Former South Portland pitcher is finding his way in Royals farm system

Numerous reports following Hunter Owen’s fourth-round selection by the Kansas City Royals last summer suggested he fell in the Major League Baseball draft due to injury concerns.

Per MLB.com, the 2020 South Portland High School graduate flashed first-round potential with college baseball powerhouse Vanderbilt, but a pair of three-week stretches without appearances due to nagging ailments raised eyebrows. With stronger legwork and refined approach, Owen has put those concerns to rest in his first true season of professional baseball. Through his first 14 appearances (13 starts), with the High-A Quad Cities River Bandits, the 22-year-old owns a 6-4 record and 4.00 ERA in a career-high and counting 69 2/3 innings pitched.

“In the offseason, it was pretty much preparing myself for two [college] seasons,” Owen said. “Nutrition, lifting, arm care, taking all of that stuff more seriously and keeping a consistent routine of training sets you up for what you’ll do in the spring.”

Owen did not make an in-game appearance last summer following his fourth-round selection (106th overall and $634,200 signing bonus) by the Royals in last year’s draft, instead reporting to the team’s spring training facility in Surprise, Arizona. Fresh off a career-high 64-inning season as a starter in his junior year at perennial powerhouse Vanderbilt, Owen ended last summer throwing bullpen sessions and working out under the watchful eye of the Royals’ training staff in front of no crowds instead of with a minor league affiliate. A reliever his first two years in college, Owen transitioned to a starting role as a junior. Despite the injury concerns, a solid performance at the MLB Draft Combine piqued the Royals’ interest.

Owen’s four-seam fastball, which sits 92-94 miles per hour, changeup that’s “come a long way,” curveball and cutter mix doesn’t rack up the Ks. Though his 17.5% strikeout percentage is roughly 5% lower than the average MLB pitcher’s, Owen’s crafty style yields a solid ground ball rate (north of 42%) and a minimal 7.7% walk rate, below the MLB average of nearly 9%. The crafty lefty cliché applies to Owen, who newly appreciates how his scheduled recovery days benefit his mind and body throughout a long season. With loads of modern analytics at his disposal, Owen tries to integrate them into his approach.

“Briefly for scouting reports or what one of my pitches is looking like one day, to see if I can replicate it,” he said. “You’ve got to get a feel for it but also want to see the data.”

The River Bandits play in Davenport, Iowa, a city of about 100,000 hugging the Mississippi River. It’s nothing like Maine, Owen said, but he’s having a good time, even when he and his teammates have to park on the street and take elevated walkways into Modern Woodmen Park during significant, and somewhat common, flooding . The team houses players in apartments close to the downtown area. Owen has picked up pickleball. Golf is next.

MLB.com ranks him the No. 21 prospect in Kansas City’s farm system and estimates Owen will make his MLB debut in 2027. He’d be South Portland High School’s fifth-ever MLB player, following Jim Beattie, Charlie Furbush, Fred Howard and Bill Swift. That trajectory means at least two more full minor league seasons, progressing through Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha. Northwest Arkansas does not play the Sea Dogs. It’s possible Omaha plays at Worcester in an International League Divisional crossover.

“Right now, it’s just kind of keeping your head down, getting your work in and competing every time I’m on the mound,” Owen said. “I want to play in the big leagues, there’s no doubt about that.”