This season, he moved from starting pitcher to closer, while also joining the batting lineup.
DELAND — Brooks Wilson could’ve spent this spring in some far-flung town, beginning a hopeful climb through the Texas Rangers minor-league system.
But he wanted to come back for his senior year at Stetson, sensing a big season ahead and willing to gamble that he’d still attract attention in the next MLB draft, which starts Monday.
“I knew I had a chance to be part of something special, a special season,” said Wilson, who likely could’ve never envisioned the dual roles he’d play in that special season.
A college team won’t normally put together a 45-11 won-loss record and reach the NCAA postseason without a quality bullpen closer and some capable bats. In Wilson, the Hatters got both — a shut-down closer and a middle-of-the-order designated hitter.
And both roles are new to Wilson, who was a key part of the starting rotation through his first three years, while only getting occasional at-bats.
As for moving from starter to closer: “I think that was pretty easy for him. The entire makeup was already there,” Hatters pitching coach Dave Therneau said. “The guy I like to have at the back end of a game — good athlete, competitor, obviously has to have good stuff, have some swing-and-miss pitches. Durability.
“Whenever I looked at what I considered to be all the attributes needed to close a game, it pointed straight to Brooks.”
It helps that his “stuff” includes nearly all of the available gamut: Two fastballs (two-seam and four) that reside in the low-90s, quality curve and slider, and a splitter Therneau calls “pro-quality.”
But how does a guy with 19 career college at-bats suddenly become such a productive offensive player?
“He has a good swing, a quick swing,” Therneau said. “For the pure interest of depth, he was going to be a part-time player offensively for us. Early on, he swung the bat well. You play the best nine, and there he went.”
Wilson enters this weekend’s NCAA Regional with a .287 average (second-best on the team), 26 RBIs (fifth-best), 28 runs (second-best) and has even stolen eight bases in 10 attempts. In his first three seasons, he’d always take batting practice with the offensive players (“just in case,” he said), but never cracked the lineup.
“I tried to talk the coaches into it. It just never happened until this year,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
But that all double duty ends when Stetson’s 2018 season finally comes to a close. Therneau, a former minor-league pitcher in the Reds organization, chuckled at the prospects of Wilson taking his two-way game to the professional level.
“I love him, but no, he can’t do that there,” the coach said.
Wherever Wilson lands in the big-league draft (24th round in 2017, presumably higher this year), his organization will eventually have to determine if he’ll be groomed as a starter or reliever.
He made 32 starts at Stetson through his junior season, with a combined 19-18 record. This season, all 31 appearances have been in relief, and it’s been almost exclusively high-quality relief: A 6-0 record, 2.13 ERA, 68 strikeouts in 55 innings and a nation-leading 20 saves, which broke Tommy Hickox’s school record.
“I don’t really have a preference,” Wilson said of his future status as starter or reliever. “I’ve shown success in both of those. I think it comes down to the guys who get paid to tell me which one.”
In some ways, he misses the challenges of being a starting pitcher.
“I liked being a starter, getting the same hitters out multiple times,” he said. “I think it’s a testament to how good a pitcher you are if you can do that.”
Throughout baseball history, many starting pitchers have moved to the bullpen, sometimes due to necessity and sometimes because they lack the endurance or variety of pitches a starter generally needs.
But there’s a big difference between mere reliever and closer. For whatever reasons, that 27th out is often so much more elusive than the 26 before it.
“It’s a mentality,” said Wilson, who also returned to Stetson to complete his four-year degree in business administration. “It’s not caring who’s at the plate, what the situation is. If you go up there and execute your pitch and execute it repeatedly, you will have success.
“I think if you take any of our guys and put them in that role, they’d be successful. It just happens to be me.”