People are amazing our rotation has been the worse in baseball. Now we're complaining about a top 30 prospect who has potential to be a solid pitcher on this staff for the next 5 plus years. Just stop.
Plympton91 said:Yeah, I agree. It would be great to have a good #4 starter like Santiago and that's a good wish cast for Owens. Everything in baseball is percentages. Owens might live up to the ceiling in his scouting reports and be Tom Glavine someday. That would be great. But, if I recall, Glavine sucked for most of his first 2 years at least. The Red Sox don't need any more #4 starters and can't live through 50 sucky starts from Owens before he becomes Glavine , because they already have one of the worst pitching staffs ever assembled by a Red Sox front office.
Owens has a four-pitch repertoire, adding a slider this year to his fastball, changeup and curveball. While the fastball and curveball are quality pitches, especially given his extension with a 6’6” frame, it is the changeup that is his piece de resistance. Thrown with the same arm motion as the fastball, the change comes in 10-15 mph slower than the fastball, a devastating combination.
jk333 said:Hamels is a good comp because of his dominant change up. He works in the 89-94 range, consistently 91-92. Scouting reports have Owens at 88-92; we will see if he's toward the high or low end of that range. Right handers throw on average 2 mph harder than lefties, 91 vs 89. That would put Owens at average or better. If Owens change up is as advertised, it will be more about commanding the strike zone than his fastball.
Only 2 of the top 30 (qualified) pitchers in ERA have a BB/9 above 3. (Volquez and Martinez) The average fastball velocity of the top 30 pitchers is just over 92, they walk about 2.3 batters per 9 innings and strike out a batter every inning. Owens averaging 90 mph would be fine for a lefty - walking more than 3 per 9 is much worse.
So what youre saying is if he displaces some other guy who hasn't been serviceable and doesn't have the upside, its a lateral move at worst? I'd agree.Plympton91 said:But, if I recall, Glavine sucked for most of his first 2 years at least. The Red Sox don't need any more #4 starters and can't live through 50 sucky starts from Owens before he becomes Glavine , because they already have one of the worst pitching staffs ever assembled by a Red Sox front office.
jk333 said:Hamels is a good comp because of his dominant change up. He works in the 89-94 range, consistently 91-92. Scouting reports have Owens at 88-92; we will see if he's toward the high or low end of that range. Right handers throw on average 2 mph harder than lefties, 91 vs 89. That would put Owens at average or better. If Owens change up is as advertised, it will be more about commanding the strike zone than his fastball.
Only 2 of the top 30 (qualified) pitchers in ERA have a BB/9 above 3. (Volquez and Martinez) The average fastball velocity of the top 30 pitchers is just over 92, they walk about 2.3 batters per 9 innings and strike out a batter every inning. Owens averaging 90 mph would be fine for a lefty - walking more than 3 per 9 is much worse.
jscola85 said:
Hamels' throws his fastball at an average velocity of 92+ MPH.
jscola85 said:Hamels' throws his fastball at an average velocity of 92+ MPH. The difference of 2 MPH is huge sometimes. I like Owens but placing expectations on him of guys like Hamels and Lester is unrealistic. He lacks that raw power to dominate like that.
jscola85 said:That's Hamels' career number. He's been at 92 MPH on his four seam fastball the last two years.
Why does working up in the zone give away height advantage?Pilgrim said:He looked decent. The stuff was maybe even a notch better than expected, but wow does he work up in the zone with his fastball.
Not only does that seem to be a bad place to put a mediocre heater, but he seems to be giving away his height advantage. He has been a flyball pitcher at AAA, so something to think about.
SouthernBoSox said:Why does working up in the zone give away height advantage?
How sad is it that after one start, you could make an argument that he is the 3 or 4th best pitcher on the 25 man roster. I am sure he will catch the suck from the rest of the pitching staff.Soxfan in Fla said:It wasn't a spectacular start but he did enough to keep his team in the game. The same cannot be said for the bullpen gas can brigade.
jscola85 said:Velocity was really encouraging, though missed his spots a fair bit. Didn't fully appreciate just how much he was working high in the zone until seeing that chart. Will be interesting to see if that's a trend that continues. Wei Yin Chen has had some pretty good success with similar stuff by spotting his fastball in the upper part of the zone.
Is that the hitters sitting on his changeups in certain situations? Seemed like they were going to the well a lot. And also like something he can avoid pretty easily once he settles in and his command is there.Savin Hillbilly said:He certainly threw a lot of pitches way upstairs. He also threw a fair number of pitches in the heart of the zone--and didn't get hurt on any of them. Oddly, all the damage the Yankees did was on pitches out of the zone--outside or low--to RHH:
nvalvo said:The slider gives him both a backup plan for the curveball and another out pitch against lefties. If he could start to locate the slider in under the hands of righties, Andrew Miller style, it could add another dimension, and (I think) it could raise his ceiling quite a bit.
The slider has lots of horizontal movement (from -1" to -9"), rather like a Dice-K slurve, and looks like it would be tough on LHB. Ellsbury is not usually especially vulnerable to lefties, but he looked badly fooled on those swings. The chart, though, suggests that its movement is not that easy to control, so I doubt that he'll ever be able to bust RHB inside with the slider. He's more likely to hit the batter.Savin Hillbilly said:I agree. To lefties it can be a swing-and-miss pitch (he got Ellsbury swinging on it twice last night); he just has to keep it down and out of the middle of the zone. And it will help him vary his approach to hitters as he faces them a third or fourth time in a game.
Well no shit. John Smoltz used to be a #3. That's not what they mean.Al Zarilla said:All of this #3 or #4 type starter...a lot depends on the staff you're on. A #3 or 4 on this team this spring or summer could still be garbage. A 3 or a 4 on a Cardinals or Mets team right now, that would be something.
Papelbon's Poutine said:Well no shit. John Smoltz used to be a #3. That's not what they mean.
Here's a good write up on it from BA ((via SBN ). http://www.minorleagueball.com/2012/8/7/3226335/defining-1-2-3-4-5-starters
Owens certainly seems a #3 at this point. That's not to say he can't rise up, but that's the definition they are working with when they call him that.
Well OK, I'd never seen such a definition. Do you think it has caught on though? How do you fit Randy Johnson in there? I don't think you could say he ever had plus/plus command, but he was certainly an ace. His stuff was so nasty that hardly anybody could hit it, e.g., his slider, no matter where he put it. Outlier, I guess.Papelbon's Poutine said:Well no shit. John Smoltz used to be a #3. That's not what they mean.
Here's a good write up on it from BA ((via SBN ). http://www.minorleagueball.com/2012/8/7/3226335/defining-1-2-3-4-5-starters
Owens certainly seems a #3 at this point. That's not to say he can't rise up, but that's the definition they are working with when they call him that.
Al Zarilla said:Well OK, I'd never seen such a definition. Do you think it has caught on though?
Good clarification there, Ras. Thanks.Rasputin said:
I think it has caught on among people who follow prospects at least semi-seriously because it's the standard that the prospect pundits use. It's what soxprospects.com uses. So when they're calling Henry Owens "a solid number three with a chance for more" they're talking about a guy who could be the best starter in a decent rotation if he hits his upside. That's a guy you can pitch in the first game of a playoff series and sometimes have the edge in the pitching matchup and even if you don't, you're not being completely outclassed.
But people see the "number three" terminology and, especially in Boston, they assume that means he's never going to be better than the third best pitcher in a decent rotation, and that's just nuts.
Now Owens probably isn't going to hit his ceiling, but that doesn't mean he can't be a damn good pitcher.
Henry Owens, one of the Red Sox’ top prospects, made his major-league debut on August 4, 2015. The 23-year-old wasn’t eased into the big leagues; the Sox threw him out against the Yankees, in Yankee Stadium. Even though the game ended up a blowout, 13-3 against the Sox, Owens performed creditably enough, leaving the game in the 6th inning with a 2-1 lead before the bullpen imploded spectacularly.
In the 30-season span from 1986 to 2015, Owens is the sixth Red Sox to allow 10 hits and punch out 10 in the same game. All five of his predecessors had at least one top-five finish in Cy Young balloting in their careers: John Lackey, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, and Bruce Hurst. In that same 30-season stretch, he joins Jon Lester, Aaron Sele, Jeff Sellers, and Clemens as the only Red Sox pitchers with 10-strikeout games at the age of 23 or younger.