Henry Owens Needs to Live Up to His Former Hype
The Boston Red Sox rotation is in trouble; the simplest solution is in-house.
The Boston Red Sox have had troubles early this season, needless to say. A 17–14 record reflects the distractions and difficulties that have plagued the Red Sox. Injuries have left the Red Sox looking like Wild Card hopefuls instead of the World Series-lock they appeared to be in February. Shenanigans have made the team look behind on the times.
The Red Sox desperately need fresh blood on the roster for the sake of turning over a new page. The Sox should turn to their farm system to fix these problems. With a majority of their top prospects needing more seasoning, former hopes and dreams need to be revived.
Henry Owens is one of those hopes and dreams that needs to be given another chance. No one’s asking him to be a top of the rotation arm that goes lights out. But you can’t sell me Drew Pomeranz and Kyle Kendrick as long term answers. Currently, Pomeranz has to be a long term solution and depending on how much longer David Price’s injury gets stretched out, so could Kendrick.
Owens was sent back down to Triple-A in 2016 after his first stint in the Majors, got called back up for a five game stint and has since been a part of Triple-A Pawtucket. Owens has been far from great in the big leagues — in his 16 starts, he owns a 1.52 WHIP and a 1.3 HR/9. It’s not the most perfect solution, but neither was Kyle Kendrick’s first four innings for the Red Sox.
In Triple-A this year, Owens has been looking to show improvement. His HR/9 has some work to be done at 1.0 on the year. But he has a ridiculously low BABIP at this point in time at .226; why not harness that clearly hot pitching while you still can? That BABIP correlates to his monster gap between ERA and FIP. His ERA is a 1.35 compared to a 4.45 FIP.
But the BABIP-ERA-FIP correlation isn’t much to get worried over. Owens holds a nice 10.8 K/9. And when he does let a base runner on, he almost never lets them get home; his left on-base percentage is a staggering 94.3 percent. Some might call that luck with only seeing 35 batters this season but either way that’s a pretty fantastic start to the season.
The most worrisome statistic for Owens is his walks. He clearly still needs help with his control. He’s given up 18 walks to his 17 hits and that comes out to 6.08 BB/9 at the Triple-A level which will likely jump up at the Major League level. But his youth and the numbers in other areas give plenty of hope. There’s no reason to think the Red Sox pitching coaches can’t work out those kinks with Owens.
It’s not a pretty sight for the Red Sox as they seem to be spiraling right now with injuries left and right while in the middle of controversy. But if you want to give your fans something to be excited about and to look for a new chapter in the 2017 season going with Henry Owens is the way to go. A story of “If at first you don’t succeed…” and hope for not just this season but several years to come is much better than “well, Kyle Kendrick works, I guess.”
