PHOENIX — As Christian Bethancourt tells it, he was only 5 when his concerned mother asked his youth baseball coach in Panama if there was something that could be done to keep the aggressive lad from running around to field balls hit to other positions.
“If I was at third and they hit a ball to left field, I’d just run out to get the ball,” Bethancourt said, smiling. “My mom told me, ‘You’ve got to stay at your position.’ And I said, mom, but I don’t believe in those guys. They’re going to drop the ball, throw it and make an error.
“My mom talked to the manager and said to find me a position where I can’t move. So they put me at catcher, and I was crying because I wanted to get every ball that they hit. But I couldn’t move because they would score if I did.
“So I just stayed back there. And I never changed from that position again.”
Fifteen years later, Bethancourt and the Braves are glad his mom took such an active interest. He’s one of the best young catching prospects in baseball, nearly 6 feet 3 and blessed with soft hands, a rifle of a right arm, and athleticism most catchers can only dream of.
Though still a bit raw on offense and a work-in-progress, he has begun to resemble the skilled player the Braves envisioned he would be when they signed him as a skinny 16-year-old.
He homered for the third consecutive game Tuesday and has hit .367 with four home runs and 11 RBIs in his first 13 games for the Surprise Saguaros in the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League, where small crowds of 100-200 typically include 20-30 scouts from major league teams.
“The improvement he’s made with the bat since a year ago has been impressive,” said Bruce Manno, Braves assistant general manager.
Bethancourt, 20, has one more homer in 49 at-bats in the AFL than he had in 399 at-bats at Class-A Rome in 2010, his first full season of pro ball.
In a win Friday against Phoenix, he hit a three-run homer in the third inning to provide a big lead for Braves left-handed prospect Sean Gilmartin, who has shone in the AFL. Later in the same game, Bethancourt threw out the only runner attempting to steal on him that day.
“He can really throw,” said an American League scout seated behind home plate.
Bethancourt, Gilmartin and Braves right-handed prospect J.J. Hoover have been selected to play in the AFL Rising Stars game this Saturday.
Bethancourt threw out 38 percent of would-be base stealers last season, including 17 of 36 (47 percent) who tested him at high-A Lynchburg. He split the year between Rome and Lynchburg, batting .289 with five homers, 53 RBIs and a .304 on-base percentage in 99 games.
He has added about 35 pounds in three years and is just beginning to fill out a frame that looks as if it could eventually carry 220-225 pounds comfortably.
“He’s getting stronger and really maturing as a player,” Manno said. “He’s starting to understand how to hit and use the whole field and trust his hands, all those things that get better with young players the more they play. He’s really on target with where he needs to be, and now he just needs to continue to hit and get better.”
Bethancourt taught himself English in two years because he understood the need to communicate with pitchers and be a leader, he said. He’s a bright kid who knows his weaknesses, including the need to improve his OBP.
“I know I didn’t get a lot of walks. I think I just had 11 walks this year in, like, almost 400 at-bats,” he said, and he was right on it — he had 11 walks in 410 plate appearances in 2011.
“And that’s not good. I’ve got to get more walks. I understand that. I know I’m an aggressive hitter. I like to hit the first pitch. I’ve just got to stay confident, believe in myself, believe in my hands and my ability to hit. I’m working on that.”
He spoke to an Atlanta reporter after a game Friday at Surprise, doing the interview without assistance from an interpreter. Bethancourt looked a reporter in the eye as he discussed his life, his goals, what he’s accomplished so far and how it’s barely the beginning.
This is just another step to his goal of playing, and excelling, in the major leagues.
“It’s been my dream all my life,” said Bethancourt, who idolized countryman Mariano Rivera, the great Yankees closer. “Growing up in Panama my favorite team was the Yankees, because my dad’s favorite team was the Yankees. Yankees game was always on TV. In Panama, they always showed the New York Yankees game.
“It was my dream, since I started playing, to make it to the big leagues. And I don’t want to let that dream go. I want to work and make it one day.”
A knock on Bethancourt was that he would sometimes lose focus or appear disinterested, that he would let a poor stretch of hitting affect his defense. Braves minor league catching instructor Joe Breeden said part of that was youth, and part of it might also have been the fact that defense has always come so easily for him.
“He would lose concentration” playing against lesser competition, Breeden said. “As a young guy, you want to hit. You’ve got to be able to separate [offense and defense], but it’s hard to do as a young player.
“But the first game here, he went 0-for-4 and played great defense. He was 9-for-10 in blocks even though 0-for-4 at the plate. Tells me he’s [getting it].”
Breeden has been around a long time and worked with the likes of former Marlins Gold Glove winner Charles Johnson. He said Bethancourt can be a special player.
“He’s talented,” Breeden said in a tone that said that was an understatement. “He really is.”
