The Diamondbacks and left-hander Henry Owens have agreed to a minor league contract, tweets MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo. He’d recently been released by the Dodgers.
This’ll mark the second time that the D-backs have picked up the former Red Sox top prospect, which makes sense given that Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen and AGMs Amiel Sawdaye and Jared Porter were all at one point in Boston’s front office. The D-backs claimed Owens off waivers back in December but lost him to Los Angeles a couple of weeks later when they tried to pass him through waivers themselves.
Owens, the 36th overall pick in the 2011 draft, was at one point considered to be among baseball’s best pitching prospects. He’s yet to deliver on his potential, though, as the 25-year-old has managed just a 5.19 ERA with 7.5 K/9 against 4.7 BB/9 in 85 big league innings. More troubling, though, is that the lefty saw his control of the strike zone utterly evaporate in 2017 when he walked 115 batters, hit 17 more and threw 17 wild pitches in 126 Triple-A innings. Walks have long been an issue for Owens, though he’d never struggled to that extent in the past. Owens had yet to pitch in the Dodgers organization this season at the time of his release last month.
Very surprised the Reds didn’t take a flyer on him.
Henry Owens, the Red Sox offer for Cliff Lee.
I saw Owens at the Futures Game and it was like “This is the guy the prospect raters are raving about?”
Another Red Sox “Guy” was Anthony Ranaudo. Same deal as Owens, completely generic stuff, nothing there.
Of course, Anthony Ranaudo was available in a trade just like Owens if you wanted him.
Load of dung. Look across 2012-15 and easy to see why Owens was rated as a decent prospect. 20-22yo kid was throwing 120-150IP as high as the AAA level and having good success with both his curve and change. It’s the command which never came around after he was drafted, nor FB mph increase that Boston hoped he would get as he aged.
Lots and lots of kids are hyped as 20yo kids and how many win 17G spread across the AA-AAA level in one season, throw 160IP and get 170k’s to boot as a 21yo kid? His magical 2014 year did all of that and hoisted him up all the charts.. Not any ‘boston hype”, only flat out dislike here from many of any kids from Boston that never make it.
Ironically that 2014 was kind of manufactured by the Red Sox – likely to create trade interest
To start the year they had him nearly abandon his normal arsenal. Hitters were going to the plate expecting FB/Change and instead seeing Curve/Slider. It was keeping them off balance and creating good results. Then Boston flipped the script again about half way through the year, once again injecting the Change and FB. It’s the kind of thing you would maybe expect in the lower minors, but he was being fast tracked
It worked to create results that season, but also masked the underlying issues he had with his normal stuff. Never did get much time to develop as a whole before hitting the majors, unfortunately – but being cut loose by the Sox so soon after this indicates to me Boston likely had no confidence in his stuff anyway and were just trying to showcase him for trade
Don’t buy that at all. owens was drafted with a good, off the table 12-6 curve, 2 types he had such good ones. The normal one and slow one which really broke. He developed the change further after being drafted which many do.
The curve backslid the longer he pitched and the change became the better of his pitches, which was weird. command never developed and i do not remember anything more than a short trial run with the slider as a mix in pitch some will experiment with and toss away.. Like a 3-4th pitch some starters will work on, decide it’s not for them and then discard.
Not sure what to tell you. Although having both in High School, he didn’t throw either his Curve or Slurve/Slider until 2014. And his Curves were graded Average with a lot work needed. He and what was then his personal catcher in the minors talked pretty openly about it too:
(From Aug 2014)
Swihart said that Owens has taken a keen interest in improving the curve this season.
“He was telling me, he said people were saying that he doesn’t have a curveball [in the offseason]. So he was like, ‘Hey, let’s go show them I have a curveball.’ So there it is.”
Owens explained: “I’ve been working on it the whole year. Not just on the mound, I’ve been working on it in days between: front toss, bullpens. It’s come a long ways.”
Go back and read stuff from then if you like. You’ll almost certainly notice that his big success that year was off the newly reintroduced Curve and Slurve/Slider – two pitches later seen in fewer than 15% of offerings once he made the majors
CP……
Henry Owens is 4 years, 3 months, 13 days younger than Clayton Kershaw.
4 years, 3 months, 13 days.
Genuflect on that. It’s well worth your time. /s
Owens was also drafted 5 years after Kershaw, was he not?
And while Clayton was finishing up his first All Star season at the age of 23, after his similar age 23 season Henry was gearing up for his last minor-league season in Boston before being DFA’d
Makes me wonder what the point of your post was, as I don’t see one at all – /s or not
darkstar61,,,,the sarcasm relates to CaseysPartner’s oft repeated posts over many months of…
Rhys Hoskins is 5 months younger than Bryce Harper.
Five months.
Genuflect on that. It’s well worth your time.
Guess you hade to be there
Ah, ok. Yes, guess you had to be there
Wouldn’t your joke then have been better had you had said “4 months, 3 days, 13 minutes younger than Kershaw” though?
It wouldn’t be accurate. CP has been ranting for close too a year that the Phillies will sigh both Harper and Machado this coming offseason for around $800M+. Even as a Phillies fan I find that committing that much to two players a bit out there. Manny maybe bot not Harper.
Best I can tell from his posts regarding age is that Harper is barely older than “young core” players like Hoskins.
His rants (which typically are directed at Phillies (and other teams) ownership are redundant and nonsensical. His blog is worse.
The only logical thing he has even uttered is “people have been telling me I am crazy since I was 5 years old” which I believe.
There is the full explanation for one sarcastic comment.
Oh, sorry. I read your “five months” post as if 5 months younger than Kershaw, not Harper. Hoskins is 5 years younger than Clayton, so I was thinking that was the joke.
So we’re just back to “guess you has to be there” haha
On one hand he rants about the Phillies stealing money
and banking it
and the next , they are gonna spend almost a billion on Harper
and Machado next year. It’s hard to keep up with Ol Casey!
Wow! Knew he walked a lot of batters but 2017!!! Might be time to try a Rick Ankiel move.
I’ve said it before. I still see talent. Maybe a late bloomer? Regardless, he’s still living the life most of us only dreamed of.
Henry Owens has a plus plus changeup the problem he has is he has a fastball in the upper 80’s to 91. You can get away with that with quality of his changeup but if you can’t find the strike zone with your mediocre gas then the effectiveness of that quality goes away. I hope discovers control but his problem seems to stem from between his ears hard to see that changing.
Redsox also rushed him. He should not have been fast-tracked with that lack on control he was showing early in the low minors.
They apparently got enamored by the Ks while failing to ponder why they were there. Unfortunately for him and the team, he doesn’t face those same over eager kids in the upper minors and majors
I’ve seen him pitch a few times. Wild IN the zone. No bueno.
Not when your fastball is high 80’s.
I wonder how he hits? Maybe a Rick Ankiel lol
His changeup is what made him a great prospect. I know he was known as a douche by teammates and the public alike that experienced him as a younger player…however if there’s a team that can refine his changeup mechanics along with his fastball he no doubt could be an effective reliever for a team. These teams need to smarten up in their front offices. It’s not all analytics, don’t forget about going back to what made the guy great. With that said I’m not some ant-analytic nut job, I just think this is a case of not understanding who the player is. Pittsburgh anyone?
I can see him getting what he needs with the Diamond backs.Maybe a change of scenery with epic coaching staff?? We’ll see….A douche?? I played with him a few years ago and this guy is the most layer back humble guy I prolly know in baseball. Sounds like someone didn’t get an autograph signed. lol