My rankings
is solely subjective and based on nothing more than what is in my head at time
I’m writing this. I’ve followed the Mets minor league players for many years
and I feel I can recognize talent at various levels of their development. What
I have failed at is how to determine when this talent seems to diminish. It’s
amazing how many first round picks never make it in this game.
I’m old
school, so you won’t seem much SABR-discussion here, I do research and, when I
find a good quote or two, I’ll add them to my analysis, but, like I said in the
beginning of this post, most of this us subjective.
Let’s get
started.
#25 – RHP Matthew Bowman – 23-years old – 6-0, 165 – R/R
Drafted in 13th round of
2012 draft – Princeton
2012 – 12-G, 1-start, 2.45, 0.95, 29.1-IP, 30-K
2013 – 2-teams: 21-starts, 3.05, 1.15, 127-IP, 116-K
2014 - 2-teams:
24-G, 23-starts, 3.21, 1.31, 134.2-IP, 124-K
Bowman
probably gets pretty sick of being asked all those questions about his alma
mater. It’s not like he went to the Fort Walton Beach Junior College in the
Florida panhandle.
You’re also
not going to find his name in the Baseball America’s Top 500 list that comes
out prior to each draft.
And his last
college stat line was 56-IP, 4.66, 58-K, 17-BB, 63-H.
From ‘3rd
& Longenhagen’,[i]
a small baseball blog –
Bowman's
stuff doesn't blow you away but it's nothing to scoff at. His fastball sits
88-89mph touching as high as 91mph. That's average velocity but the pitch plays
down a bit due to how straight it is both vertically and horizontally. Bowman
is already at a disadvantage due to his height. He's not going to get natural
downhill plane on his fastball. At the next level he's going to have to find a
way to make the heater wiggle or sink.
Bowman
features three secondary offerings; a changeup, curveball and slider. Of the
three, he worked most often with a low-70s curve which suited him just fine
against Ivy League hitters but likely won't garner swings and misses from
professionals. It has decent depth but its break isn't sharp. The slider shows
much more potential. It was inconsistent but flashed nasty, two-plane movement
here and there. Scouts nearby mentioned their desire for him to use it more
often. Bowman's most consistent off-speed pitch was his changeup which sat in
the upper 70s. It showed promising fade and run but Bowman noticeably
decelerates his arm.
So, when we
all get done with this, all this short ex-shortstop (is every Mets pitcher and
ex-shortstop?) can do is just flat out pitch.
Outlook –
This is another of those mid-ranged
pitching prospects that would be a shoe-in for a back end starter in any other
rotation; however, it looks like the Mets back enders will by next year be guys
that would qualify as front ended anywhere else.
Also, just
how many of these pitchers can be put in the Mets bullpen?
Watch for
him to start in Las Vegas in 2015 and then keep looking for his name in trade
rumors for a multi-amount of players coming out of the Mets caulders.
2 comments:
Bowman suffers from being a solid starter prospect without elite stuff in an organization flush with elite, power arms. At a different time, we'd be more excited.
But he may show up in Citi, or be a valued trade chip, in 2014.
2015, i meant.
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