By John Erardi
The CincinnatiEnquirer

In the 19 player drafts from 1985 (the year the Reds drafted Barry Larkin in the first round out of the University of Michigan) through 2003 (when the Reds drafted Ryan Wagner out of the University of Houston), the Reds have gotten only a handful of pitchers to the big leagues.

None has won more than 12 games (Jack Armstrong, 12-9, 1990).

In fact, of the top two pitchers the Reds drafted every year from 1982 through 2003 - a total of 36 pitchers - only seven have reached the big leagues and only four of those lasted more than three major-league seasons (Armstrong, Scott Scudder, Brett Tomko, Tim Pugh and C.J. Nitkowski).

One of these 36 pitchers was named Todd Etler, who was drafted in 1992 as a senior out of Covington Catholic High School.

He lasted seven years, all in the minor leagues.

"I can't sit here and say anything bad about the Reds," said Etler, 30, who conducts pitching clinics three nights a week at In the Yard, a Florence baseball facility. "They were trying and I was trying. Things didn't work out.

"My original injury - my shoulder - isn't something that could be prevented," Etler said. "I never felt I was being abused, never felt I threw too many days in a row, too many innings. If that ever happened, it was my choice."

That "choice" has now been removed by the Reds. After burning through upwards of $12 million on drafting, signing and trying to develop starting pitching the past five years - with almost nothing to show from it - the Reds have begun treating the pitchers with tender loving care. Nobody ever throws more than 75 pitches in one game.

The edict came way too late to help Etler.

Four arm surgeries later, the only thing for which Etler can fault the Reds - and this is in retrospect, he admits - is that they made winning a priority, as opposed to developing players for the major leagues.

Young pitchers simply aren't physically ready to begin pitching so much.

If there is one consistency in what former and some recent Reds farmhands say about the Reds, it is that they have tended to overuse their pitchers in the minors.

"The last game as a senior before I got drafted, I was 90-94 on the (radar) gun," Etler said. "I literally didn't touch 90 again for four years. Their thing was, 'What happened? We drafted you in the third round - you were the first pitcher we took - what happened?' They posed it to me as a question, as opposed to, 'Let's look what you're doing now.' Heck, I didn't know what happened. I felt like saying: 'You guys are the ones with 20 years in the game, not me. I'm just starting!' "

Now, if the Reds draft a kid out of high school who is throwing 90-94 and he doesn't touch 90 in rookie ball, they're going to shut him down.

Now, they'll say: "Let's rest it. Let's get an MRI on this one. Let's figure something out. This is not the guy we drafted."

In 1996, after four years as a starter, Etler was switched to the bullpen. He was still in Single-A.

"By 1997, I was back up to 90," Etler said. "I was told, 'E.T., to our knowledge, for the first time since you signed, you hit 90 tonight.'"

Armed with the radar gun, the Reds have produced bullpen pitchers but not starters.

E-mail jerardi@enquirer.com