PEORIA, Ariz. — One day recently in San Diego Padres camp, the fantasy happened right in front of their faces.

Christian Bethancourt, the Padres’ great experiment — heck, baseball’s great experiment this spring — finished a live bullpen session. He threw well. He executed his pitches. He impressed the coaches who have been watching him closely all spring. Then he walked off the mound, grabbed a bat and a helmet, stepped to the plate and hit the second pitch over the fence, an opposite-field homer.

In a perfect world, this is what the Padres are molding Bethancourt to be. He can play catcher. And he can play left field if they need him. He can also throw 96 mph on the mound.

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Instead of making him choose a path, the Padres asked Bethancourt late last season, “How about you just do it all?” And right then the fantasy was born: Christian Bethancourt, two-way player. He’s not going to be the next Babe Ruth, but he could be a heckuva weapon for the Padres.

“It’s definitely a difficult task,” says Padres bullpen coach Doug Bochtler. “But it’s every child’s dream too.”

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The Padres want to make Christian Bethancourt into a two-way player. (AP/Getty Images) More

Before we go any further, let’s be clear about what The Christian Bethancourt Experiment is not.

It’s not Rick Ankiel reinventing himself as an outfielder after coming into the league as a pitcher. Nor is it Kenley Jansen (and countless others, frankly) getting converted from a position player into a pitcher in the minor leagues.

It’s not exactly Shohei Otani either. Otani is the 23-year-old Japanese star now being called the Japanese Babe Ruth. He’s a fantastic pitcher and hitter. He played the outfield some in his first two seasons, but really became a star when he was deployed as a DH when he wasn’t pitching. Otani is exceptional at both pitching and hitting while Bethancourt is still trying to prove himself across the board.

The Padres very much want to see if Bethancourt — a backup catcher with a career .223 average — can contribute behind the plate, on the mound, with a bat in his hand and even in the outfield. They want to take the idea of a utility player and add on the most taxing job on the baseball field.

“I have to be ready for any situation at any time,” says Bethancourt, a 25-year-old from Panama who was originally signed by the Braves in 2008 and traded to the Padres in 2015. That deal, coincidentally, involved Casey Kelly, who once played half a minor-league season as a pitcher and the other half as a shortstop.

The Experiment started last season with two relief appearances in mop-up time, a somewhat common occurrence in baseball when a team is getting blown out and it doesn’t want to waste its bullpen. But Bethancourt wasn’t just some ex-high school pitcher out there yucking it up on the mound. He threw gas. The opposition noticed. The Internet noticed. And, most importantly, the Padres’ front office noticed.

So after the second appearance, they came to Bethancourt with a proposal: Spend the winter learning to be a pitcher. Go play in the winter league as a pitcher. Train like a pitcher — and a catcher would too.

“I accepted the challenge,” Bethancourt says.

The last true two-way player in the majors was Brooks Kieschnick, who appeared in 32 games as a relief pitcher for the 2004 Milwaukee Brewers and had a plate appearance in 75 games. He hit .270 and had a 3.44 ERA, neither exceptional nor horrible, but commendable if you’re doing both jobs. Before that the last two-way player is believed to be Hal Jeffcoat, who played from 1948-1959 mostly for the Reds and Cubs and really only had one season, 1954, where he pitched and played the field.

All this is to say what Bethancourt is trying to do isn’t all that common and it’s certainly not easy. Sure, it happens in high school and college, but once baseball players get into professional environments, they’re quickly assessed and specialized. Modern baseball is more about platoon right fielders and left-handed relief specialists than it is about calling in the left fielder to pitch for a batter or two.

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