Bowden Francis is a 28-year-old (29 in April) right-handed pitcher.
Bowden was traded to the Jays from the Brewers in July 2021 along with Trevor Richards (who signed a minor league deal with the Cubs yesterday), and Rowdy Tellez went the other way. Tellez played for the Pirates last year and is now a free agent.
We were pretty happy about the trade, our poll:
- 59% Happy.
- 35% Meh.
- 6% Unhappy.
Francis got into a Blue Jays game in 2022 and 20 more in 2023.
He was up and down between Toronto and Buffalo a couple of times early in the season and had a trip to the IL, but he was up with the Jays from July 29 onward.
Bowden made a couple of starts at the beginning of the season and then was back in the rotation from the end of July to the season’s end. His last nine starts must be one of the best stretches in the Jays’ history. He had a 1.53 ERA in those nine games and took a no-hitter into the ninth twice. It seemed like a Dave Stieb-type run. Minus the first of the nine, where he went five innings and the last when he went five innings (with the Jays being careful with his arm), they were all Quality Starts. And the other two would have been, had he gone another inning.
In one of the last starts, Dan asked Buck if Bowden was now a lock for a spot in the rotation in 2025, and Buck said no, which surprised me. If you channel Dave Stieb for a third of the season, you get to prove it wasn’t a fluke.
If the team places more value on what Bowden does in a few spring innings than what he did in the last two months of the season, they don’t know what they are doing.
But then, since we haven’t picked up any other starting pitchers since the end of the season, Francis looks to have a spot by default.
Bowden throws a Four Seamer (92.9 mph average last year), Split Finger, Curveball, Slider and occasional Sinker. Looking at Baseball Savant, the Curve wasn’t very successful; batters had a .558 slugging percentage against it.
After his 8-inning, 1-hit game, with 12 strikeouts, against the Angels on August 24th, Taylor Ward said that he was ‘nothing special’ and ‘very hittable’. The next game, Chris Bassitt held up a sign that said, “15 innings, 2 hits, 20 Ks, hittable and not special.”
Two things:
- Bassitt is a great teammate.
- Saying that a guy who threw eight innings of no-hit ball is very hittable seems like you are saying your team is terrible.
Steamer has Francis making 29 starts, throwing 158 innings, with a 4.35 ERA and a 1.5 WAR.