Chances are good that was a ball.
The Red Sox don’t have a lot of top prospects to showcase in Pawtucket, but they do have a trio of former top prospects who may still have time to recover at least a portion of their past glory. The chances of this are slim, as we will see, but they are three stories worth keeping an eye on.
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Lars Anderson was the top prospect in the Red Sox organization two years ago–Kevin Goldstein rated him as a five-star player, and Baseball America rated him the #17 prospect in the mionrs–but his stock has fallen considerably since that time. He succeeded in a short stint at Double-A as a 20-year-old first baseman, but it has been all downhill since then, with Anderson hitting .233/.328/.345 in his second stint at Portland, and just .262/.340/.428 after his promotion to Pawtucket in 2010.
This two-year stretch of walks and not much else killed the enthusiasm surrounding Anderson–while he struggled to remain relevant, Anthony Rizzo passed him on the depth chart. Rizzo was dealt out of town to acquire Adrian Gonzalez, but with Gonzalez under contract until almost the end of the decade, Anderson has no real place in Boston.
This basically means that Anderson is going to play out his minor league contract here while the Red Sox hope he turns into something worth trading. That plan is off to an inauspicious start, though, as Anderson has a line of .272/.406/.320 in 128 plate appearances, giving him a career line of .264/.354/.406 at Triple-A (590 PA).
His swing still has the same old holes in it, a problem that will keep him from hitting consistently for power–look no further than his track record at the upper levels of the minors for confirmation of that–and while he has the patience to draw loads of walks, it has more to do with being passive than it has to do with waiting for a pitch to drive. Players like that are spit up and chewed out by experienced and intelligent pitchers in the majors, meaning Anderson needs to adjust his approach–even the parts that have been successful for him–if he wants to improve his game and have a major league career.
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Andrew Miller is even further off of the top prospect path than Anderson. He was the #1o prospect in the game according to Baseball America heading in to the 2007 season, and now, four years later, finds himself struggling to put hitters away at Triple-A.
Miller has thrown just 25 2/3 innings over his six starts, for an average of about 4 1/3 frames each time out. These things happen when you walk 7.4 hitters per nine.
The 26-year-old has a 2.45 ERA at the level right now, but that is misleading for multiple reasons. Miller has yet to give up a homer (though that is pretty standard for him, as he has allowed just 10 of them over his 257 2/3 innings in the minors) but he is also allowing just 4.9 hits per nine. That low hit rate has less to do with Miller being untouchable because he is good, and more to do with the fact that he couldn’t buy two strikes in a row if the ump was offering them BOGO.
Miller is walking 19 percent of the opposition, meaning many hitters are better off just sitting around and waiting for Miller to either walk them or throw a mistake they can crush. The hit rate and ERA will both climb, and while the walk rate will surely come down, that doesn’t mean it will settle in an area that will prove useful to the Red Sox.
It’s still early, but Miller has not been a good pitcher for a while now, and nothing in his Red Sox career suggests that will change any time soon.
*****
Michael Bowden is a pitcher I have basically given up on in terms of having a productive career. Bowden, at one time, had a killer curveball that made him a scary opponent on the mound. That bender stopped bending, though, and the flat offering became the equivalent of a gift pitch for any hitter lucky enough to see it. Bowden dropped from being a five-star starting pitching prospect in his own right to a career as a middle reliever, with even that future in question.
Bowden has made some small strides over the past year-plus, though. He shelved the useless curve and replaced it with a slider, for starters, and took that a step further this winter, developing a cutter that he could use as a weapon in relief.
While his stint at Pawtucket last year was a mixed bag–Bowden didn’t whiff nearly enough hitters, struggled against lefties, and was susceptible to the long ball–early returns in 2011 have been promising. Bowden is punching out 10.1 batters per nine, with 21 strikeouts in his first 18 2/3 innings pitched, and has given up just the one homer while doing it.
There are problems, of course. Lefties are still teeing off (though it’s early and he hasn’t faced a ton of them just yet) and Bowden is still far, far too flyball heavy to be considered dependable. In the right context, he could be useful, but the extreme flyball tendencies are scary when you consider some of Fenway’s dimensions and the opposition in the AL East.
Bowden remains intriguing, though, as he is at least doing well in his new role, and may be more appealing to another team in a weaker division or home park friendlier to flyballs. He needs to improve against lefty hitters and keep the ball on the ground more often for me to pique my interest, but he has at least earned more of that then he had just a few months ago, sans cutter.
