"The System" (or How Leverage Killed Conventional Pitching Wisdom)

[dkgo]

I tried to do something similar (coincidentally, also with seattle) using the four pitcher-pairs idea. Ideally you have four starters who go four innings, each is paired with a reliever for the next four innings, and then four free bullpen spots for two closers and two long relievers if there is trouble early or extras. The theory is based on the research showing that you give up more runs the second and third time through the order (pretty much common sense). It would save money too.

Unfortunately I just didnt have to patience to play out each game to manage the staff as I wanted.

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=2848

[Ankit]

Very interesting thought put off a little by the trades and wholesale roster changes so early in the season. I do propose the following on the batting order side: Your best hitters should be hitting in the first, second, and fourth spots. So Montero should not be hitting 3rd at all. The reason for this is that far too often he will come up in the first inning with 2 outs and no one on base. So, its better to move him up to 2nd, put your best OBP guy 1st, and your 3rd best guy at #4. The number 3 should be more of a contact guy to move the runners along if they are on base.

I will be following along ...

[Prodigal Son]

Originally Posted by Simmo13

Interested to see how this develops....thinking about Oakland didn't Tony LaRussa speculate on a similar idea in the late '80's when he was manager there.....12 pitchers where each of 4 "starters" went 3 innings or some such?

I am not aware of that, but if you find any info on it, let me know.

[Prodigal Son]

(I plan to type up reports for another few games during the course of this season. I did write-ups for two games in a row above to illustrate some of the issues with pitcher use and fatigue day to day, as every game is interconnected with the games before and after when it comes to pitcher availability. Obviously I'm not going to type 162 game commentary posts per season, so please give input on what you'd like to see for game commentary if you have any preferences, like if you'd like to see several games in a row during the regular season, or the playoffs--if applicable--or whatever.)

[mparks19732]

The following link explains records that Larussa set with pitching changes, especially in the AL. It also explains Larussa's version of "The System". He originally used three starters with three inning limits and three tiers(or levels) of pitchers.

Tony La Russa changed the game and now he leaves it on top - Tom Verducci - SI.com

[Prodigal Son]

Originally Posted by mparks19732

The following link explains records that Larussa set with pitching changes, especially in the AL. It also explains Larussa's version of "The System". He originally used three starters with three inning limits and three tiers(or levels) of pitchers.

Tony La Russa changed the game and now he leaves it on top - Tom Verducci - SI.com

Thanks! Here is the relevant portion:

By 1993, La Russa's final full season in Oakland, and for a team that lost 94 games, he had pushed the AL record for pitching changes to 424. He had evolved a long way from his first full season as a manager, with the 1980 White Sox, when he made 236 pitching changes. And the game would evolve with him.


It was also in 1993 that La Russa took his quest for controlling games to an extreme even he had to concede was a bad idea. On July 24, he divided his pitchers into three groups. Each pitcher would pitch three innings every third day. La Russa designated two or three other pitchers as specialists who would be available to close games or fill in gaps when a three-inning pitcher came up short in his assignment.

The Mariners in 2012 will completely destroy that 424 mark for pitching changes. The number for Seattle will probably be nearly double that.

Anyway, the big difference between The System and some of these other things (La Russa's bullpen use plus the arms race article someone else posted) is that those other strategies used pitchers with designated, pre-scheduled pitching frames. So one guy is slated to pitch three or four innings, then another guy is scheduled to come in and pitch another three or four, etc. For example, under La Russa's strategy, if you read closely, it means nine pitchers had their innings scheduled ahead of time (each pitcher tossing three innings every third day means 27 innings divided among nine pitchers, leaving room for 2-3 extra bullpen arms). This scheduling is exactly what The System wants to avoid. The System is all about leverage, while La Russa's strategy ignored leverage minus maybe how he used those 2-3 specialists. His approach was more about replacing each starting pitcher with two pseudo-starting pitchers, with those two still expected to cover the first six innings of the game.

With The System, the only thing scheduled is that the starting pitcher is going to throw the first pitch. See, those other strategies just change how many innings guys throw and how a pitcher's work load is distributed (i.e. three innings per outing but only 2-3 days between outings instead of six or more innings every 4-5 days).

Anyway, just wanting to clarify that The System is quite a bit different and also significantly more radical than La Russa's experiment. While they both share the fact that they are different from the norm, they are actually kind of opposite approaches. I say they are opposites because La Russa's experiment was all about scheduling a guy's innings ahead of time and having him pitch exactly that long no matter what happened in the game, while The System is about scheduling nothing and having absolutely no expectation that a guy will pitch for a certain length of time after coming into the game, adjusting constantly to what is happening in the game. Thanks for finding the article.

[jaxmagicman]

This is how I think it should have been for a while. Please keep this up.

[Prodigal Son]

June 2012

After a hot start, the Mariners came down to Earth. Offensive struggles led to a four-game losing streak in late May that knocked the team out of first place.

One issue for the team was the poor third base play of Dustin Ackley. The talented youngster moved to the hot corner when the Mariners acquired Dan Uggla, but he had trouble adjusting despite his good defensive tools and athleticism. After a couple of Ackley errors plagued the Mariners over a handful of close games in early June, it became apparent that it was time to pull the plug and move Ackley back to 2B. With several teams interested in slugging 2B Dan Uggla, the Mariners entered discussions to find a true 3B. The negotiations went as follows: Miami offered speedster Emilio Bonifacio, who Seattle loved because of his versatility to play multiple positions in the infield or outfield. This versatility is particularly important because The System is best when the team carries 13 pitchers, which cuts down the bench spots available for position players. Despite Uggla being the clearly superior player, the Marlins were not willing to take an even-up trade due to the fact that it could not afford Uggla's $13 million contract. Needing to take salary off of Miami's hands, Seattle mentioned that it liked reliever Edward Mujica and lefty veteran Mark Buehrle. Miami responded by asking for Jesus Montero. Seattle balked, and the negotiations nearly ended.

Over several internal meetings within a two-day period, The Coach convinced the front office to offer up the team's first-round draft pick, insisting that the team aggressively pursue the players who fit into The System and singing Bonifacio's praises. Ultimately, the men who made the deal happen were not in the meetings at all: Ichiro and Michael Bourne. Both of their contracts expire after 2012, leaving the team without a leadoff hitter and destroying the team's speed, which it was built around. With Ichiro nearing 40 and asking for big-time money, and with the office having failed to negotiation an extension with Bourne to date, it decided to give in and let the draft pick go.

The Mariners ended up parting with the two biggest pieces of the deal in Uggla and a 1st round pick, plus a 5th round pick, but they picked up Bonifacio, Mujica, and Buerhle. It was a hefty price to pay, and the experts say Miami won the trade, but The Coach was very happy with the deal. Mujica is very durable and fits The System perfectly. The coach figured he can get at least 80 medium-high leverage innings out of him or could use him as a starter. Buehrle is also perfect. As a 33-year old #3 or #4 starter set to make $6 million per year through his age 36 season, he is not a guy who has a lot of value in the eyes of other owners, but The Coach needed one more lefty to bring the total LHP numer up to five on staff. Two of those five, Justin Vargas and Tommy Milone, have struggled to prove they are any better than replacement-level, and a third in George Sherrill is no more than average and is not able to throw a lot of innings. Buerhle will be a very important guy in medium-leverage situations (similar to Oswalt) and can also be used in high-leverage situations against LHB (and only against LHB).

A third of the way into 2012, The Coach is happy that the pitching staff is in place. He no longer has any no-leverage pitchers (NLs) on the active roster, and he believes that all three low-leverage LL pitchers are decently above replacement-level. The System is now completely in place. Going forward, The Coach would like to upgrade some of the guys at the top, but he thinks the current staff can be the best in the league despite the fact that it has no ace and only has two "good" starting pitchers by conventional standards (Oswalt and Buehrle). Of course, there's still that whole "offense" thing that is an issue, but The Coach doesn't much care about that.

Pitching Staff June 2012

Starting Pitchers (SP's)
RHP Blake Beavan (6 stamina, 2.5 stars)
RHP Hisashi Iwakuma (3 stamina, 3 stars)
RHP Alfredo Aceves (4 stamina, 1 star)

High-Leverage Pitchers (HL's)
RHP Craig Kimbrel (2 stamina, 4.5 stars)
RHP Brandon League (3 stamina, 4.5 stars)
LHP Jonny Venters (3 stamina, 4.5 stars)
RHP Edward Mujica (3 stamina, 4 stars)

Medium-Leverage Pitchers (ML's)
RHP Roy Oswalt (7 stamina, 3.5 stars)
LHB Mark Buerhle (7 stamina, 3.5 stars)
RHP Shawn Kelley (3 stamina, 3 stars) *can also start games
LHP George Sherrill (2 stamina, 2.5 stars)

Low-Leverage Pitchers (LL's)
RHP Hector Noesi (6 stamina, 2 stars)
RHP Kevin Millwood (6 stamina, 1 star)

No-Leverage Pitchers (NL's)
LHP Tom Milone (6 stamina, 1 star) (AAA)
RHP Erasmo Ramirez (6 stamina, 1 star) (AAA)
LHP Jason Vargas (7 stamina, 1 star) (AAA)


Lineup June 2012 (vs RHP)
1) Ichiro RF
2) Ackley 2B
3) Montero DH
4) McCann C
5) Smoak 1B
6) Bonifacio 3B
7) Gutierrez CF
8) Bourne LF
9) Kawasaki SS*

*Starting SS Brendan Ryan is serving a DL stint and will miss a total of a month.

[Charlie Hough]

Mark my words: this approach or something similar WILL be used in MLB. It's inevitable that a small market team with an alleged 'genius' manager or GM will actually run this experiment and start doing crazy things with its pitching staff.

No offense to Prodigal Son because I have no issue with this in OOTP as an intriguing experiment.

But this is merely a preview of what's going to happen in baseball's future. Contemporary MLB managers cannot help themselves anymore. They insist on trying to prove their value by overmanaging and constantly manipulating the pitchers and matchups. It hasn't reached the level of Prodigal Son's experiment, but it's coming soon.

Even some top managers in baseball have fallen prey to overmanaging and now cost their teams as many games as they win through their managerial decisions. Others cost their teams leads and dig themselves into holes that the batters have to help them overcome.

I saw two games over the past week, and both games were overmanaged for no sensible reason. One was an A-level game in the California League, and the other was an MLB game. In the class A game, a standout pitching prospect was pulled despite throwing a 1-hit shutout through 5 innings, and the bullpen promptly blew a multi-run lead, put the game into extra innings, and cost the team the win.

In the other game, a starter was pulled at the first sign of trouble in favor of trying to bring in some specialists for matchups with the hitters. The end result was blowing a multi-run lead with the bullpen practically handing the game to the opposition, and another extra-inning affair. Walks, wild pitches, and hit batters galore. Well done!

This is why baseball is virtually unwatchable for me anymore. It's a rare occasion that I will watch a game these days, and when I do it's a rare occasion that I DON'T see managers defeating themselves by overmanaging.

[Prodigal Son]

By Aaron Freeley
The Seattle Times
June 2012

When the 2012 season started, the Seattle Mariners had the best young pitcher in the league in Felix Hernandez. They had three of the top starting pitching prospects in the world and arguably the best farm system overall. All of that is gone now. The kicker is that The Coach has convinced management to also trade away virtually all of the team's top selections in the 2012 amateur draft.

The Coach came in with big ideas, and fans knew there would be radical changes. Some were excited, some were upset, but most were simply confused yet willing to give The Coach a chance. With the team starting to slide down the standings, with trade after trade shaking up the roster, and with the future of the organization in major doubt, it is time to ask whether The Coach's chance is over.

The Mariners gave up massive amounts of starting pitching talent--the premium asset in all of baseball. Baseball America now ranks the Mariners top five traditional starting pitchers (Oswalt, Buehrle, Beavan, Noesi, Millwood) as a dismal 24th among Major League rotations. Ok, so perhaps The Coach traded away the farm to get talent elsewhere? Not so fast. Baseball America ranks Seattle in the top 13 teams in talent at just four of 11 positions, and two of those are the least important in baseball: middle relief and closer. The only position player talent in the organization lies in McCann and Montero at catcher (1st overall) and Dustin Ackley at 2B (5th overall).

The farm sytem is ravaged, the current-day rotation is among the worst in baseball, and the offense is, well, offensive.

Exactly how does a team get dismantled so quickly? For an answer, one need only look at players received in the Felix Hernandez trade. Seattle traded away Felix, who could be the most valuable commodity in all of baseball as a fantastic 26-year old starting pitcher, along with top prospects and other talent, and in exchange the Mariners received Brian McCann, Dan Uggla, Michael Bourne, and two relievers. Dan Uggla is now gone, and Bourne is set to be a free agent at the end of this season. Considering he has a .633 OPS on the year, you can consider his acquisition an utter failure.

The only position player left from this deal is McCann, a great player but one who is a free agent after next season.

When you break it down from start to finish, the Mariners sold the farm for two seasons of Brian McCann, one (so far bad) season from Michael Bourne, two arbitration-eligible seasons from Emilio Bonifacio (received in exchange for Uggla), and a couple of middle relievers.

That brings us to the one asset that Seattle does have: middle relievers. The Mariners rank first in organizational talent there and rank fourth at closer with Baseball America rating Craig Kimbrel in that spot.

So there you have it: the farm system is decimated, the offense has been downgraded and is a ticking time bomb of expiring contracts, the starting pitching is terrible, and the team has no good draft picks this year. Your consolation prize? Middle relievers, the least valuable players in baseball.

The Coach needs to become The Real Estate Agent or The Car Salesman, anything but the man behind the destruction of the Seattle Mariners.

[Orcin]

The Seattle Times is a little tough here. Gee, I understand you have to be provocative to sell papers, but "The Car Salesman"? Wow, that's hitting below the belt. It's not like The Coach had a girl half his age on the back of his motorcycle.

Give us 12 good arms, Montero, and a good defense... then you'll see! The System will prevail.

[Righty Groove]

Very interesting concept, and one I've experimented before, alltough it had many differencies. It's definetely something I'll be following here, for sure.

Just wondering, as a matter of execution, are you playing out/managing every game?

I ask because, as I said, I've tried a similar concept but didn't manage any games. Had good results using pitch count limits on evey single pitcher (SP at usually 40, RP at around 20 or 30), but the AI manager was always very inconsistent on witch pitcher to use, and obviously didn't regard for Leverage as you are.

Also, how many innings are you planning on using your best relievers for? 100+?

[Prodigal Son]

edit: Draft problem fixed...generated a new draft pool and will hold another draft in July.

[Prodigal Son]

Originally Posted by Righty Groove

Just wondering, as a matter of execution, are you playing out/managing every game?

Yep. In blowout games, I can sim a half-inning or inning at a time, however, which speeds things up.

Also, how many innings are you planning on using your best relievers for? 100+?

Close to that, it looks like. The best starting pitcher, Beavan, is on pace for 200 IP, just because he starts every third day and is good enough that he often makes it several innings into the game, plus he is the only starter with actual starter-level stamina, so his max pitch count is 10-15 pitches higher than the other "starters." Oswalt is on pace for 140 since he's used in so many situations (basically anything from being down by a couple runs to being up by three runs). Out of the high-leverage, low-stamina guys (the actual relievers, so to speak), Brandon League is on pace for 102 IP and Kimbrel is on pace for 95. Mujica will come in around there probably. Kelley at 65-70. LHP's Sherrill and Venters are lowest at 63 and 54 IP projected, respectively. I should point out that Iwakuma, a "starter" with 3 stamina, is on pace for 143 IP.

[Prodigal Son]

June 15, 2012

The Coach flipped open his laptop on the desk of his Marriott suite and began typing in a file entitled Book_Notes.doc saved on his Windows desktop:

6/15/2012 (65 games into first season)

Several observations to add to strategy section of book:

- Need starting pitchers who have low HR/9 rates, or at least they can't be high. The ideal System SP would be a decent long reliever. [The Coach pulls up BaseballReference.com, browses through 2011 statistics, then continues typing.] Shawn Camp's rates in seasons 2008-2011 are just about perfect. Something around .7 HR/9, 2.7 BB/9, 6.5 K/9. These guys should be relatively inexpensive; the Cubs signed Camp as a free agent in 2012 for $550,000. Josh Outman is another with good System career rates, and he is unlikely to be paid much in arbitration after this season and would have low value on the market / would be easy to obtain. Alex Cobb is another. The HR rate is the key rate. The System can adjust to baserunners. With one baserunner on and a two run lead with at least one out in the inning, for example, you can leave the starter in there if he does not surrender many HR's. Then if he gives up a walk or a hit, it changes the situation and you can adjust by bringing in a high-leverage pitcher. However, if he gives up a home run, it is a tie game and there was no opportunity to bring in a high-leverage pitcher.

- At the risk of stating the obvious, a starting pitcher's rates coincide in certain ways. A pitcher with outstanding control (or a particularly high K rate) can afford to give up slightly more home runs, as he is unlikely to have too many base-runners. A solo home run in the first three innings of a game, while unfortunate, does not lose the game. In fact, a one-run change has only a modest effect on the likely outcome of the game. Beavan so far this season has been a very effective SP for us despite giving up 1.1 HR/9 (not bad, but not fantastic) and having a K rate a little below ideal (4.89 K/9). That is because his walk rate is superb (1.22 BB/9). Pitchers with low K rates but good walk rates are likely to be cheaper than pitchers with high k rates but mediocre walk rates, meaning these types can be targeted to be System SP's. But ultimately, the higher an SP's HR rate, the more risky and inconsistent his outings will be, because he will have to be removed from the game if the threat of a home run becomes catastrophic to the team's chances of victory, which can be as early as the second batter of the game.

- The lefty ML and HL men should have good control. The System cannot afford to give up a roster spot to pitchers who are slated to come in to face just one or two LHB and walk him/them without recording an out. This puts a strain on the rest of the staff to record 27 outs that day while keeping enough pitchers fresh to pitch in upcoming games.

- Statistical analysis of pitchers becomes fraught with error, as different pitcher's ERA's (for example) gravitate toward each other. This is because the best System pitchers (HLs) disproportionately face the best hitters, and the worst System pitchers consistently face the worst hitters. For example, I would venture that 2/3rds of all the hitters Craig Kimbrel faces are above-average hitters. He rarely pitches to #8 and #9 hitters. This is intuitive. For example, at the beginning of an inning late in a tie game, The System dictates that Kimbrel may come in if the middle of the order is due up, but a lower-leverage pitcher is likely to come in if the bottom of the order is due up.

- Having a second quality traditional SP on staff in Mark Buehrle made a tremendous difference in my ability to keep our staff rested. I'm even tempted to move down to 12 pitchers from 13, and could certainly do so during any stretch in which there are a decent number of scheduled days off. Besides, with a couple of extra arms in AAA, we could rotate arms down without running afoul of the 10-day rule [note: OOTP does not enforce this, but I abide by it because failure to do so would be an unrealistic advantage for The System. The rule is that a player sent down to AAA cannot be called back up within 10 days].

- I am firmly convinced that The System reduces chances of injury to pitchers. Looking around the league, starting pitchers are getting injured at alarming rates. There are few starting pitchers who make 30+ starts or pitch 200 innings. Meanwhile, relievers seem to hold up a lot better in general. Also, The System allows us to give pitchers nice breaks to save their arms. For example, due to a couple of scheduled off days and some blowouts, Kimbrel has thrown around 40 pitches (two appearances) in the past 7-8 days, and that's the high end for our HL guys. Venters hasn't pitched in a week. League has thrown 13 pitches during the past week. Starting pitchers don't get these kind of breaks during the season unless they are already injured. Roy Oswalt, our workhorse, has thrown just 120 pitches in the past 15 days, less than half of what he'd have thrown as a starter over a 15 day stretch (which would be three starts at 90+ pitches per start). Meanwhile, there are quite a few starters who have thrown 200+ pitches in the past six days.

[Prodigal Son]

June 16, 2012

The Coach, having reflected more on his experiences to date, decides to add more notes to the file while on the plane:

- Positional flexibility is key, as The System is best with probably 13 pitchers, although it could survive with 12. I'm going with 13 right now, and I can say that Emilio Bonafacio is a great help. He can play 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF. Basically everywhere except C and 1B, and I'm sure he could play 1B just fine if we needed him to. His flexibility means we can pinch hit for anyone and be able to continue on without having to use a second player just to come in and play defense.

- Along those same lines, having a DH who can play C is highly recommended. McCann, being the superior defensive catcher, generally plays there while Montero DH's. However, we can give McCann a break against LHP and allow Montero to play C while a platoon player plays DH. This means that we only really carry ONE catcher on our roster. The second catcher is the starting DH. In case they are both in the starting lineup and McCann is injured, we can sacrifice the use of the DH and have Montero move to C. It helps that Montero is a RHB and McCann a LHB. Between Bonifacio and Montero/McCann, our team has as much effective bench depth as a team carrying just 11 pitchers despite the fact that we carry 13.

- The System would potentially be even more useful in the NL instead of the AL. An NL manager could pinch-hit for a pitcher at any time without worrying about "cutting his start short." Even if it's the first inning or second inning, he could easily pinch hit for the pitcher if there was an opportunity to put runs on the board. This would give an NL System manager a significant offensive advantage over the other teams. Similarly, if he had a good hitting pitcher or two, he could use the spot due up in his order in the next half-inning as a (small) factor in determining who to put in the game.

[jaxmagicman]

I have something else planned for the way I would handle pitchers. I would want my best pitcher either pitching every day or every other day. Maybe 1 or 2 innings. I had it figured out on our board PS, but now I think I like your HL/LL thing instead.

[Prodigal Son]

July 18, 2012

We're in the dog days of summer, and that can only mean one thing for baseball fans: injuries. It started when Brendan Ryan pulled up with a strained groin after running out an infield single. The shortstop, who was having a great year offensively and defensively, returned to action earlier in he week after missing nearly a month.

The team struggled in Ryan's absence, losing six straight games from June 23 through June 28. Just when the team dropped from the top of the AL West, it recovered with a four-game sweep of the Red Sox.

Shortly before Ryan returned, the Mariners lost another infielder and their best overall position player, second baseman Dustin Ackley. Ackley, hitting .291/.359/.474 with 11 HR and 14 steals through 77 games, tore his quadriceps while sliding into second on a double. He will miss a total of nearly two months but may be back in the lineup by late August to help Seattle in the playoff race.

Then the most ill-timed injury of the year struck. Just one day after signing a two-year, $13 million contract extension, Roy Oswalt suffered a torn labrum and will miss the remainder of the season. He will have all off-season to rehab and is expected to be ready for opening day 2013.

Oswalt was one of the most important players on the team and was on pace to pitch over 130 innings of medium-high leverage baseball. Seattle is not able to truly replace Oswalt. Instead, it will rely on Mark Buehrle to work in some of those medium-high leverage situations. The team may also work a few starters longer into games, depending on the situation. Lastly, the team has called up Erasmo Ramirez and will rely on him and Kevin Millwood to pitch a lot of low-medium leverage innings that Buehrle worked when Oswalt was healthy.

The result is basically that everyone below the HL guys shifts up a half-step in the situations (in terms of leverage) in which they will have to pitch. In this way, The System is pretty well-equipped to handle injuries. There is not a gaping hole in the rotation. Instead, everything carries on like business as usual with a few tweaks to managerial strategy of when to put certain people in the game.

Anyway, Seattle sits at 52-40, tied for first in the division with Texas (51-39). And that takes us to draft time! (Due to the game only generating only two rounds of players for the June draft, I have generated a new draft pool, traded away the particular picks after rd 2 that Seattle had traded away, etc., and we will run another draft this year. Because the other draft DID have two rounds of players, I will slightly adjust down the # of players generated for the next couple of drafts to lower talent level a bit and make up for it. Thanks to OOTP support/Gary for this suggested fix.)

[Prodigal Son]

July 18, 2012

The Coach and front office went into the draft on the same page: they wanted an ace pitching prospect with a durable arm in the first round, a guy to eventually replace Roy Oswalt as the workhorse in close games. Unfortunately, none of the available draftees fit the bill by the time the Mariners were on the clock.

Instead, the team took the best available player, an outfielder named Sergio Ocampo. Scouting director Tom McNamara believes the 18 year-old Mexican immigrant is one of the fastest prospects in the draft. In addition, the young lefty has plus power potential, is a good enough defensive outfielder to play an above-average center field, and is also capable of playing the corner infield. Overall, Ocampo projects to be well above-average at everything with tremendous speed. As McNamara told The Coach, "He's not Ken Griffey Jr., but maybe a healthier, faster Jayson Werth who can play a plus center field." In 21 games of high school ball in Arkansas this year, Ocampo hit .552/.604/1.172 (OPS of 1.776) while slugging 9 HR and stealing 32(!) bases in 34 attempts.

[Prodigal Son]

With its second pick, the team was really set on finding a good arm, even if not a long-innings ace like it had hoped to find in the first round. It ultimately settled on a pitcher who does not project to be an ace, but who has great stuff and could potentially serve as an HL pitcher in The System.

Jose Moreno, 22, played his college ball at a high level of competition, racking up a 12-1 record at powerhouse Cal State-Fullerton with an ERA of 1.93. The hard-throwing righty struck out 175 in 121 innings and lit up the radar gun as high as 98 MPH. Of concern is that he surrendered 10 home runs and battled control issues at times, although he limited walks to just 29 on the season. Most scouts project Moreno as an above-average setup man at best due to the fact that he only throws two pitches. While that lack of a third pitch makes him slip on other teams' draft boards, it's no problem for The System because The Coach has no aspirations of making him (or anyone) a starter who has to pitch through a lineup 2-3 times.

Lead scout McNamara agrees with the overall assessment of Moreno as a setup-man type with the caveat that Moreno has a durable arm and threw six innings per start in college. McNamara envisions Moreno as a Shawn Kelley type, except with the ability to throw a lot more innings. Kelley has posted a 2.70 ERA for Seattle in 2012, striking out 28 and walking 12 in 33.1 innings.