4/3 ML Gameday Thread: Minor League Opening Day

Agree pretty much with your points. I'm not discrediting anything you say with the following, or even necessarily saying that you're saying anything that contradicts my point. I concur with your point, for example, about how his fastball plays up from its velocity.

I just want to make a general point about why how a player scouts is still important beyond his numbers. Consider the following line:

Age 21, 19 starts, 104.1 ip, 2.33 ERA, 72 H, 24 BB, 101 K, 0.92 WHIP

That's Michael Bowden in his second stint in Portland, and it's really good, especially considering his age (about two months younger than Owens is now). I believe that was the season when Keith Law saw him pitch, came away unimpressed, and was immediately pilloried here. Turns out he was correct that the things that made Bowden successful at that level weren't going to work at the MLB level, including his really funky delivery, which added deception.

NOW, I am NOT saying that Owens is Bowden. Owens is a better prospect than Bowden ever was. There certainly are a good deal of similarities there, but that isn't my point, which is merely that there are ways to have success in the minors, even as high as Double-A or Triple-A, that won't work in the Majors. Look at Buchholz, for example, who is a much different pitcher now than he was even in his first Triple-A stint, or Papelbon, who really only became what he did because Schilling taught him the splitter at spring training the year he came up for good.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that, while we can and should enjoy performances like this, and while we shouldn't ignore them, they don't make the other stuff - the scouting, etc. - irrelevant either.