young catchers in baseball," Colletti said. "He was young and he also had experience, and he was a left-handed hitter and he'd come from an organization that had been very successful in developing players."

The Giants were also deep in pitching, which is what every team needs. In addition to Nathan, the Twins wanted either Bonser or Cain. Both had been first-round Draft picks -- Bonser in 2000 and Cain in '02 -- and were highly regarded prospects.

"The key to the deal was Nathan," Krivsky said. "Bonser was close to the big leagues and Liriano was the third guy in the deal. We tried to get Matt Cain. Our scout Mike Radcliff was very familiar with him, but the Giants wouldn't give him up. But we had good reportsabout Liriano from Instructional League.

"We liked Nathan. We thought he had a chance to close. I saw a guy with a really good arm, power slider, his arm action and delivery worked well together and everything was in sync."

The Giants had taken Nathan in the sixth round of 1995 Draft out of Stony Brook University. He was drafted as a shortstop but switched to pitcher on scouting director Dick Tidrow's recommendation. He was out in 2001 and most of '02 because of Tommy John surgery, but he came back strong in 2003 as a setup reliever, going 12-4 with a 2.96 ERA in 78 games.

Nathan went to camp with the Twins as a candidate to be the closer, but Ryan wasn't impressed at first. Nathan started out slow