As mentioned in an article last season, the Valencia far system has a total of 21 of those pitchers can throw the ball 100mph or better as part of GM Greathouse's youth flamethrower movement.
In what will be called a very unorthodox move by many, the Valencia front office is filling all 10 dev lab slots with relievers this spring. All 10 of those relievers are a subset of the 21 that can trigger the third digit in front of the decimal point of the radar gun.
When asked about this move, Greathouse cited many of the position players having average or above ratings being a reason he concentrated on pitchers. As far as why no major leaguers or AAA players being involved, the answer was not so clear outside of maybe his warped commitment to his latest experiment. Looking at the breakdown of players to be sent, three of the players were currently at the AA level, one is with the Rookie club while the remaining six are at the SA level.
While Harry Green and Ramon Lopez have projected overall ratings of 50, the remaining eight players have projected ratings of 40 or 45. Harry Green is the only player going for endurance training in the hopes of increasing his stamina rating of 1. Three other players are going to try and increase the movement of their pitches while the other six are going to try and find the plate a little more often.
This is yet another sign that the Stars are content with waiting one more season before they make a serious push at a playoff run.
The snapshot below gives the overall summary of the players currently tagged as the lab rats: