A's Bringing Back Ben Bowden on Minor-League Deal for Third Straight Year
· Yahoo Sports
The past three offseasons, left-hander Ben Bowden has been one of the first pitchers the Athletics have targeted in free agency, signing him to a minor-league deal for the third season in a row. Bowden, now 32, is the second left-hander the A's have reportedly signed to a MiLB pact in the past 24 hours, joining Luke Little.
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Bowden spent nearly all of the 2026 campaign in Triple-A Las Vegas for the A's, notching one inning for the club in the big leagues against Detroit, giving up two hits, hitting a batter, and walking a pair, which led to a four-run inning.
With the Aviators, Bowden held a 4.56 ERA (4.95 FIP) in the pitcher-friendly facility, spanning a total of 51 ⅓ innings.
The good news is that he struck out an impressive 29.2% of the batters he faced while walking 9.3%. The bad news is that he's more of a fly-ball pitcher. His ground-ball rate was just 33.6% with Vegas, leading to a 17.3% HR/FB rate.
Bowden's BABIP was a little high at .325, but his expected batting average against was just .194, so there appears to have been some bad luck on his side. In his previous season with the A's in 2025, Bowden held a 1.36 ERA (3.59 FIP) in Triple-A, but in 2026 his strikeout rate increased from 25.6% to 29.2%, and his walk rate dropped from 11.3% to 9.3%.
If the A's can get him to combine some of those expected stats with his improved strikeout and walk numbers, there is a shot he could have a pretty solid season.
With the A's new front office focused on pitching development, that has to be the case for bringing him back yet again. To help that case, his whiff rate was at 30.7% last season in Triple-A, while his chase rate was 30.9%. All of these numbers paint a picture of a pitcher who could have a nice year in 2027.
Bowden also excelled away from Las Vegas Ballpark in 2026, posting a 1.88 ERA in 24 road innings, while he held a 7.94 ERA at home across 28 ⅓ innings. The lefty also racked up three scoreless innings in Sacramento facing the River Cats across three appearances during the first half of the season.
While the Little signing is a good test for the team bringing in a similar type of pitcher (good stuff, poor command) as in previous seasons and seeing how a new front office philosophy changes things, Bowden has been with the A's the past two seasons.
In this scientific experiment of how the new front office is doing, Bowden may just represent the control group that other gains are measured from.