Getting to the height of the matter: some executives believe the taller the pitcher, the better: often a player's size will dictate how teams make decisions regarding draft selections.

MARINERS ACE JAMIE MOYER isn't easily intimidated anymore, but when he was 21, he found one lineup overwhelming.

"I remember in rookie ball, the first time we played the Yankees' rookie team," Moyer said of the 1984 matchup. "It was like a team of giants."

When 6-foot-8 right-hander J.R. Richard stormed the major leagues in the 1970s with the Houston Astros, it got baseball executives thinking about the advantages of the altitudinous, particularly in pitching. The Yankees were most aggressive and continue to operate under the theory that height makes right--they drafted 46 players in 2002, all taller than six feet.

The Yankees are no longer alone in the search for skyscrapers. The average major league pitcher now is nearly 6-3, and less than seven percent of the pitchers on season-opening 40-man rosters--which include a team's major leaguers and top prospects--are listed under six feet.

Former NBA players and washed-out college basketball players are being courted regularly, and several teams have dispatched scouts to an area in China where there are reportedly more than 200 seven-footers.

"I find myself writing up a six-foot guy as a short right-hander, and the guy is six feet tall," said Roger Jongewaard, Mariners vice president of scouting and player development. "He's not really short, but for pitching he is."

If Moyer, who is optimistically listed at six feet, were a right-hander, the man with the best winning percentage in the majors since 1996 probably would not be in the big leagues at all. Height is used to separate right-handers of similar ability, but lefties are mostly exempt.