Prospect Q&A: Red Sox LHP Henry Owens on Gaining Man Strength, Aiming for Price’s Fastball and Zito’s Curve, More
By MiLB.com
Henry Owens is very tall. Small forward-tall. Left-tackle tall.
But Owens — the Red Sox’s fifth-ranked prospect and baseball’s 94th overall — is also thin. Super-model thin. Or, as he likes to say, wiry.
As Fangraphs’ Mike Newman noted earlier this week in his scouting report of the 20-year-old left-hander, there is a lot to like about Owens, particularly if he’s not done growing.
I caught up with the California-born and -based Owens over the phone this afternoon. With two weeks before he heads to Spring Training, Boston’s 2011 first-round draftee (bio, stats here) discussed his strong debut season and strengthening that big-and-getting-bigger frame in advance of his next campaign, among other topics. Enjoy.
On his offseason goals: “I basically wanted to build my strength and stamina and increase my velocity. Basically, working on my legs and core. That’s been my main focus in the weight room. The way I have been throwing long-toss and my [bull]pen [sessions] since the first week of December, it’s felt like I’ve been throwing harder, so I’’ll guess we have to see when the guns start showing up. I am really excited to get back into it, obviously, for my sophomore season.”
On increasing his velocity (which is mostly 90–92 mph): “It’s about the consistency of my velocity, so like my average fastball increasing two or three ticks. Just build off my stamina really. A few times last year, I would be cruising through the first innings and then has a little fall-off or lapse in the fourth or fifth, so I want to improve on that and go deeper into games this year.”
On his 2012 season: “I enjoyed the competition. It was a lot better than high school, and I liked that. I think that brings out the best in me because I’m a really competitive person, not just in baseball but in anything. I’m looking forward to the competition getting even more challenging this year because that will keep pushing to me to getting better and getting stronger.”
On what encouraged him about ’12: “My strikeout rate [11.51 K/9] was good, and toward the end of the year I started limiting walks a little better. At the start of the year, I was averaged four or five walks a game, and obviously that isn’t good as a starter. Once I limit the walks, the strikeouts might go down a little bit, but as long as I am keeping guys off base, that’s fine with me.”
On how he gave up fewer free passes: “I think the biggest thing was pitching more to contact and realizing it’s not a high school defense behind me, that I got all pros behind me. That helped my focus, and I started lowering my pitch count and going deeper into games.”
On April being his worst month, August his best: “It definitely [encourages] me. I don’t really go month by month. It’s more of a start-by-start thing, but it’s good to see. The Red Sox front office guys were very pleased with how I finished the year, so that was good, something to build off of.”
On what was working in August: “I would talk with ‘Suchy’ — pitching coach Dick Such — and it went back to pitching to contact. We really stressed it my last few starts, and he started seeing it more, and I could feel it more. I was getting more ground balls, more double plays.”
On what he was discouraged by in ’12: “Definitely, the ERA [4.87]. I have to bring the ERA down. As a starter, I don’t want to be anywhere in the 4s obviously. I’m hard on myself and very competitive — I think I should be a lot lower and definitely sub-4.00. I think I should even be sub-3.00. I feel like I’m good enough to be that kind of a starter.”
On his size: “I’m pretty sure I’m 6'6 1/2'’ without shoes, so everyone lists me at 6'7'’. I was about 194 [pounds] leaving the season. Now I’m about 207, I think, so I’m getting up there, starting to put on a little weight, getting some man strength. It’s just coming along with maturity, I can tell. It’s a lot easier for me to lose weight because my metabolism is so fast. I work out everyday, running around, doing this, doing that. It’s a little harder to keep the weight on. I fluctuate a lot. As I mature, and over time, I think it will be easier to put on the weight. Hopefully, I just keep putting on five to 10 pounds a year. That’s what the Sox want me to do just mainly for injury prevention. I have to have the extra weight so my body doesn’t break down during the season. I’ve always been a wiry lefty, and I think I always will be. I don’t think I’ll ever be 240 [pounds] or anything like that. It’s about building up my legs and core. That’s all I need to focus on right now.”
On how his size affects his pitching style: “Leverage does play a part in my pitching forte. I am able to get some ground balls. Working off last year, I’ll try to get more ground balls, less balls in the gap, keep the ball at the knees not in the belt area. It’s the same for everyone [regardless of height]. I just have to hit my spots and focus on every pitch, not losing focus on one pitch that ends up getting hit in the gap and scoring two runs.”
On pitchers he compares to/likes watching: “I love watching [the Rays’] David Price pitch. I love watching how he attacks the zone and how he’s just a hard-thrower. I want to be able to throw as hard as him some day. I know it’s not completely realistic, but maybe it is? Growing up, I always loved — Randy Johnson was my favorite pitcher, but I also loved Barry Zito, and that’s why I have my two different curveballs. One’s like 68–72 [mph] and it’s a big, loopy curveball. I adapted that as a kid, watching Barry Zito pitches. I love that curveball.”
On his two curveballs: “I have that one that is a slower for two-strike situations if I think the hitter is a little overzealous; or if he’s sitting on a curveball, I’ll throw it even slower; or I’ll throw it 2–0 or 3–1 and just drop it in there. And then I have another curveball that is on a sharper plane: it starts at the belt and I usually spike it in the dirt and trust my catcher to block it. I throw that one a little harder.”
On whether his slow curveball is too slow (here is an MiLB.com video): “I’ll start worrying about it if it starts getting stroked in[to] the gap, but it worked for me last year and, I mean, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I have that mentality with all my pitches. I would start adjusting if, obviously, a coach told me to. If it starts getting hit, I would have to make an adjustment.”
On the development of his changeup: “I was actually really pleased with my changeup last year because I didn’t really get to throw it in high school that much in high school ’cause it would just speed up the bats of the high school hitters. Last year, I got a chance to really use it as a weapon, and I got a lot of strikeouts on it, and the Red Sox are really stoked on that, so I’m going to keep throwing it because it’s a really needed pitch for a starting pitcher.”
On his fastballs: “That’s the most important pitch: strike one on the black, establishing that fastball early in the game. My fastball, I already have that weird lefty tail that everyone talks about, so I have that [on my four-seamer] and a two-seamer to back it up. I’ll use the two-seamer when I’m ahead in the count because it’s a little harder for me to control.”
On how much he has changed mechanically since the 2011 Draft: “I definitely am not the reach-back-and-try-to-blow-it-by-you-every-single-time kind of guy that I was in high school and just get away with it, just throw it belt-high down the middle with a two-strike count and just know that the high school kid isn’t going to turn on it or catch up to it. But I learned very early last year that I can’t be doing that anymore. It’s good because I learned how to pitch. I was excited about my last three starts last year and was kind of upset that the season was over, so I’m really stoked to get back into it.”
On whether he’ll start at Class A Adv. Salem in ’13: “Whatever the Red Sox front office, management, all of them think, wherever they want to put me, is completely fine ’cause I’ve been working so unbelievably hard this offseason that I don’t mind where they put me. I’m just going to get after it. I’m not afraid by any means to go face the big boys and stuff like that. It doesn’t really faze me. I just want to get after it. My goals will be game-day goals: what I want to accomplish with this start and what I’ll want to build off in the next start.”
On how far along he is developmentally: “I think I’ll be able to answer that midway through this coming season. My first season was getting my feet wet, getting into pro ball, learning the game a little bit, learning the different style of pro ball. And this year will be more of an eye-opener to see where I am at and see which direction I’m going.”
On Drive teammate/Red Sox pitching prospect Matt Barnes: “Matt Barnes is an absolute bulldog. Once gameday comes along, he’s drinking his energy drink and he’s getting on the mound, and no one’s hitting the ball. He’s got that mentality. I watched him, I got to see his five starts. I think he went almost his first 32 innings without giving up an earned run, and it was unbelievable to watch and he was obviously way ahead of the level he was at. It was good to see him pitch and how he went after hitters. ‘Don’t be afraid to challenge a guy’ was his thing. It might be 0–2, and he’s just going to fight him and not waste a pitch. That was really good to see my early months of pro ball. That really helped me.”
On Drive teammate/Red Sox third base prospect Garin Cecchini: “Garin is very, very baseball-savy. He knows the game more than pretty much anybody in the dugout, and he loves coming to the field every day. A great clubhouse guy and very smart on the field. I couldn’t tell you a time where he got thrown out twice in a game. I don’t think he got thrown out more than five times all season long [he was thrown out six times]. He doesn’t have lighting-fast speed — he doesn’t have Billy Hamilton-type speed or anything like that — but he can take a bag because he’s smart. He can take third base any time he wants.”
On which pitcher he wants to pick the brain of: “I have to go with David Price. He’s coming off a Cy Young year, so he’s obviously got it figured out and has unbelievable stuff, so it’d be cool to learn his mindset. He looks like a wiry guy out there.”
