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2021 Orioles #4 Prospect - Colton Cowser - OF


Tony-OH

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40 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Honestly by the write up, I’m surprised he isn’t ranked a little lower. 
 

After reading this, I think it becomes even more obvious why Mayo is at 3.

I'm not sure what you expected. Great hit tool. Advanced command of the strike zone. Able to play all 3 outfield positions, but most likely a CoF. Fine arm. Needs to hit for more power. 

I basically see him having Markakis value because he'll get to more balls in the OF but with fewer assists. Very similar hitter. I'm very happy to have him.

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4 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I'm not sure what you expected. Great hit tool. Advanced command of the strike zone. Able to play all 3 outfield positions, but most likely a CoF. Fine arm. Needs to hit for more power. 

I basically see him having Markakis value because he'll get to more balls in the OF but with fewer assists. Very similar hitter. I'm very happy to have him.

I think Brandon Nimmo is the best comp for him I've seen. Nearly identical size, handedness, and profile (only major difference being HS vs. NCAA draftees)

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8 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I'm not sure what you expected. Great hit tool. Advanced command of the strike zone. Able to play all 3 outfield positions, but most likely a CoF. Fine arm. Needs to hit for more power. 

I basically see him having Markakis value because he'll get to more balls in the OF but with fewer assists. Very similar hitter. I'm very happy to have him.

Just seemed to have a little bit of a negative tone to it.  Not that I disagree with what was said.

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Just now, Sports Guy said:

Just seemed to have a little bit of a negative tone to it.  Not that I disagree with what was said.

Funny. Read positive to me. Sounds like his OF reads aren't stellar, but has enough mobility and arm to play any outfield position. Great hitter with a .490 OBP this year. Just not much power. 

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3 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Funny. Read positive to me. Sounds like his OF reads aren't stellar, but has enough mobility and arm to play any outfield position. Great hitter with a .490 OBP this year. Just not much power. 

Yea..I read it as a future COer with questionable power.  May not be the best combo.

That being said, Markakis seems like a good comp (without his arm) and you obviously would be happy with that.

Two things used to always drive me crazy about Nick:

1). His Ba/OBP should have been higher. 
 

2). To go along with #1, Markakis would always have at least one really prolonged slump at some point, usually in the first half of the year iirc, that hurt his numbers.  I always felt he was too good of a hitter for that to be the case.

He should have competed for batting titles every once in a while and his OBP should have flirted in the 380-400 range more often.

Hopefully Cowser can do that.  His profile seems to indicate he could.

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While Markakis only had a couple of 20+ HR years, he was a doubles machine and that was valuable. Plus his command of the strike zone really made the pitcher work in the first inning countless times. We really missed that approach when he left.

I do like the Nimmo comp too. Guy had a 132 OPS+ last year. Markakis only had one year above that. 

All of this is to say that Markakis seems like a great comp to me, but not a ceiling. Either way, the lower risk profile combined with his projections makes for a very nice #4 prospect. 

Is that what you want out of the #5 overall pick? Now that's a different question.

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1 minute ago, LookinUp said:

While Markakis only had a couple of 20+ HR years, he was a doubles machine and that was valuable. Plus his command of the strike zone really made the pitcher work in the first inning countless times. We really missed that approach when he left.

I do like the Nimmo comp too. Guy had a 132 OPS+ last year. Markakis only had one year above that. 

All of this is to say that Markakis seems like a great comp to me, but not a ceiling. Either way, the lower risk profile combined with his projections makes for a very nice #4 prospect. 

Is that what you want out of the #5 overall pick? Now that's a different question.

They should have taken Lawlar..although I say that and don’t know what the medicals were on him.  It’s hard for me to believe that the labrum wasn’t a known issue and maybe the physicals were questioning his long term prognosis as a hitter, especially Power, with the injury.  If so, I can see going away from him.

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I doubt Elias would have taken Cowser #5 if he didn't believe he would develop into a 25 homer guy.  I don't think 150 PA in the low minors changes that.   If a swing adjustment is required to reach his power I expect they will work on that.    I think Cowser starts at Aberdeen next spring.

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If he develops into a guy who can play a good LF, hit lots of line drives in the gaps, get on base and run well then he doesn’t really need to hit a lot of home runs to be a success. Sounds like a future 1/2 hitter to me. Let Mayo drive him in 

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32 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I doubt Elias would have taken Cowser #5 if he didn't believe he would develop into a 25 homer guy.  I don't think 150 PA in the low minors changes that.   If a swing adjustment is required to reach his power I expect they will work on that.    I think Cowser starts at Aberdeen next spring.

I think he starts at Aberdeen as well but that's a poor move.  He has no business being in A ball at his age if he is as advanced as they have let us to believe.  He's going to go to Aberdeen and struggle to hit for power and have a good BA and OBP.  He will basically be the same player we saw in Delmarva playing against similar competition (i.e., the guys he faced in low A will not be in high A).  Just put him in Bowie and let him go.  Keep him there for the first half of the season and see what happens next.

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4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think he starts at Aberdeen as well but that's a poor move.  He has no business being in A ball at his age if he is as advanced as they have let us to believe.  He's going to go to Aberdeen and struggle to hit for power and have a good BA and OBP.  He will basically be the same player we saw in Delmarva playing against similar competition (i.e., the guys he faced in low A will not be in high A).  Just put him in Bowie and let him go.  Keep him there for the first half of the season and see what happens next.

Though I think he starts a Aberdeen I think he could move up fast.   Maybe after two months.  I expect  Cowser to add muscle to his frame this off season.  I don't think age has much to do with it.  He will play next season at 22.  And he could end the season at AAA.

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  • Posts

    • dWAR is just the run value for defense added with the defensive adjustment.  Corner OF spots have a -7.5 run adjustment, while CF has a +2.5 adjustment over 150 games.    Since Cowser played both CF and the corners they pro-rate his time at each to calculate his defensive adjustment. 
    • Just to be clear, though, fWAR also includes a substantial adjustment for position, including a negative one for Cowser.  For a clearer example on that front, as the chart posted higher on this page indicates, Carlos Santana had a +14 OAA — which is the source data that fWAR’s defensive component is based on. That 14 outs above average equates to 11-12 (they use different values on this for some reason) runs better than the average 1B.  So does Santana have a 12.0 defensive value, per fWAR? He does not. That’s because they adjust his defensive value downward to reflect that he’s playing a less difficult/valuable position. In this case, that adjustment comes out to -11.0 runs, as you can see here:   So despite apparently having a bona fide Gold Glove season, Santana’s Fielding Runs value (FanGraphs’ equivalent to dWAR) is barely above average, at 1.1 runs.    Any good WAR calculation is going to adjust for position. Being a good 1B just isn’t worth as much as being an average SS or catcher. Just as being a good LF isn’t worth as much as being an average CF. Every outfielder can play LF — only the best outfielders can play CF.  Where the nuance/context shows up here is with Cowser’s unique situation. Playing LF in OPACY, with all that ground to cover, is not the same as playing LF at Fenway or Yankee Stadium. Treating Cowser’s “position” as equivalent to Tyler O’Neill’s, for example, is not fair. The degree of difficulty is much, much higher at OPACY’s LF, and so the adjustment seems out of whack for him. That’s the one place where I’d say the bWAR value is “unfair” to Cowser.
    • Wait a second here, the reason he's -0.1 in bb-ref dwar is because they're using drs to track his defensive run value.  He's worth 6.6 runs in defense according to fangraphs, which includes adjustments for position, which would give him a fangraphs defensive war of +0.7.
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