That's nice but it's a "straw man"argument if I ever saw one. I'd wager Pete Gray would grade as elite on OAA/DRS but the fact was he only had one arm.....
There is no measure other than the "eye test" for accuracy and frankly IMO he's been poor. He has a strong arm but his last two throws to the plate from short LF and CF (I think) missed by 30 feet on either side of the plate!! Getting to the ball is important but if you can't hit a cut-his throws tend to sail-how many times have we seen Mateo/Gunnar have to reach for throws then reset....
We saw the other night against Toronto guys are going to run (even slow, chubby ones) against Cowser until he shows enough accuracy to shut them down-and until he does he will continue to give up advances at a rate that erodes the benefit of his coverage skills.
IMO the critical components of an "elite" or plus OF are anticipation, coverage, arm strength, and accuracy. He's plus on three and hopefully the accuracy will improve as the game slows for him.
I would not say that Cowser is 8th in fWAR because AL outfielders are bad this year. He’s at 1.9 fWAR, which projects to 4.4 fWAR for the whole season. Last year, Austin Hays was 8th at 2.5 fWAR.
I do think that (1) fWAR overrates Cowser’s season to date, and (2) his numbers are largely based on the first month of the season. To the latter point, Cowser was worth 1.4 fWAR after 27 games, 1.7 after 54.
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