Battle of the Smart Guys: A Q&A with Matt Bowman

10:14 AM ET

MILWAUKEE — St. Louis Cardinals reliever Matt Bowman attended Princeton. His teammate, right fielder Stephen Piscotty, attended Stanford. According to U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings, Princeton is the No. 1 college in the nation and Stanford is tied with Columbia at No. 4. Piscotty, of course, might beg to differ with the rankings.

Needless to say, both players are a little sharper, with more eclectic interests, than your average professional ball player. We sat down with both to talk about topics ranging from baseball analytics to nuclear fusion. You be the judge — or don’t judge, just enjoy. It’s the Battle of the Smart Guys.

Today: Bowman.

Wednesday: Piscotty

Reliever Matt Bowman on playing for the Cardinals: “From talking to buddies around the league, I don’t think every team is like this. I think the culture is good, I think they get the best out of their players.” Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports

So, I’m told you modeled your delivery on that of Tim Lincecum. Tell us about that, please.

Bowman: I tried it in college. It didn’t work out that well. He’s a special athlete and those mechanics are very unique and a little taxing. There are elements that I think are kind of similar. It’s mostly like the lean back and being an undersized righty that most people think of when they connect us. I think, mechanics-wise, [Michael] Wacha probably looks more like him. He’s just a big dude, and so no one’s really looking at that.

So, it’s kind of how people compare Latin players with other Latin players, Caucasian players with other Caucasian players and African-American players with other African-American players. It’s typecasting?

Bowman: Right, exactly. There are some elements to it that are true, but I’m trying to move away from it. It was sort of recognizing that he’s unique and there may only be one Tim Lincecum. Why not try to do your own thing?

I imagine the Ivy League is not exactly swarming with baseball scouts. How did you get discovered?

Bowman: We do have an OK number of scouts that come to games. My stats in college weren’t fantastic, but there were a few guys at games. In college I could throw a little harder. I knew they liked seeing velocity, so I just tried to throw really hard. I don’t think I was really on anyone’s radar, but then the Mets invited me to a workout. I think they were really just trying to get a good look at some high-level high school position players, and they needed two pitchers who would just throw strikes to them. Myself and a lefty from Holy Cross were invited. I kind of realized throughout the workout that that’s what we were there for, and I wasn’t super pumped about it. It was like of course I’m happy I got invited, but I realized what my purpose was. I threw pretty hard that day. The entire Mets front office was there to see all these high school guys and they were also like, ‘Oh, well, who’s this guy,’ so I think the Mets were probably as …

continue reading in source espn.go.com