Yesterday, pitchers and catchers reported to MLB camps (in Arizona and Florida) for Spring Training. As a baseball fan, I am excited for the start of a new season, and it got me wondering which players on the Los Angeles Chargers roster would be most able to make the Deion Sanders-like transition to playing in MLB.

There is shockingly little information about which, if any, of the Chargers players played baseball in college or high school. That's fine, and it's probably a testament to how athletes become one-sport athletes so early on in their lives these days (there are some who theorize that this is why we see more injuries than ever at the top levels of professional sports), but it makes this exercise a tiny bit more difficult.

Hayden Hurst would've been a top choice here, as he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates and played a couple of years of minor league baseball, but he hasn't been on the Chargers since 2024. Will Dissly was also a standout baseball player in high school, along with football and basketball, but I doubt he's coming back for next season so we'll skip past him for now, as well.

Ladd McConkey and Derwin James both played baseball in high school, which isn't surprising when you consider the type of athletes that they are, so they need to be in consideration.

However, when it comes to experience, it's unlikely that anyone is touching the QB. Herbert was a dominant pitcher at Sheldon High School in Oregon. During his senior season, he posted an impressive 8-0 record with a 0.66 ERA and 71 strikeouts in just 53.1 innings. He has mentioned in interviews that he once thought he might end up playing professional baseball instead of football.

I thought it would be fun to look at the average height/weight of MLB players at certain positions and see if any of the Chargers players come close to it.

Derwin James is almost exactly the same size as the average MLB first baseman (6'2" 222 lbs), which makes some sense. McConkey is pretty close to the same size as the average MLB middle infielder, just an inch taller, so now we're starting to build a complete team.

Quentin Johnston has never played baseball, as far as I can tell, but he is an exact match for the average size of an MLB corner outfielder. Maybe he missed his calling?

The funniest match might be punter JK Scott, who is the best match on the team for the prototypical size/weight of an MLB pitcher. That being said, Herbert's weight is right in line with other pitchers of his stature.

I don't know what kind of player he was in high school, but Kimani Vidal is the only one on the Chargers roster that can claim to be the great-nephew of MLB legend Hank Aaron. I'm not sure what it means, if anything, but it felt worth mentioning.

The answer is Justin Herbert, and I imagine at some point, someone will wonder out loud if he would've been an even better MLB pitcher than he is as an NFL quarterback. We'll (probably) never know, and that's just fine by me. Still, with his size and experience as a dominant pitcher (not to mention an ability to handle pressure), it would be hard to pick any of his teammates over him.