Baseball’s long snapper no more: How the job of bullpen catcher has become a springboard to bigger things

If you were really paying attention after the final out of the 2013 World Series, you found Brian Abraham all over the place.

There he was, bolting toward the infield from the home bullpen as Koji Uehara bellowed in victory. There he was behind the mound, being hoisted by a Red Sox player into the air. And yet another sighting, this time in the background of Shane Victorino’s postgame interview, bear-hugged off the ground once more.

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It’s one of the fondest baseball memories for Abraham, now Boston’s farm director. But, as his ubiquity in the celebratory frenzy suggests, those touchstone moments didn’t come at some remove. When the Red Sox claimed that title, Abraham was not working out of the front office, viewing the action from a lofty suite. Though he wore a jersey, No. 86, he wasn’t a player or a coach. He was something in between the two.

He was the bullpen catcher, the grunt worker of the baseball ecosystem. He threw batting practice and he caught side sessions. He warmed up the closer before the ninth. It’s a physical job, one that eventually takes a toll on the arm and the knees and the fingers, but it has its rewards. You get to be in the big-league clubhouse and fly on the charter. You get to run on the field after the last out of the World Series.

Five years later, though, Abraham celebrated another Red Sox title from a much different vantage. He was out of that No. 86 uniform and into a suit, four years into a promotion to assistant farm director. He’d gone from playing a small part in getting big-leaguers ready for the game to a large one in getting minor-leaguers ready for the big leagues. Quite the ascent for a guy who never played an inning of pro ball.

It was an unusual jump at the time — “incredibly forward-thinking” of the Red Sox, Abraham says — but the 37-year-old has since welcomed lots of company. Bullpen catcher used to be baseball’s version of long snapper, a job one could hold forever as long as the body held up. There have been and still are many bullpen catchers who have been at it for more than a decade. But in recent years, there are more and more former bullpen catchers littering the ranks of coaching and player development staffs.

They’re in Arizona, where a former bullpen catcher now serves as Triple-A coach and catching coordinator. They’re in Minnesota, where another hung up the mitt after 12 years to become a quality control coach. At least two other bullpen catchers leaped to coaching roles just this winter. None of them logged a day of big-league service time. Some are like Abraham and haven’t played professionally at all.

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Instead of representing the totality of a career, the bullpen catcher position is becoming more like the beginning of one. Its occupants have pushed past what had been considered a physical job and have added more to their plate. They help with advance scouting and coaching. They develop themselves for bigger and better things.

And, as a result, they’re blazing a more frequently traveled path.

“What we’ve realized these days,” says Abraham, “is you don’t have to necessarily be a big-leaguer to be able to impact an organization and impact players.”

Last month, a job posting appeared on FanGraphs. The Diamondbacks were looking for a new bullpen catcher.

Many of the position’s duties and qualifications would hardly surprise. Candidates must be able to “catch multiple bullpens daily, seven days a week.” They must “bring a positive attitude and energy to the ballpark each day.” But other sections of the listing went beyond needing an able body and chipper personality to crouch behind the plate.

Arizona’s next bullpen catcher, the posting read, must have “a strong level of intellectual curiosity and openness” and is expected to “assist with different components of the advance (scouting) process.” To that end, there were two notable criteria listed as “preferred qualifications” — an understanding of scouting and self-scouting, and a “moderate level of technical proficiency, particularly in Microsoft Office.”

To find bullpen catchers, it would seem that teams are looking for more than bullpen catchers. “We’re trying to use this as an opportunity to potentially add someone who can develop into an impact person in this organization,” said Arizona assistant general manager Mike Fitzgerald. Of all the entry-level positions the team has advertised this offseason, none have drawn as many applicants as the bullpen catcher job.

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It wasn’t always so competitive to become a bullpen catcher, nor were the demands of the job as stringent. Many are former players. Phil Pohl, soon to be named the manager for Oakland’s High-A affiliate, was an A’s farmhand before he spent six years catching bullpens. Mark Reed played in Triple-A with the Diamondbacks — a level to which he’s since returned as a coach — before serving as their bullpen catcher for seven seasons. Others wound up in the position through what seems like kismet.

Before he was with the Red Sox, Abraham first got the gig in Toronto. His uncle was on the training staff. Taira Uematsu, now an assistant coach with the Giants, was a student athletic trainer at Southern Illinois before he wound up serving as San Francisco’s bullpen catcher for 14 years, all thanks to a series of connections that led him to former Giants GM Bobby Evans. Nate Dammann, now a quality control coach with the Twins, had been a substitute teacher. (“Junior high,” he says. “It was terrible.”) Thanks to a connection to former Twins player and current broadcaster Dan Gladden, he jumped from that to the big leagues.

Many guys like that figured that’s where their ascent would end.

“Other bullpen catchers, usually they played professionally as minor-leaguers or even big-leaguers. Or they played in college at least,” says Uematsu. “I didn’t have that career. In my mind, I thought that was all I could do, catching bullpens and throwing BP.”

To be sure, many of the former player ilk remain bullpen catchers their entire careers and are happy to do so. In Toronto, Abraham learned from fellow bullpen catcher Alex Andreopoulos — not to be confused with former Blue Jays and current Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos – who is 49 years old and still at it. In Boston, he worked alongside Mani Martinez, who likewise remains in the job. Reed got the job in Arizona because his predecessor, Jeff Motuzas, was in his early 40s and butting up against the limits of his own body. They were lifers.

One can still do the job that way, but the rapid modernization of the game has created myriad avenues for bullpen catchers to grow and advance. Abraham was unique in that he attended scout school with Toronto before becoming a full-time bullpen catcher in Boston for the 2013-14 seasons. Even with the Red Sox, he was instrumental in the advance scouting and game-planning processes. But others saw empty space appear as the game became more intricate behind the scenes, and they moved to fill that void.

And, eventually, they moved out of the bullpen catcher job entirely.

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“It was great and fun first coming up,” says Reed, “but I always attacked it like, ‘Where is this going to lead me to?’”

Dammann could have been one of those forever bullpen catchers. He plied the trade for a dozen years — the Twins played in the Metrodome when he started — and he never was in a particular hurry to move on to something else. “I don’t mind taking the gravel road,” he says. Yet, distant though the future may have been, he kept his eye on it.

“I’ll give myself some credit. I’ve always paid attention and tried to keep up with the times,” he says. “The way the game has changed has probably helped guys like me. I’ve always had that in the back of my head. ‘I’m going to shadow this guy this year.’”

Thus, when finger issues forced him out of the squat in 2019, he was ready for the next thing. So, it turned out, were the Twins. Derek Shelton, then Minnesota’s bench coach, suggested that Dammann take over as the team’s replay maestro. A season later, Dammann added the “quality control coach” title to his resume.

Others experienced a similar broadening of horizons. The A’s never formally heaped advance scouting duties upon Pohl, but he made sure to get in in where he fit in. “You always try to go the extra mile to help out wherever you can,” he says. Over his years catching pens in Arizona, Reed noticed his priorities shift away from long-tossing with this or that pitcher to becoming more involved in advance meetings and working more closely with the pitching and catching coaches. It took 12 years into his career for it to seem possible, but Uematsu started thinking about a coaching career when Gabe Kapler became manager in San Francisco and put more tasks on his plate.

“I figured I could be a coach in the future,” Uematsu says. “That’s something I can be.”

As some bullpen catchers found paths for themselves into bigger jobs — Reed, Pohl and Uematsu all were vocal with their bosses about moving up before they ultimately did so — they often were met with front offices eager to help with their development. Dammann had Shelton and Reed had superiors who “don’t like to keep somebody stagnant in a job for a long time.” Abraham credits former Red Sox and current Pirates GM Ben Cherington for having the vision to look at a bullpen catcher and see a future executive.

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Of course, it’s only logical that organizations would rethink the bullpen catcher job. Someone who can catch bullpens and help in other facets of the operation creates more value than someone who catches bullpens only. But it also benefits both the team and the employee if that employee is given a chance to grow. “That’s kind of the norm these days in terms of how teams do some things,” Abraham says. “It really allows organizations and staff members to maximize their abilities.”

If anything, that’s what’s new when it comes to bullpen catchers. They’ve served as jacks of all trades before. Longtime Giants bullpen catcher Billy Hayes jumped to coaching at an older age. Fitzgerald, the Diamondbacks executive, remembers former Pirates bullpen catcher Hebert Andrade being instrumental in catching instruction when they were both in Pittsburgh. But what was once ad-hoc — Just help out where you want or can — is now formalized.

After all, in what other entry-level position can you develop young, bright employees around the best players and coaches in the world?

“Yes, you’re going to have to knock out the day-to-day responsibilities that have always existed in this role,” Fitzgerald says, “but we’re going to try to expose you to possibly impacting us in other areas and create that opportunity for you to do that.”

You do still have to catch bullpens. You do still have to throw batting practice. You don’t get in the door without those skills.

“I think if I couldn’t throw BP,” Abraham says, “I don’t know where my career would have been.”

That can make the job a grind, although not one without its rewards. You get the big-league lifestyle. You get the buzz of 50,000 people in the stands in October. You get snatched into the air by a pitcher when you win the World Series. Despite his desire to coach, those perks were enough to give Reed pause when the Diamondbacks approached him about a player development job. “I wasn’t gung-ho to give this up,” he says.

But advancing in one’s career is another kind of reward. It’s energizing to think that there is more to achieve, greater heights to reach. Especially when the boss is invested in your reaching them. So, while erstwhile bullpen catchers will think fondly on their years in the job — “I miss the high fives after the game,” Reed says — they’re not upset those days are done.

That chapter may be closed, but it was hardly the final one.

“Of course, I miss it,” says Uematsu. “At the same time, my dream came true.”

(Top photo of Taira Uematsu: Darren Yamashita / USA TODAY)