John Manuel's Prospect Pulse
With top dollar invested in pitchers, clubs seek smooth adjustment to pro ball

by John Manuel
January 23, 2005

A top pitcher at a premium college program can usually count on a dependable schedule.

Start once a weekend. Throw a bullpen once a week. Pitch again the next weekend. Throw another bullpen. Repeat until regionals, when all bets are off.

Take for example, Rice’s famous 2004 trio of Philip Humber, Jeff Niemann and Wade Townsend. Humber, the No. 3 overall pick in the draft who just ended his holdout with the Mets and reported to minicamp in Florida, hasn’t pitched competitively since the regional last June. Humber took both of Rice’s losses, starting a game Friday and then losing in relief on Sunday. Niemann, the Devil Rays’ first-rounder, pitched in relief Saturday, getting the final four outs of a win, then pitched a complete game the next day.

“I was next and ready to go,” says Townsend, who started and won the Saturday game. “If we hadn’t lost that game to Texas A&M, I was going to start the next game. But you know, that’s never going to happen again, so I was ready to pitch.”

Scouting directors and front-office types have to wince when they see such use of pitchers, especially considering the amount of money invested in them. But while regionals are an extreme example, all college pitchers have to get ready to throw more when they’re professionals.

For one, the season is longer, and the grind of a five-man rotation means one or two fewer days of rest than those pitchers were used to in college. Cubs scouting director John Stockstill points out that making the transition from pitching once a week to once every five days is a bigger deal than one might think.

“That once-a-week schedule is what most guys do in high school and college,” Stockstill said. “That’s a lot of muscle memory to overcome.”

That’s why when the Cubs signed their top pick last year, Notre Dame righthander Grant Johnson, Stockstill said it was important not to let negotiations drag out too much, in order to get Johnson to work on the organization’s throwing program. The Cubs wanted to make sure that Johnson didn’t lose any of the arm strength that got him drafted so high in the first place.

Another example scouts point to was Jered Weaver, the 2004 College Player of the Year. The Long Beach State righthander has a solid fastball that usually sits in the 91-92 mph range, but when he was used on four days’ rest while pitching for Team USA in 2003, his fastball velocity dipped into the 85-88 mph range. When given more rest later in the summer—including nine days between starts at one point—Weaver ran his fastball up to 96 mph, and was throwing his slider in the mid-80s.

Building Arm Strength

Rangers righthander John Hudgins said pitching more frequently was the single biggest adjustment he had to make after coming to pro ball after two seasons as a weekend starter for Stanford.

It was doubly tough considering he started out in Class A, where the Rangers began the year using the tandem-starter system. It’s a program designed to help introduce amateur pitchers to the rigors of pro ball by having them throw more often—eight pitchers combine in a four-day rotation—but with fewer pitches per start (no more than 80 in most cases).

“In college, it was pretty much set that you throw once a week and you throw one bullpen during the week,” Hudgins said in August. “In pro ball, it’s really different. It was hard to stay fresh for me at (high Class A) Stockton, with the eight-man rotation. At least for me, it was tough to get my arm adjusted to it. It was rare that I would go out there with my best stuff, so I had to learn to pitch with what I had.”

That’s a lesson that Dom Chiti, the Rangers’ farm director, wants his pitchers to learn. Chiti said the Rangers still haven’t decided whether to keep the tandem starter system—it was brought to the organization by former assistant general manager Grady Fuson—but acknowledged it was one approach to trying to protect the club’s investment in pitching.

Chiti’s background is in pitching. A lefthander drafted in the second round by the Braves in 1976, he was once pitching coach at Triple-A Rochester for consecutive years, when the manager was Rangers GM John Hart, and was the Indians’ pitching coach in the early 1990s. Chiti says the Rangers will try to balance pushing their pitchers aggressively while also preserving their health and challenging them competitively.

“It’s everybody—it’s not just college guys (who need to adjust),” Chiti said. “It’s an individual thing; so much depends on arm action and physical strength. A lot of the college guys, we back them off their first year.

“Some guys never adjust to the workload, the pounding they take physically in pro ball. Some just can’t take it. Some of them tell themselves that when they pitch once a week, that’s when they’re at their best.

“But some of them get in shape.”

New Approaches

The tandem-starter system is one way to get pitchers in shape and used to throwing more frequently. The Rangers took the approach from Fuson’s days with the A’s; the Reds also have adopted the system, which GM Dan O’Brien saw in action in his time with Texas. The approach gives pitchers experience both as starters and coming out of the bullpen, giving organizations a chance to see which role suits them better.

The Reds adopted the tandem-starter system as part of a broader overhaul of their throwing program. Injuries to top prospects such as Bobby Basham, Phil Dumatrait, Chris Gruler and Ty Howington, among others, prompted O’Brien to re-evaluate how the organization was handling pitchers.

The Reds, who use the tandem-starter system from high Class A Potomac on down, were more successful keeping pitchers healthy in 2004 while also pushing their pitchers aggressively.

Still, detractors say the tandem-starter approach doesn’t do much to build up pitch counts, which many veteran scouts don’t think helps the pitcher or the organization. Some also believe it limits pitchers who otherwise could be starters to relief roles.

“So many systems have been tried, and usually, when the smoke clears, they go back to the old system,” said Russ Bove, a longtime scout with the Brewers and Expos who was recently named the new scouting director of the Mets. “You can try to get creative, but there’s a tried-and-true system, and that’s what you always come back to.

“It makes sense to be careful in A-ball, but when you’ve got a pitcher in Double-A, you want to see what he can do—can he be a big league pitcher. By Double-A, I think you’ve got to stop babying these guys.”

Stockstill said he sometimes ponders adding another starter to the rotation in the minor leagues, giving teams six-man rotations to get closer to what pitchers are used to as amateurs. While it’s hard to imagine that happening in the major leagues—mostly because starting pitchers make more money than middle relievers—it also would have been hard to tell anyone 40 years ago that no big league club would use a four-man rotation in the 21st Century.

“College baseball has changed the way pitchers work,” Stockstill said. “In the past, guys were used to pitching twice a week, but now they are not. We’re not going to convince them to change, so it seems like it’s those of us in pro ball who are going to have to adjust.”

QUICK HITS

• The Giants aren’t generally thought of as leaders in Latin American scouting. Dominican Pedro Feliz (signed in 1994) is the only homegrown hitter to break into their everyday lineup in the last decade. However, the Giants do have some intriguing young Latin arms, two of whom pitched beyond their years in winter ball. Live-armed lefthanders Jesus Reina, 20, and Jonathan Sanchez, 22, both impressed in different ways. Reina was one of the youngest starting pitchers in his native Venezuela and went 5-1, 3.07 in 56 innings for Caracas, ranking fourth in ERA. Sanchez hadn’t pitched as much—he had just 11 innings for Carolina in Puerto Rico—but he had shown a surprisingly good fastball for a 27th-round pick. Drafted out of NAIA Ohio Dominican, Sanchez was hitting 93-94 mph in his short stints as a reliever and had 12 strikeouts while allowing just three hits.

• Former independent leaguer Rick Guttormson was making a name for himself in Venezuela as the top reliever in the league not nicknamed “El Guapo.” While former Red Sox reliever Rich Garces led the league with 13 saves, Guttormson, 28, posted a 1.15 ERA over 31 innings for Lara to help the Cardinals win their division. Guttormson, who went through indy ball after the Padres released him, saved 25 games at Double-A San Antonio for the Mariners last year. “I’ve worked on throwing my two-seam fastball more, getting depth on my slider and mixing in a changeup,” he said of his Venezuelan stint. “I’ve had most of my success using my fastball down here, pitching up and down, in and out. I even started working on a cutter, but winning is everything down here, so I just had to use my strengths and get the job done.”

• Mayaguez infielder Erick Monzon (Mariners) was named the Puerto Rican League’s rookie of the year. The 23-year-old, signed as a nondrafted free agent out of Division II Tampa, wasn’t a complete unknown—the Rangers drafted him in the 29th round out of high school in 1999. However, Monzon wasn’t drafted again and signed with the Mariners in 2004. He hasn’t stopped hitting since, batting .339-7-18 in 115 at-bats with high Class A Inland Empire during the season, then hitting .241-3-8 in 54 at-bats for Mayaguez while slugging .431 and playing second base and shortstop. “He was a very pleasant surprise,” Mayaguez general manager Carlos Pieve said.

Contributing: Eric Edwards.