Cody Bowker felt he would be drafted by a Major League Baseball team somewhere between the second and fifth round.
He was right. Late Sunday night Bowker, 21, a right-handed pitcher from Bowdoinham who recently completed his junior season at Vanderbilt University, was chosen by the Philadelphia Phillies in the third round with the 100th overall pick.
Bowker starred at Thornton Academy, leading the Golden Trojans to the 2022 Class A title and earning the 2022 Varsity Maine Player of the Year award. He started his college career at Georgetown as a two-way player. After concentrating exclusively to the mound as a sophomore followed by a successful stint in the Cape Cod League, Bowker transferred to Vanderbilt, which competes in the powerful Southeastern Conference.
With the Commodores, Bowker was the club’s No. 2 starter behind left-hander JD Thompson, who was drafted No. 59 by the Milwaukee Brewers.
Bowker becomes the highest-drafted player from Maine since Trejyn Fletcher of Deering High was selected in the second round (58th overall) of the 2019 draft by St. Louis. MLB assigns a slot value for signing bonuses for each pick in the first round. The slot value for No. 100 is $765,400. While teams and players do negotiate individual signing bonuses, the slot value does provide insight into a likely amount.
Two years ago, South Portland’s Hunter Owen, a left-handed pitcher out of Vanderbilt, was the 106th overall pick by the Kansas City Royals. In that same draft, Eliot’s Quinn McDaniel, an infielder at UMaine, was a fifth-round pick.
In 16 starts, Bowker had 4.38 ERA, striking out 99 batters and walking 28 over 72 innings. When he was drafted, guest analyst and Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said on the MLB Network telecast that Bowker’s fastball had “probably the most upshoot of any guy we saw.” Analyst Jim Callis called the pitch “he’s got one of those invisible fastballs that’s hard to hit. A drop and drive delivery with a low arm slot, fastball explodes at the top of the zone.”
Wyatt Nadeau, 18, a 6-foot-6 right-handed pitcher and Vanderbilt commit from Gorham was not among the 105 players taken over the first three rounds Sunday night. The draft continues Monday at 11:30 a.m., with rounds 4-20.
