2021 1st round pick (5): Colton Cowser - OF - (Junior) Sam Houston University

[Tony-OH]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Thus why I said we should merge them.  

I'll combine this this time but will delete any future conversations on the main board. 

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Tony-OH said:

I'll combine this this time but will delete any future conversations on the main board. 

Good because I didn’t want to have to repost all that stuff again!  Lol

 

[Sports Guy]

Just now, doccat said:

Dumb Question- but how much money did we really save???   The slot for 5th pick is $6.18 million and the slot for #10 is  $4.74 million...

I assume he'd want more than $4.74 million so let's say he signs for $5 million even.   We saved $1 million.   Is that really going to be enough to take some High School guys overslot??

Yes.  Similar to last year.  

[byrdz]

Seems like a bunch of teams passed on Rocker. 

[milbest77]

12 minutes ago, doccat said:

Dumb Question- but how much money did we really save???   The slot for 5th pick is $6.18 million and the slot for #10 is  $4.74 million...

I assume he'd want more than $4.74 million so let's say he signs for $5 million even.   We saved $1 million.   Is that really going to be enough to take some High School guys overslot??

What did $1 million look like to you when you were in high school?

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

You keep saying this like it's fact, but are you talking about the Austin Martin with two home runs and slashing .773 in 198 AA PAs while splitting time between SS (.908 Fld %) and CF? 

Clearly with Kjerstad's illness, and Baumler's injury, it certainly doesn't look good, but Martin has already shown some of the issues people had concerns with including a lack of position and power. 

Whether Elias did the right thing will be determined years from now, but it's not like he passed over a Machado-like talent to draft Kjerstad.

I wish I could like this post multiple times. 
 

Im still amazed at the ignorance people show w/r/t the Kjerstad pick.

[Rojo13]

1 hour ago, Go_Os said:

Think of it as trading down from the 5th pick to the 10th and adding a 1st rounder for next year (since the player we go over slot for will be a high school player).

I haven't been on these boards at all in months as child rearing is quite time consuming and killing my Orioles habit - that and all of the losses. Anyways, trading down is smart (which is what we basiHere ally have been doing).

Here are the slot values of the top 10 picks. Last year, our #2 was supposed to get $7.8 million and he took $5.2 million. We used that money on other draft picks.

 

1) Pirates: $8,415,300
2) Rangers: $7,789,900
3) Tigers: $7,221,200
4) Red Sox: $6,664,000
5) Orioles: $6,180,700
6) D-backs: $5,742,900
7) Royals: $5,432,400
Rockies: $5,176,900
9) Angels: $4,949,100
10) Mets: $4,739,900

 

So instead of taking the 2nd best guy in the draft, we took the 8th and then got a couple other talents we woudn't have normally gotten. That's called playing the odds. If the #2 pick has say a 50% chance of being great but 3 other picks each are 20%. Guess what. you are better going with 3 versus 1.

 

[Rojo13]

1 hour ago, gman082288 said:

 I do not believe (that's an opinion word) this is an organization that can constantly afford to try and outsmart the entire industry. Y

What? I believe we are an organization that MUST try to outsmart the others as we clearly can't outspend them. Baltimore isn't a rich city. It's not a super large city. How in the world are we going to beat the Yankess/Red Sox if we don't outsmart them?

[Three Run Homer]

I understand that this is not the Orioles being cheap--Elias will spend the money saved on Cowser to get 1-2 players in later rounds who have slipped due to signability concerns.  The problem I have with this strategy in principle is that talent in the draft is not normally distributed--as Bill James once pointed out, we are talking about the extreme right tail of the talent distribution.  In the extreme right tail, the gap in talent between the 5th best player and the 10th best player is probably larger than the gap between (say) a 3rd round talent that the O's can pick and sign in round 5 with the extra money, and a typical  5th round talent. 

[Ruzious]

1 hour ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

They tier them then make rankings within the tiers. So difference within a given bucket is typically less than bucket to bucket. 

Yeah, I think that way, they can almost tell the truth when they say they got their top-rated guy - since he was in their top tier.  It lets them not necessarily flat out lie when asked if their 1st round picks were their top-rated players.    

[MGH5208]

Everyone seems to project these picks playing for us in 202X.  I look at it a little differently.  We need to build a deep farm system.  Elias comes from an org that traded for Verlander, Cole, etc.   (insert what SD did with their trades this year).   also signed some veterans.  Not every player we pick will play for us.  Some will be used to trade for those positions of need and we'll sign some FAs.   

I like our 1/4/5 better then A Martin last year.   We're not getting Degrom (example) for A martin, but we may for a Kjerstad, Mayo and Baulmer.  

I'm encouraged with what the O's have done the last couple of years.  I even got a 10 game plan to watch the ironbirds to see what we have in the system......wish i could remember (Maverick Handleys Top Gun song is stuck in my head - ugh) what Gunnar's walk up song was but it's not Nelson

 

[PeteCanes]

Cowser has been predicted for this pick for a long time, not sure why people are mad.  I would have taken Lawler, but what do I know?

[Hallas]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Elias: We got our guy

 

Maybe he was BPA on their board?  I don’t know.  Hard to believe he had him over Lawlar but who knows.

Reading between the lines I think he had Cowser a hair under Lawlar but not enough to justify the price difference.

Elias has had some success with bucking the talking heads.  In 2012 everyone assumed he would pick Mark Appel or Byron Buxton, and most mocks had Correa 3 or 4.  He took Correa with 1.1 and it worked out quite well.  Buxton would have been fine too but they dodged a bullet with Appel.

 

[OriolesMagic83]

4 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Nothing cuts down on wear and tear like taking a season off for surgery. 

1 year off, he should take 2 off!  Cy Young for sure.

[Hallas]

4 hours ago, Philip said:

Thank you for the clarification, but if they are all ranked the same, then what is the point of the rankings?

It's hard to have more granularity than that when predicting player performances 3+ years out.

 

For what it's worth, pretty much only the top-3 picks of any given draft year are worthy of a 55 or 60 fresh out of the draft.  They have to perform in pro ball to earn higher valuations.  It's what makes the draft so unpredictable in comparison to other pro sports.  There are a lot of misses.