A baseball team’s best hitter can only bat once every nine times.

Collegiate starting pitchers often only take the mound once a week.

Even elite defenders have limits to their range.

Baseball isn’t a sport won by one player.

It often takes more than nine just to win a single game, much less a national championship.

Save for all of No. 1 UCLA baseball’s headline-worthy players, its depth may be what sets it apart from the field.

“There’s tremendous challenges,” said coach John Savage. “College baseball has changed. The portal – it’s an arms race. … You’ve got to really stay on top of things each and every day and make sure that you’re putting your playing in your program in the best possible position to have success.”

While versatility remains valuable in baseball, it may be hard for people familiar with only the 2026 team to think of junior first baseman Mulivai Levu starting at third base while former Bruin Cody Schrier was out with injury in 2024, or sophomore right-hander Wylan Moss getting an at-bat – and his first base hit since his sophomore year of high school – in UCLA’s first Big Ten game after the team’s designated hitter came in to catch.

An injury-ridden 2024 pitching staff meant redshirt senior linebacker JonJon Vaughns tossed 20.1 innings despite almost exclusively serving as a position player his previous three seasons, and two former UCLA Club Baseball players made the roster as the only southpaws.

Come the 2025 Men’s College World Series, a trio of pitchers appeared in both games of the de facto doubleheader that ended the Bruins’ season, and the team determined its best option in its elimination game against then-No. 3 seed Arkansas was handing the ball to Cody Delvecchio.

Although the right-hander was a 12th-round selection in the 2025 MLB Draft, he had not made an appearance in over two and a half months before facing the Razorbacks because of academic ineligibility.

But Savage seems to have a surplus by the look of this year’s roster.

“The main emphasis and the majority of the players will always be more homegrown,” Savage said. “We really like the construction of this roster. … There’s a lot of versatility.”

The Bruins had four relievers named to the NCBWA’s Stopper of the Year watchlist Tuesday. While sophomore right-hander Easton Hawk and junior right-hander Cal Randall have captured attention since lighting up the radar gun in high school, the two remaining arms tell a different story.

Redshirt junior left-hander Chris Grothues and senior right-hander Jack O’Connor tossed 0.2 and zero innings, respectively, across the entirety of their collegiate careers – previously hampered by injury – before emerging last season to provide 32.2 and 27 innings each, the latter with a 1.67 ERA.

“Everyone wants to come beat us,” O’Connor said. “We obviously need to prepare for that. … I’ll be bracing for that role (setup man) again – I’m pretty excited for it.”

Senior right-hander Finn McIlroy could be another hidden gem.

The Carlsbad, California, local is a gifted athlete – originally committing to UCLA as a dual-sport athlete in baseball and water polo before prioritizing the former. While McIlroy pitched just 18 innings in 2023, he won the Saturday starter job to begin 2024 before an arm injury sustained March 9, 2024 has sidelined him ever since.

McIlroy underwent Tommy John surgery in March 2025, and is hopeful to return to the mound by midseason, Savage said.

UCLA also returns its left-handed junior catching duo of Cashel Dugger and Blake Balsz, who had a .421 on-base percentage in 58 games played and a .415 clip in 45 games, respectively, last season.

Not to mention, sophomore Kasen Khansarinia, who joined the program listed as an outfielder and middle infielder, will enter his second season as the team’s likely third catcher.

“Both of them (Balsz and Khansarinia) have gotten a lot better all around,” Dugger said. “We all work so well together. … It’s good competition within the core, but it’s also a lot of having each other’s back.”

UCLA’s 40-member roster includes 25 returning players.

And even recent arrivals, like transfers junior right-hander Logan Reddemann and junior center fielder Will Gasparino, arrived in Westwood with prior experience playing alongside their new teammates.

In the Cape Cod League this past summer, Reddemann played with Dugger on the Orleans Firebirds, while Gasparino played with junior right-hander Justin Lee on the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox.

Not to mention, both Reddemann and Gasparino hail from Southern California, as do 29 other Bruins.

But the canary in the coal mine may be how the team is everywhere but on the diamond.

“Whether that’s getting a bite to eat, or everybody heads to the beach … something special about this team is how much time we like to spend with each other,” Dugger said.

And if there’s anything better than a beach day, it’s a beach day with a dog.

“I guess he’s the team dog,” O’Connor said of his four-month-old retriever named Petey. “I don’t know about the dugout yet, … but he’s been awesome. He actually went to the beach with Roch (junior shortstop Roch Cholowsky) the other day, saw the Hollywood sign. Yeah, guys love hanging out with him.”