11/4/14

Tom Brennan - A CALL TO ARMS - VOLUME 2: MATT BOWMAN


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.

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:

Tom Brennan said...

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?

Reese Kaplan said...

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.

Tom Brennan said...

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.