The D'Backs announced that they have agreed to sign Micah Owings to a minor league contract. The right-hander will also get an invitation to Spring Training. The D'Backs intend to use Owings as a pitcher and occasional first baseman, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports (on Twitter).
Owings posted a 5.40 ERA in 33 1/3 innings for the Reds last year, striking out 9.5 batters per nine. The 28-year-old walked 6.8 batters per nine, however, and didn't fare quite as well as usual at the plate.
Owings, who won a Silver Slugger with the D'Backs in 2007, is one of baseball's best-hitting pitchers. He has a remarkable .293/.323/.538 career line with 9 homers in 198 plate appearances. He strikes out at a Mark Reynolds-like rate, but can hit the ball a long way, especially against southpaws.
Agent Scott Boras represents Owings.
Again?
I know they need to replace all the home runs they lost, I guess this is just the “Towers way” of doing that
welcome back, welcome back!
Nice to have a pitcher you can use as a pinch-hitter. He had 3 HRs in 2009. Long live Brooks Kieschnick!
Coming from a reds fan, i will REALLY miss Owings. I liked him as a starter and loved his hitting ability. He diserved better last season out of the bullpen as either him, Carlos Fisher or Matt Maloney were the odd guys out in the pen that just took up space and never pitched in a regular 9 inning game unless it was a blow out. Then when he did pitch, his control would suck as he hadn’t pitched in a decade… Owings rarely pitched unless it was an extra innings game as he would appear in the 10th. I will really miss him and hope he somehow makes the D-Backs Rotation next season and flourishes.
~Corey
I don’t know why he doesn’t just convert full time to a position player…
He said he doesn’t want to. He was asked and he said unless he cannot no longer pitch he wont even consider it.
Yet he agrees to a deal to go back to a notorious hitters park to pitch? I seriously doubt he’s ever an effective pitcher from this point forward, he needs to go the Ankiel route and try and squeeze out a decent-sized contract before all is said and done.
is it amazingly impossible to think that he is in it for the game? that some people can be content making their 400,000 bucks playing the game a season?
if the dude loves to pitch let him pitch till he is done.. i imagine if it means giving up the game he will hit.
Considering it was revealed that the Dbacks plan on using him a little at 1B since I posted that, I win.
And no, it’s not impossible. I’m merely saying that it’s unlikely that he’s ever an effective pitcher, and if he wants to stay in the big-leagues he’s gonna have to attempt a transition…..
The 9.5 K/9 shows the ability is there… he just needs to develop some control. Could come with time… a team like the Diamondbacks can afford to give him a shot on the mound.
Give him a bat and a helmet. The hell with pitching. :)
Jezz, i was hopeing the braves would sign him for the Ankiel/Owings platoon.
Ankiel is on the Nationals.
My bad, just remembered him getting traded to the braves.
Long relief and pinch hitter – sounds pretty good.
They plan on teaching him 1B. Interesting
Perfect 25th man to have on the roster. Particularly if he could play some position, maybe LF, even if not particularly well.
If Roy Oswalt can play LF, then so can Owings.
He’ll be playing first if he plays the field
I almost crapped my pants when a ball was actually hit to Oswalt during that game. Not because I cared about winning that relatively meaningless game, I just didn’t want Oz to get hurt. I would have run Danys “2.5M” Baez out there before Oz.
But, Chollie is what Chollie does.
i was hopeing the nationals would sign him for the Ankiel/Owings platoon.
I really wish the Pirates signed him. Good luck Micah.
I remember back when he played for Georgia Tech. Dude’s awesome.
And then in 2005 he wound up being in the Tulane starting rotation with Brian Bogusevic, whom the Astros Ankieled back into an outfielder in 2008.
So he’s a guy who can pinch-hit and then head out to the mound afterwards. Or you can bring in him in relief without having to burn a position player to then hit when that spot in the order comes up. That’s actually an extremely nice bit of flexibility if you ask me.
This guy is definitely one of the more interesting players in the big leagues right now, Any NL team could use a guy like Micah.
Those could be some interesting double-switches if he can play 1B. It would be even more interesting if they had a left-handed pitcher who could do the same. Unfortunately, he’s not that great of a pitcher, so it’s not like it would be that great of an advantage to bounce him back between 1B and the mound each game. Either way, that will be great if he plays the field and gets a bigger opportunity to hit. I like the players like Brooks Kieschnick who can pitch (well, at least capably) and play the field.
And although it won’t happen, I wonder if Rick Ankiel has thought about trying to pitch since he made the switch to OF. Not even doing it full- or part-time, but simply to see if he could still pitch. He had great stuff.
This is a good signing by Arizona, though I was hoping the Braves would sign him. Micah Owings could’ve been an effective long man (and extra pinch hitter) in Atlanta. They also could’ve did the same as Arizona in trying him at 1B a bit too. He’s a Georgia boy, I don’t see why Atlanta would’n’t give him a minor league deal. Oh well.
Dan Haren and Micah Owings took serious batting practices back in ’08.