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BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2014		The former Boston first-rounder couldn’t keep a spot in one of the league’s worst bullpens last summer, as the Cubs twice designated Bowden for assignment—the second time to make room for a 37-year-old Korean sidewinder on the rebuilding club’s September roster. If that’s not the definition of discouraging, it’s at least a wordy synonym. Bowden has subpar velocity and forgettable secondary stuff, and doesn’t miss bats or get groundouts, making him a likely fixture in Triple-A bullpens for the foreseeable future.
2013		When Bowden was drafted, his most promising attribute was his curveball. Now the curve is gone and so is most of Bowden's promise. He's moved into a relief role and had some success, but not enough to stick with the Red Sox, who let him go to free up roster space. A low BABIP in 2012 masked unimpressive peripherals, which doesn't give much hope for Bowden to flourish in his new role.
2012		Bowden scrapped the curveball that once made him a top prospect, but which had grown flat and easy to mash. He replaced it with a cutter, and knowing he would be relieving exclusively in 2011, dominated Triple-A in his new full-time bullpen gig. As many have learned before him, though, Triple-A is not the majors, and though he kept the hits per nine under double-digits for the first time, he also allowed too many homers and walks. Bowden might still turn into a bullpen piece and have a career, but with Boston's crowded bullpen and 40-man, it might not be with them.
2011		The strikeouts Bowden lost in his 2008 Triple-A debut seem gone forever, and as an extreme fly-ball pitcher lacking a true out pitch, his viability as a starter is debatable. If you squint, the 23-year-old right-hander seems salvageable as a reliever: a 7.6 K/9 with Boston is encouraging and a step up from his previous stints, but given the low quality of his stuff—his curve, once a plus pitch, is now slow and flat—and the fact he's hit been hard in the majors (.377 BABIP in 36 1/3 innings), you have to wonder if he's a few homers away from buying a condo in Rhode Island.
2010		A solid right-handed starter who, prior to September, was twice brought up for bullpen depth during series against the Yankees then tanked his second major league start at the end of September, Bowden will likely return to Triple-A in April, again hoping that a rotation spot opens up. He’s not much more than a back-end starter who throws strikes—having lost some break on his curve last year, he's increasingly pitched to contact at the upper levels. He’s good insurance to have on hand, but he’s unlikely to become a fixture in the Boston rotation.
2009		The 2005 first-round pick was dominant at Double-A Portland, holding opposing batters to a .191 average and keeping his walk rate down near two per nine innings. He was not quite as impressive after his promotion to Pawtucket, suffering a steep drop in his strikeout rate and corresponding rise in home runs allowed. On the other hand, his walk rate improved from "stingy" to "downright penurious," and he wasn't embarrassed in his sole major league start. He needs to improve his changeup further to better complement his low-90s heat and sharp curve, but 2008 was a step in the right direction.
2008		For the first six weeks of last season, Michael Bowden was the one pitcher known to man who could actually succeed in the pinball-machine atmosphere of Lancaster. From there, he went to Double-A, where he wasn't nearly as good. The mitigating factor is that Bowden was among the youngest starters in the Eastern League. There is still some work to be done, particularly on his changeup and his anything-but-ideal mechanics, but he's a future rotation piece.
2007		A highly-touted high schooler, Bowden`s impressive arsenal includes a curve considered one of the best of the 2005 prep class. His unorthodox delivery generated concern--`He takes a long time to short-arm the ball,` says one observer--but analysis at the American Sports Medicine Institute concluded that he`s not unduly taxing his arm. After a limited debut in the Gulf Coast League in 2005, Bowden skipped to Low-A Greenville, where he was the team`s youngest player. He justified the move, pitching nearly as well as fellow 2005 supplemental first rounder Clay Buchholz, who`s two years his senior. Definitely one to watch.

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PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile

A Collaboration between BrooksBaseball.net and Baseball Prospectus - Pitch classifications provided by Pitch Info LLC

Although he has not thrown an MLB pitch in 2024, Michael Bowden threw 2,336 pitches that were tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2008 and 2013, all of them occuring in Spring Training. In 2013, he relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (92mph), also mixing in a Slider (83mph), Splitter (84mph) and Cutter (87mph).