value. Pitching usage has been decreasing in this day and age, with starters being pulled earlier and relievers taking on larger workloads. Having an extra arm would certainly appeal to the club, so it’s understandable that Lorenzen would give his representatives a try.
The challenge is implementation. Lorenzen isn’t a particularly good hitter, even if he does it often. He made between five and 53 appearances per year with the Reds from 2015 to 2019, making a total of 145 appearances in those five seasons. He hit seven home runs, but had an on-base percentage of only 4.8% and a strikeout rate of 31.7%. His .235/.279/.432 line resulted in an 84 wRC+, which is not bad for a pitcher, but still subpar. He hit four home runs in 34 games in 2018, which was mostly his motivation. 313, wRC+ is 53.
Even getting somewhere nearby can be a tall order. Lorenzen has only had one at-bat in both 2020 and 2021, and none at all in the past three seasons, so we’re talking about a guy who’s basically gone five years without at-bats this year. He will be 33 years old in May.
But it doesn’t seem to matter how the plan is outlined. The idea is to have a rebuilding club like the White Sox or Marlins put Lorenzen on the field, knowing full well that he’s unlikely to hit much, but presumably not caring since they don’t really want to anyway win. Once he unlocks two-way status, he could be traded to a contender that would benefit from another pitcher on the roster.
It’s perhaps worth noting that any pitcher could theoretically pull off this scheme, although the theoretical pitcher might not be keen on the idea. A random free agent pitcher might not want to embarrass himself in those 20 games, and there’s also the risk of getting injured while running the bases or getting hit in the hand or some kind of strain when he slides into the bases. Lorenzen has the potential to be at least passable in the paint, and he might welcome the challenge of returning to the box.
Lorenzen is being used more as a pitcher because he has better results on the mound and he has value even as a standard pitcher. At this point, he had a 3.99 ERA in 854 1/3 innings, either as a starter, reliever or swingman in his career. He was signed to one-year deals the past three offseasons based solely on his ability on the mound. He’s getting $6.8MM from the Angels entering 2022, $8.MM from the Tigers heading into 2023, and $4.5MM from the Rangers last offseason. He just posted a 3.31 ERA between the Rangers and Royals this year and could land another solid one-year deal in the coming weeks or months.
Lorenzen and his representatives appear to be hoping that the Galaxy Brains idea might bring him more money, or possibly the second year of his next contract. However, it is unclear whether any clubs would be interested in playing such a game. In the era of expanded playoffs and draft lottery, few clubs enter the 2025 season without hope of competing. Even clubs that have struggled in recent seasons, like the Angels and Athletics, are aggressively adding to their rosters this winter.
The White Sox are coming off a futile record-setting season and are sure to be terrible again in 2025, but deliberately giving up a lineup spot for a theoretical marginal boost in trade value would be a huge win for a franchise that might have some hoping next year’s season won’t. So embarrassing. It also requires some at-bats from the young players the team hopes to develop.
Rosenthal scoffed at the idea that the White Sox or Marlins would want to use young players as major league hitters, but that was oddly dismissive. Of course, the Fish would have to weigh such a plan against trying out a variety of players they hope will become viable major leaguers, such as Kyle Stowers, Griffin Corning, Deveson de los Santos etc. Even if they feel they have a DH hitter available, they could go the more traditional route and sign a free agent hitter, e.g. Jesse Wink or Tommy Van And there is the idea of trading the player before the deadline.
Time will tell if any clubs bite the bullet but one has to pay tribute to Lorenzen and his representatives for thinking outside the box.
