John Sickles had an interesting post last night that I thought would be interesting to share. He gives a run down of Giants closer 's road to the majors with a bunch of stuff that I didn't know about.

Wilson was a 24th round pick in 2003, out of Louisiana State University. He was a good college pitcher but blew out his elbow and had Tommy John surgery two months before the draft. He signed, completed his rehab, then pitched 57 innings of relief for Hagerstown in the Sally League in 2004, posting a 5.34 ERA with a 41/22 K/BB and 63 hits allowed. He didn't throw hard, looked out-of-shape physically, and drew complaints from scouts that he didn't take the game seriously. There was no statistical or scouting reason to include him in the 2005 book. He would have received a Grade C at that point, waiting to see if getting another year past the surgery would result in a rebound.

I knew that Wilson was a late round flier pick that was coming off an injury that the Giants essentially tried to buy low on. What I didn't realize was the stuff about him being so out of shape. That is something that is hard to believe giving his reputation as a workout fiend now.

I am glad the Giants stuck with him because at this point, he was pretty much off the radar.

Wilson did rebound off that initial season. Coming back the next season, he was throwing hard again in the low to mid 90's and his numbers rebounded. The surprising thing here is that his secondary pitch was a curve ball that was described as a good pitch. That was lost as we moved up the ladder and developed a nice slider/cutter.

Overall, this is a nice article and if you weren't following the minors closely in the early and mid 2000's, there is a lot of good information and nuggets to take from this.

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