While drafted by the Tigers in the 12th round of the 2006 draft, Joe Bowen is now a catcher for the Blue Jays organization.

While he was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 12th round of the 2006 draft, Joe Bowen has since been an integral member of the Toronto Blue Jays since 2010. Since joining the Blue Jays, he has been the catcher for the Auburn Doubledays, the Lansing Lugnuts, the Dunedin Blue Jays and the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

“Every team has a specific set of guidelines and expectations from their players. Some of the rules when I was with the Tigers was that all players were required to be clean shaven every day, had to wear our pants up at all times, even in the clubhouse, couldn’t wear our sunglasses on our hats, and we had to wear strictly all black cleats. With the Blue Jays, a little scruff is acceptable, we can wear our pants down, and long and behold, we can put our sunglasses on our hats. It’s a little more relaxed here.” Bowen said, discussing the differences between the two teams in which he has played. “The Blue Jays staff mainly has the,”Go out there and play and have fun” attitude. I couldn’t be happier with where I’m at with the organization. I love it here!”

In 2010, with the Auburn Doubledays, Bowen played in 21 games where he batted .176 with three doubles, one homerun and five RBI. “Auburn was kind of a difficult league. Mainly because most players aren’t used to the 10-12 hour bus trips and getting off of the bus to play. But it was a good experience, and kept people wanting to succeed even more to get out of there,” he said.

In 2011, he did get out of there as things improved for the 23-year old Florida-resident. While he started the year with the Lansing Lugnuts, he was soon promoted to both the Dunedin Blue Jays and the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. “Lansing is always enjoyable even in what feels like subarctic temperature range. The fans are always great there, and the travel still isn’t the best as far as distance, but it has some great parks. Dunedin was, is, and always will be, a scorcher. We got to play in some really nice parks and the travel was definitely ideal. New Hampshire was awesome. Great ballparks, great fans, fun bus rides. That was some of the best times I have had being up there with Sal Fasano. Definitely learned a lot even from the short amount of time I was there.”

Bowen's fondest memory occured in a spring training game in 2008 when Jim Leyland said to him, "Joe Bowen, you're my hero."

It was optimistic to hear that Bowen was able to learn a lot while he was there as his season cut short due to a required shoulder surgery in September.

Despite the tough situation, Bowen remains optimistic and shared what he would declare as his best day of his professional career. “In 2008, when I was in big league spring training with the Tigers, we were playing the Nationals in Viera. I went into the game in the 5th and came up in the 9th inning with 2 outs, the go ahead run at second, and a full count facing their closer. I got a base hit that scored the go ahead run and we ended up winning. After the game Jim Leyland said to me, “Joe Bowen, you’re my hero.”

With that said, every hero has an off day, and this happened to Bowen in a three-game series in Brooklyn, New York. “To make it worse, it wasn’t just one game, as I played in all three games in the series. In the first two games, I went 0-4 with four strikeouts. The third game I was 0-4 with three strikeouts. Therefore, for the series, I was 0-12 with 11 strikeouts!” Bowen said.

Despite some bad days at the plate, Bowen further admitted that he has never once thought about quitting the game or pursuing another career. “Playing baseball is definitely something I always wanted to do growing up, and realizing how blessed I actually am to get to do something I love for a living. A lot of people won’t get to do something like this, so I am thankful for each and every day I have a uniform on. Because at some point, baseball will come to an end, and I’m not leaving with any regrets.”

Bowen has a reason not to have any regrets, however, as he has played very well. In fact,  in six seasons in the minors, and 250 games at catcher, he has caught 32% of base runners attempting to steal and has committed only 19 errors, maintaining a .990 fielding percentage. “One of the most important skills for a catcher is ability to call a good game and be on the same page as your pitching staff, knowing what they like to do to certain batters in certain situations, what they like to throw in certain counts, their put-away pitch. Basically to make their job as stress free as you possibly can, so they can go out there and just pitch and not have to think too much. Another important thing would be being a wall and blocking everything. The catcher can make the pitcher a lot more comfortable knowing he can throw any pitch he wants with runners on any base by blocking,” Bowen said.

In 2011, Bowen played for the Lansing Lugnuts, the Dunedin Blue Jays, and the New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Bowen admitted that the success he has found both behind the plate and at the plate in his professional career can evidently be attributed to his family who have always supported him, but also to Chet Lemon. “Lemon is a former big leaguer with the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox, and actually won the ‘84 World Series with the Tigers. I played on his travel ball team growing up where he would spread his knowledge about the game and showed me the ropes to prepare me to being the player I am today.” 

Now into the offseason, Bowen plans to continue to making that player he is today to be stronger and stronger. “My first priority is to get my elbow stronger from the surgery I had in September. With that said, I also want to get into better shape and get my strength back up to where it was last off season, and work on my hitting. There is always something to improve on, and I’m trying to work on them all.”

With that said, while he admits that all those skills need strengthening, there is one skill that he could be working on during the offseason, that may already be strong – his video game skills. “I am a video game addict,” Bowen said.

“I am a video game addict. I play Xbox 360 all night and into the morning. Some nights I end up going to sleep around 3:00-4:00am!”

JaysProspects thanks Joe Bowen for his time and wishes him the best of luck finding some time for sleep and in his professional career.