A CALL TO
ARMS – VOLUME 2 – MATT BOWMAN by Tom Brennan
Last week, in volume 1, I
wrote about Logan Verrett, who shows all signs of being major league ready. And now we move on to Matt Bowman, who is
flying through the system.
Matt, perhaps due to his stature, as a 6’0, 165 righty, was drafted in the 12th round in 2012 out of Ivy League Princeton. A pitcher with smarts – I like that. Smart beats dumb most any day.
Matt, perhaps due to his stature, as a 6’0, 165 righty, was drafted in the 12th round in 2012 out of Ivy League Princeton. A pitcher with smarts – I like that. Smart beats dumb most any day.
In his career to date, the
now-23 year old is 22-14, 3.06, 1.20 WHIP, a very solid 270 Ks in 291 innings,
and a commendably low level of homers surrendered (just 17 so far in his career,
very similar to my next Call to Arms article candidate, Tyler Pill). A K/BB ratio of nearly 4:1. Gotta like it.
But he’s gone where Tyler
as of yet has mostly not – AAA. Tyler
had one rough AAA outing – that’s it.
Matt has met the PCL head on and lived to tell about it. He had 7 largely successful outings covering
36 innings, where he went 3-2 with a sterling (for the PCL) 3.47 ERA and just a
single home run surrendered. So, after a
short 29 inning cup of coffee, post-draft, in Brooklyn in 2012, he shot all the
way to AAA in less than 2 full years.
That speaks volumes.
He can also respond to
adversity. He had a lousy May in AA
(0-3, 27 runs allowed in 30 innings), so how would he handle it? He was stellar the rest of the way in 2014. Smart pitchers adjust. Smarter pitchers adjust faster. He dominates righties, and needs some more
fine tuning vs. lefties, but is OK there too.
He has been reputed to have
a delivery similar to that of Tim Lincecum, and normally gets up into the low
90s in terms of velocity. I read in an
Anthony DiComo post from 2012 that per Paul DePodesta, he hit 95 in his
pre-draft workout, so the velocity is certainly acceptable. And he was described as very athletic.
So, compared to Logan Verrett
(drafted one round earlier than Tyler), Matt is cut from similar cloth, but appears
to have a bit more velocity, but less AAA experience.
Matt is another guy who in
far leaner times in the Mets’ farm system we would have been salivating over as
perhaps our top pitching prospect.
However, he, like the other
starter prospects in our minor league system, faces a very crowded pitching
rotation. I listed Logan Verrett the
other day as currently the Mets’ 10th option for their 5 man rotation. I’d say that makes Mr. Bowman #11, just ahead
of Tyler Pill.
I can see the Mets
seasoning Matt further in Vegas in 2015, while seeing how the pitching logjam
unfolds. But maybe Matt gets traded to a
team that needs pitching and could use a solid 4-5 starter soon. Perhaps as soon as April 2015.
Matt impresses me. I’m sure he impresses the Mets’ braintrust
too.
What say you, dear reader?
3 comments:
With an anticipated rookie of the year win for Jake deGrom, makes me wonder if I wrote a similar article about deGrom last year at this time, if it would have read very similarly to what I wrote about Bowman above. Could we get that lucky in back-to-back years?
Bowman is an example of why I am in favor of trading away all three of the veterans -- Colon, Niese and Gee -- in order to get the money for an impact bat. You have Montero for one of the 4/5 slots and then someone like Verrett or Bowman or Gorski holding down the 5 slot until the Super Two deadline passes.
I would not be opposed to trading Colon, Niese and Gee and using Verrett, Bowman, Pill, or Gorski until Super 2, as you suggest. It would be risky for risk-averse Sandy to trade all 3, but if the value is right, do it.
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