Freshmaker
Arbitration Eligible
Still cannot believe we got 6 innings of 1 hit, 1 run ball from a rookie who pitched like 9 innings this year. One helluva performance, and if we advance he will never have to buy another beer in this town again. Apparently Hart REALLY wanted to draft him in '16, and wanted us to use our 2nd 1st round pick on him.
https://theathletic.com/2142268/2020/10/16/rosenthal-a-former-linebacker-with-no-fear-bryse-wilson-proves-hes-worthy/
https://theathletic.com/2142268/2020/10/16/rosenthal-a-former-linebacker-with-no-fear-bryse-wilson-proves-hes-worthy/
“Best football player I ever coached.”
That’s what Pat Moser said on Thursday afternoon, talking about Bryse Wilson. It was high praise, considering that Moser also had coached Wilson’s younger brother, Payton, during his nine years at Orange H.S. in Hillsborough, N.C. And Payton, uh, is currently a starting linebacker at North Carolina State.
The way Moser tells it, Payton was the most talented player he had, Bryse the most competitive. Bryse’s main positions were wingback and linebacker. He also played running back, wide receiver and pretty much any other position where Orange needed him.
“He could do everything,” Moser said.
But baseball, as the Dodgers and the rest of the baseball world discovered on Thursday night, was Wilson’s true calling. Billy Best, the Braves’ scout in North Carolina for nearly two decades, said Wilson is the second-best pitcher he has seen from the area, behind only Madison Bumgarner. Another scout, the Athletics’ Neil Avent, nicknamed Wilson, “John Wayne,” for his stoic demeanor and sheer dominance.
Of course, it’s easy to be John Wayne in high school. On Thursday night, Wilson was at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, an unproven rookie facing future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. And on a night when the Braves could have started to crumble, he again played the part, helping the team defeat the Dodgers, 10-2, and move within one victory of their first World Series appearance since 1999.
Wilson, 22, had spent most of the season at the Braves’ alternate site before making two starts in late September, including a revelatory five-inning performance against the Marlins in the team’s division clincher. But before Thursday night, he had thrown a total of 42 2/3 innings in the majors. His career ERA was 5.91.
Yet, his task was to pitch as deep into the game as possible and save the bullpen, knowing the Braves lacked an obvious starter for the next night and would rely mostly, if not entirely, on relievers in Game 5. Against Kershaw, who was making his 28th postseason start, the only chance the Braves stood appeared to be through what baseball writers call a “reverse lock,” a game with an outcome seemingly so preordained, it could only end in the opposite result.
The previous night, the Dodgers had rocked another Braves rookie right-hander, Kyle Wright, knocking him out in the first inning of a 15-3 victory. Undaunted, Wilson decided to follow the same plan. Sort of like John Wayne might have done.
“Don’t lose him.”
That’s what John Hart, the Braves’ former president of baseball operations, said on the day of the 2016 draft, telling the team’s former scouting director, Brian Bridges, to make sure Wilson became a Brave.
The Braves had a plan. First, they would select Ian Anderson with the No. 3 overall pick and pay him below the recommended slot value, knowing the high-school right-hander would be willing to accept less because some projections had him going in the 12-to-15 range. Then they would redirect the savings to other players they would pay above slot, making their draft deeper.
Anderson agreed to a $4 million bonus, $2.5 million below slot. But Wilson wasn’t the next player the Braves picked. They took two left-handers, Joey Wentz and Kyle Muller, with the 40th and 44th overall selections, then chose catcher Brett Cumberland and left-hander Drew Harrington, gambling Wilson would remain on the board. Hart had read Best’s report on Wilson, the one that said, “best pitcher from my area since Madison Bumgarner.” The scout had praised not only Wilson’s stuff, but also his makeup and toughness. Hart was intrigued by Wilson’s prowess in both baseball and football, enamored with his athleticism. Throughout the early rounds, he clamored for Bridges to grab him.
“He would have fired my ass if we didn’t get him,” said Bridges, who later was dismissed by current Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos in January 2019 and now is a national cross-checker for the Giants. “I was scared to death.”
When did Hart want Bridges to take Wilson?
“Every pick,” Bridges said. “He loved him.”
Best had built a relationship with Wilson and his family, giving the Braves confidence they could sign the pitcher wherever they took him. Bridges wanted to “lengthen” the draft, with the idea of landing as many quality players as possible. In the fourth round, with the 109th overall pick, the Braves finally took Wilson. They then signed him for $1.2 million, well above what a player in that spot normally would receive.
There was only one problem.
“Wilson had a chip on his shoulder when he went in the fourth,” Bridges said. “He was out to prove everyone wrong. He told me when he signed, ‘I will be the first to the big leagues.’”
Sure enough, he made it happen. Wilson made his debut at age 20 on Aug. 20, 2018, becoming the first high-school player from the class of 2016 to reach the majors.
“He doesn’t know who he is yet.”
That’s what Braves manager Brian Snitker said late Thursday afternoon, talking about Wilson in a Zoom call with the Fox broadcasters. Snitker freely admitted he had no idea how Wilson would perform in his first outing since Sept. 27. Afterward, the manager said he would have been happy if Wilson had just lasted four innings. Wilson went six, allowing only one hit, a leadoff home run by Edwin Rios in the third, and one walk.
From the moment the game started, Wilson was on the attack, throwing first-pitch strikes to 16 of the 20 batters he faced and fastballs on 51 of his 74 pitches (68.9 percent). He recorded all five of his strikeouts on his fastball, touching 96 mph and averaging 94.7. The Dodgers went only 1-for-15 against the pitch, their lowest batting average against any starting pitcher’s fastball this season, according to Inside Edge.
By the time his outing was complete, Wilson not only had outlasted and outpitched Kershaw, but also had become the third-youngest pitcher in major-league history with a postseason outing of six-plus innings and one or zero hits. Michael Wacha in 2013 and Bruce Kison in 1971 were the only younger pitchers to record that achievement. The Braves are now the first team to start three different rookies in three consecutive postseason games, but hardly by design. Injuries to Mike Soroka and Cole Hamels, regression by Mike Foltynewicz and a decision by Félix Hernández to opt out of the season because of COVID-19 concerns created openings for Anderson, Wright and, ultimately, Wilson. Even for a franchise with a rich tradition in scouting and player development, this achievement ranks near the top.
Both Anderson and Wright were top five picks, but Wilson, the former linebacker with no fear, carries his own edge. Snitker described Wilson as a “flat-line guy,” saying he has loved the pitcher’s makeup as long as he had known him. Wilson, in his post-game interview on Fox, said he had no problem blocking out the magnitude of the game, or the fact his opponent was Kershaw.
“The biggest thing for me was at the end of the day, yes it’s the postseason, yes it’s the championship series, crucial game, but for me it’s just baseball,” Wilson said. “It’s me throwing the ball to the catcher, getting hitters out. That was the big thing for me to help me stay calm, help me do what I did.”
Afterward, Wilson’s parents, Chad and Tracey, shouted and waved to him from the lower level of Globe Life Field. They had flown from North Carolina to Texas to see him pitch in person for the first time this season, but were prohibited from greeting him up close because they are not part of the Braves’ protective bubble. They also could not stay long, because they are flying back to North Carolina on Saturday to watch Payton and N.C. State host Duke.
“For them to come out here and make that sacrifice means the world to me,” Bryse said.
Remember, he once was the best football player in the family. He’ll just have to settle for being a John Wayne in baseball.
