Baseball: Bowman, Mulroy taken in MLB draft

“I'm extremely excited about getting drafted,” Mulroy said. “I've always wanted to play professional baseball and am excited and fortunate for the opportunity to do so."

Bowman echoed Mulroy’s positive sentiments.

“I couldn’t be happier that the Mets selected me,” Bowman said. “There were a few other teams in the mix, but I went to a Mets workout and felt like I had a good relationship with them as a team compared to the other teams in the mix.”

Because Bowman is a junior, his signing with the Mets means that he will forego his final year of college eligibility, a major blow to the Tigers’ title hopes for next year.

“[The] decision was difficult because I do have to leave my teammates at school, which I’m not too excited about,” Bowman said. “But it’s always been a dream of mine to play baseball professionally, and I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to do that.”

In fact, Bowman has already begun his career, as he is at the Mets facility in Florida getting ready to be sent to the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets’ short-season single-A minor league team.

Bowman’s role on the Tigers was as a hitter and a pitcher, earning All-Ivy League Honorable Mention awards as a shortstop and a pitcher, the only dual-threat winner in the conference. Bowman had very solid batting averages of .311 in 2011 and .308 this past season. However, it was his pitching skills that made him an appealing prospect in the 2012 MLB draft.

Bowman had a 4-2 record and 4.66 ERA for the Tigers this season in nine starts, mostly unremarkable statistics. Yet while those metrics were relatively average, Bowman struck out 58 batters in 56 innings compared to just 17 walks, a stellar ratio. Bowman also showed durability this season, pitching three complete games in only nine starts. In an online feature, MLB.com reporter Anthony DiComo described Bowman as having “a low 90s fastball that hit 95 mph during his pre-draft workout with the Mets … a hard slider, curveball and changeup.” In a nutshell, Bowman features an impressive and diverse arsenal of pitches that attracted the Mets to him.

Bowman said that he had a strong feeling the Mets would select him. Mets vice president of scouting and player development, Paul DePodesta, corroborated this feeling, he said in an MLB.com interview.

“[Bowman] was a guy, since he came to our workout, that we had targeted,” said DePodesta, famous for his role as assistant general manager of the Oakland Athletics in Michael Lewis’ bestselling book "Moneyball." “We were just trying to figure out the best time to call his name, but he was a guy we were pretty intent on taking somewhere."

Although it seems in hindsight like the Mets were the obvious choice to pick Bowman, the pitcher said that multiple teams acted like he was their guy. “I had had conversations with a few teams in the previous rounds saying that they were going to take me, so I was just waiting to see which team would pull the trigger first,” Bowman said.

Bowman, a Maryland native, said that while where he got drafted was no surprise, he was especially happy that the Mets called his name because he does not have to travel too far.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“I’m also very excited that they’re on the East Coast so I can stay relatively close to home,” he said.

The other player drafted, senior catcher Sam Mulroy, had an incredibly successful career as a Tiger. The EEB major from Maryland hit .351 this past season with eight home runs and 32 RBI, building off of his 2011 campaign when he hit .320 with seven home runs and 39 RBI. Mulroy was also named to the All-Ivy first team as a catcher in 2011 and won the team’s Clarke Award, given annually to the team’s best offensive player.

“The Angels are a great organization,” Mulroy said. “They've had a pretty good year so far and should always be competitive in that division.”

Mulroy has also been actively getting ready to play and join the Angels, working out with his high school coach in Maryland, and is set to join the Angels’ minor league team in Utah, the Orem Owlz, this summer.

“It’s tough because our last game was in April, so I'll have to readjust a little bit once games start again,” he said.

Both Bowman and Mulroy have done something very few people could ever dream of accomplishing, and now they will have their chance to chase their ultimate dream: a spot on an MLB roster.