After missing the last two seasons, former fireballing closer Brian Wilson hopes to return to the big leagues as a knuckleball pitcher.
The last pitch Brian Wilson threw in a major league game produced a fly ball to deep center field off the bat of Drew Stubbs. It was caught for the final out of the top of the ninth inning in a game Wilson’s Dodgers would win in 12 innings. That game was more than two years ago, on September 27, 2014.
Wilson finished the 2014 season with a 4.66 ERA and 1.61 WHIP. He struck out 24.2 percent of the batters he faced, which ranked 73rd among relievers with 40 or more innings that year. He also walked 13 percent of the batters he faced. Only 10 relievers were worse. Wilson was below replacement level that year and it came after he’d missed most of the previous two seasons recovering from his second Tommy John surgery.
Wilson’s average fastball velocity was 92.1 mph in the last year he pitched, which was 4.5 mph below his peak in 2009. He also very obviously had issues with control. Despite being out of baseball for two years, Wilson never claimed he was retired and is now making a comeback… as a knuckleball pitcher. According to this article, this isn’t a new thought that suddenly popped into Wilson’s brain: “I always said that once my career was over I was coming back as a knuckleballer. I’m good with it. Man, I get to play a game. It’s going to be pretty fun.”
At 35 years old, Wilson could pitch for five to 10 more years if he develops an effective knuckleball. Pitchers who rely on the pitch often last well into their 40s. R.A. Dickey will be 42 this year and is expected to be in the Atlanta Braves’ starting rotation. Tim Wakefield started 23 games for the Red Sox in 2011 when he was 44 years old. Tom Candiotti pitched his last season when he was 41. Charlie Hough started 21 games for the Marlins in 1994 at the age of 46. Phil Niekro had 26 starts as a 48-year-old in 1987 and his brother Joe pitched until he was 43.
Of course, those guys had been throwing the knuckleball for years. Wilson is trying to master the pitch well enough in a short period of time to get back to the big leagues. There’s no doubt that he’ll work hard to accomplish this. He was once on the Jim Rome radio show explaining his offseason workout. He described it like this: “I took away heavy weights, because they’re not good for ulnar nerves, they’re not good for your elbow with the dumbbells. So I took it to a new level and I said we’re going to go crazy and completely insane and that’s what we’re doing. And when I do my conditioning it’s about 15 to 20 minutes of non-stop and heart rate’s at about 410. And doctors are like ‘I don’t even know how that exists,’ but I can show you through video.”
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Okay, so I’m not a doctor (and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night), but I doubt Brian Wilson can get his heart rate to 410. The general rule to find your maximum heart rate is to take 220 and subtract your age. It doesn’t sound possible. But that’s Brian Wilson, always a little on the crazy side. He reminds me of the character Rafi on the TV show The League. He even had the black Rafi-esque beard back in the day.
On Wednesday, Wilson was at USC for a bullpen session. He threw for about a half hour and most of his pitches were knuckleballs. He claims that it’s “MVP/Cy Young” caliber. Unlike most knuckleball pitchers, Wilson throws his from multiple arm angles. He throws it with the tips of his fingers and showed the ability to change speeds. He’s hoping to get a shot with a major league team during spring training.
Way back in 1963, there was a major league fireballer who was 21-7 with a 2.53 ERA as a 24-year-old. He threw 249 1/3 innings that year, then 271 1/3 innings the following year. Then his arm started to hurt and his fastball left him. He struggled through four years with a painful shoulder and transitioned into a knuckleball pitcher. The transformation was complete in 1969. He started that season with the expansion Seattle Mariners before being traded to the Houston Astros. In 122 2/3 innings in relief, he had a 3.96 ERA.
Next: R.A. Dickey's Toronto Legacy
That pitcher was Jim Bouton, author of the controversial book Ball Four. One of Bouton’s famous quotes would seem to apply to Brian Wilson’s attempt at prolonging his big league career: “…you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”