Micah Owings Off the DL: Cincinnati Reds Should Develop Him

Reds pitcher Micah Owings came off the Disabled List today as the Reds put Johny Cueto on the DL with shoulder inflammation.

Owings is a player about whom you really have to wonder if an enormous mistake wasn’t made when he first came into professional baseball and the Diamondbacks, who drafted him, decided that he should be a pitcher.  Owings is almost certainly the best hitting pitcher in baseball, and everything about his numbers suggests that if he doesn’t have a breakthrough as a pitcher in the first half of 2010, serious thought should be given to converting him into a position player.

Owings has hit like a fool at every level.  His last two years of college ball, he had OPS numbers of .943 and .1189.  He was 22 his last year of college, a year older than most college players coming into professional ball, but a .1189 OPS is a .1189 OPS.  By way of comparison, this year’s No. 2 draft pick and top hitting prospect Dustin Ackley had a 1.280 OPS this year (his junior year at North Carolina).

Owings was drafted by the D-Backs in the third round in 2005.  A 1.189 OPS, even for a 22 year old, is great for a third-round pick.  Again, by way of comparison, the Giants took 22-year-old 3B Chris Dominguez in the third round of the 2009 Draft (86th overall), following a .1142 OPS senior year at Louisville.

In the minor leagues, Owings hit .348 with an .847 OPS.  Granted, it was only 66 at-bats.  However, as a major league player, he’s hitting .293 with an .865 OPS in 164 ABs.  Again, a small sample, but considering his college, minor league and major league hitting numbers together, it’s clear that Owings is a good hitter, likely as good as Rick Ankiel, another former pitcher who recently made the switch.

At the beginning of his professional career, making Owings a pitcher certainly looked like a smart move.  He rocketed through the minor leagues, and looked awfully good as a 24-year-old rookie in 2007, going 8-8 with a 4.30 ERA for the D-Backs.

Since then, however, he’s had injury problems and has been, at best, a fifth starter.

2010 will be a big year for Owings.  He’ll be 27 next year, which is an age at which it’s the best bet he’ll have a breakthrough season.  If he doesn’t, however, the Reds should seriously consider trying to develop him as a hitter.

Frankly, I don’t understand why the D-Backs didn’t get him some more at-bats in the minor leagues.  According to Wikipedia, minor league pitchers bat only in games in which both team are National League affiliates and only at the AA and AAA levels.

If designated hitters are the norm in the minor leagues and you have a pitching prospect who had a 1.189 OPS as an everyday player in his last year of college, why wouldn’t you at least occasionally play that player at DH, both to see what he can do with the bat against professional pitching and as a kind of insurance policy in case he hurts his arm?

An organization may want to give those DH at-bats to position prospects.  However, the minor leagues are full of position players and designated hitters who came out of college and never came close to a 1.189 OPS.  In this day and age, when major league pitching rosters are continuing to expand and players who can play multiple positions are of increasing value, it seems foolish not to try to develop a few more players like former Milwaukee Brewer Brooks Kieschnick, the last successful major league hitter/pitcher combo.

There will never be a lot of these kinds of players, but there will always be a few, and if you can develop one, he might prove to be of real value.