rewrite this content and keep HTML tags
Bowden Francis was one of baseball’s best pitchers over the final two months of the 2024 season. From August onward, the 28-year-old Toronto Blue Jays righty made nine starts and posted a 1.53 ERA with 56 strikeouts while allowing just 24 hits and seven walks across 59 innings.
All told, Francis recorded a 3.30 ERA, a 22.5% strikeout rate, and a 5.4% walk rate last season across his 27 appearances (13 starts) spanning 103 2/3 innings. It stands to reason that the minuscule .211 BABIP he allowed isn’t repeatable, though it may not be due for as much of a regression as you might expect. Inducing weak contact is Francis’ modus operandi on the mound, and a low BABIP is a feature of his game, not a fluke.
Considering the priority for pitchers to generate as many swings and misses as possible, when I spoke with Francis during spring training, I wanted to understand his approach to pitching. Specifically, I asked him, “How do you get guys out?”
“Pounding the strike zone,” said Francis, who was selected out of Chipola Junior College in the sixth round of the 2017 draft. “Strike percentage, getting guys on their heels more. Mixing it up and moving it around, trying to keep them off balance. Pitchability is my thing. I’ve never been super-overpowering. I’ve always been more on the crafty side.”
Which isn’t to suggest his arsenal lacks a putaway pitch. Francis, a former Brewers farmhand who was traded to the Blue Jays in 2021, developed a splitter last spring, and the addition proved to be a difference-maker. He threw his splitter 287 times to the tune of a .169 batting average and a .169 slugging percentage. Moreover, he didn’t give up a home run off the pitch. The offering’s genesis came courtesy of a game of catch.
“I’d wanted a changeup my whole career, but I always had trouble with being too behind it,” Francis explained. “Finally, last year I figured out a little split. I was throwing with Chris Bassitt and he showed me his grip. It was alright at first, and then as the season went on I just kept repping it, repping it. In the pen, I couldn’t really use it as much, but once I got back into the rotation I could use it more.”
Francis grips his splitter with his index finger on a seam and his middle finger not on a seam. “A pretty wide split” is how he described it. Asked how it differs from teammate Kevin Gausman’s signature splitter, Francis said that Gausman’s is more middle-finger dominant with “a different orientation of spin,” whereas his own is more ring-finger dominant.
Even though they both have nasty splitters, Gausman isn’t the best pitcher in the Blue Jays rotation to compare to Francis. According to Baseball Savant, based on velocity and movement, the major league pitcher most similar to Francis is none other than his new teammate, Max Scherzer.
“That’s pretty cool,” Francis said when informed about this. “We’re not all that similar personality-wise, but I do strive for the pitchability he has, and I think we have similar fastballs and movement plots. I’ve been able to talk pitching with him a little bit — things like changing speeds, having differences in your pitches, and the mentality between each pitch — and hopefully that’s going to be an ongoing thing. I’ll have both of my ears open.”
Much like Scherzer, Francis has his ears and eyes on pitching analytics — but only to a certain extent. The righty told me that while he knows all of his metrics, he’s “not a rat about it.” He considers himself more of “a feel guy,” someone who uses analytics as a tool while still embracing an old-school approach to his craft.
His arm slot and primary fastball have both changed over time. The former did so organically, while the latter was purposeful on the recommendation of Milwaukee’s pitching gurus.
“Coming up, I was pretty low,” Francis said of his arm slot. “In JUCO, I was like low three-quarters. I was also always two-seam. Then I got drafted by the Brewers. Right around 2018, analytics started coming around and they were saying how well I was spinning the ball — almost too high for a two-seam — so I should spin a four-seam. I switched and started getting more swing-and-miss, more popups. I kept going with it, and over time my [arm slot] gradually crept up. It wasn’t crazy; it was pretty gradual. It was subconscious, really.”
Which bring us to something that has become his reputation with Blue Jays fans: mindfulness. The Tallahassee native has discussed the subject previously — this piece by MLB.com’s Julia Kreuz, from March 2024, is well worth a read — but I was still curious about how his zen-like mindset impacts him as a pitcher.
“I realized how important it is,” Francis said. “Watching how guys handled their business, how poised they are on the mound… when I was in Double-A, I realized how important it is to control your emotions. I was watching the playoffs and wondering how they were holding their composure and not letting the moment get too big.
“I started doing a deep dive into the mind-and-body connection. I went into a rabbit hole with that in 2020. I spent the whole year, basically, out in Arizona with Native American practices of meditation. It completely changed my in-game speed, I guess you could call it. The game used to be quicker for me. Now I can slow it down.”
Three Cy Young awards into his 18-year career, Scherzer presents very differently from Francis despite the similarity of their stuff. Unlike Francis, all you have to do is watch Scherzer for an inning to know that he’s intense and emotional. Much for that reason, the younger Blue Jay had a calmer comp for himself in mind.
“I’m more of a Kyle Hendricks,” Francis said. “‘The Professor.’ He’s kind of monotone on the mound. I like watching him. He’s great.”
