Colton Cowser 2022

[RZNJ]

Baseball America

 

Drafted in the 1st round (5th overall) by the Baltimore Orioles in 2021 (signed for $4,900,000)

In a year where teams are frustrated by the lack of college hitters with lengthy track records of production, Cowser is a rare safe harbor who provides a long history of hitting. He hit .374/.490/.680 as a second-year sophomore with 16 home runs and 17 stolen bases in 20 attempts. He’s hit .354/.460/.608 for his career at Sam Houston State with more walks (78) than strikeouts (70). And he became the first player in school history to play for USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team when he did so in 2019 after his freshman season, so scouts got to see him against top competition during the summer. That solid performance with Team USA helps blunt some of the criticisms that he played at a mid-major school. A high school teammate of Texas righthander and likely first-rounder Ty Madden (as well as 2019 supplemental first-round pick J.J. Goss and second-rounder Mathew Thompson), Cowser finished the season on an 18-game hitting streak. Cowser rarely misses a fastball. According to statistics compiled by Synergy, he has 17 extra-base hits on fastballs and just 19 swings and misses. He is more a hitter than a slugger for now, but he’s started to add strength and scouts wouldn’t be surprised to see his knack for hitting turn into 20-25 home run power eventually. Many of his home runs for now are pull shots or opposite-field balls that just clear the wall. Cowser is a plus runner who takes direct routes although his reads sometimes are a little slower than ideal. He shows an above-average arm when he lets loose and does a good job of getting rid of the ball quickly. He should be able to stay in center field at least for a few years, and maybe longer than that depending on how his body matures. As a lefthanded hitter and up-the-middle defender with excellent hand-eye coordination and speed, Cowser is one of the safer bets in the first round.

[Sports Guy]

Btw, I think Cowser will be fine and I’m ok with the pick.  I think they should have taken Lawlar and I believe they took Cowser to save money not because they rated him higher but that doesn’t mean Cowser is a bad pick.

My bigger issue with that decision and really any of these draft decisions/discussions is based around the idea that they lose on purpose. And since the draft is the only advantage you get from losing, you have to bring in the best talent possible. They could have won more and ended up with Watson or Frelick and be no worse off now than they would have won more.  When your goal is to lose, you have to make that count.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, seak05 said:

Sometimes scouting misses. In this case nearly all scouting reports I saw had Cowser as a better bat then Frelik, and the fact that he went 10 spots later seems to back that up. There were alos legitimate questions about Lawlar's hit tool, which is part of why he didn't go 1, 2, 3, or 4. You can only make a decision on best available evidence at the time (aka hindsight is 20/20), and I don't think the gap between Cowser and the other two looked as large then as it's currently looking. 

Who cares what all scouting reports you saw said? I'm not trying to be obtuse but I dont understand your comments at all.

I'm speaking of facts right now. Nothing I said was wrong. I know scouting is not an exact sceince, but I said "As of now" it appears that picked the wrong underslot. 

As of right now, that's facts. I also said this is early. 

I didn't say Cowser was a miss yet, but I pointed to the statsitical facts of the situation at hand.

Fralick may not end up better than Cowser and they both may end up 4th outfielders, but at the end of the day, Cowser has been a disappointment this year and when you add it to other Elias/Sig 1st overall selections, I'm not the Orioles have gotten a ton of bang fo the buck for the incredible amount of losing they've occurred under this rebuild.

[sportsfan8703]

6 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

While it's still early, it is safe to say that Cowser's start to his 2022 season has been a major disappointment.

I like to look how players are adjusting and while Aberdeen significantly favors pitchers, Cowser has struggled more than anyone would have thought since he was considered such an advanced hitter coming out of the draft.

As you know, the new minor league play one team for six days then get Monday off so let's look at his last three series (plus one game last night). Over this period he slashing .234/.402/.359/.762 with a 16 to 23 BB to K ratio. The previous three series he slashed  .240/.406/.380/.786 with a 13 to 19 BB to K ratio.

So basically it looks to me like he's kind of stagnated as a low power, low average guy who has drawn walks to provide value.

The other issue that stands out is he's really struggled against lefties this year slashing .154/.306/.180/.486 with 8 BB and 21 Ks in 49 PAs. 

Not a lot to get excited about so far this year and his selection along with the overslot money saved mainly going towards Creed Willems should have fans questioning the scouting and selections of the Elias regime. 

Even forgetting how well Jordan Lawler was doing before going on the IL with a back injury, OF Sam Frelik who was drafted 10 picks later and cost 900k less than Cowser is already in AA after slashing .291/.391/.456/.847 in A+ where Cowser is struggling. So even if you wanted to go underslot, it appears they picked the wrong underslot outfielder as of this moment in 2022.  

The Orioles really need to see Cowser pick it up.

It sounds like the plan was to offer Jud Fabian from UF $3million, but the Red Sox took him before us. That’s the risk with the underslot strategy. There is no guarantee your overslots will fall to you. Rhodes was a nice overslot. 

[RZNJ]

2 games consecutively with no strikeouts.  I believe that's the first time he's accomplished that feat this season.  I'm looking for any kind of sign!  Lol

[Frobby]

Personally, I’m tired of te-litigating the decision to pick Cowser.   Right or wrong, he’s our prospect now.  I’m way more concerned about whether he becomes the player we expected than whether we could have picked someone else.  

I’m very disappointed with his season so far, but not giving up on him either.  
 

[seak05]

10 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Who cares what all scouting reports you saw said? I'm not trying to be obtuse but I dont understand your comments at all.

I'm speaking of facts right now. Nothing I said was wrong. I know scouting is not an exact sceince, but I said "As of now" it appears that picked the wrong underslot. 

As of right now, that's facts. I also said this is early. 

I didn't say Cowser was a miss yet, but I pointed to the statsitical facts of the situation at hand.

Fralick may not end up better than Cowser and they both may end up 4th outfielders, but at the end of the day, Cowser has been a disappointment this year and when you add it to other Elias/Sig 1st overall selections, I'm not the Orioles have gotten a ton of bang fo the buck for the incredible amount of losing they've occurred under this rebuild.

It’s all hindsight. You can’t make decisions on hindsight. I would have preferred Lawlar at the time, but none of us would have taken Fralick, and Lawlar wasn’t the Uber prospect some on here have made him out to be. 
 

Applying hindsight also tends to mean you take the wrong lessons, in this case I would say Cowser looks more like a scouting failure, not a process failure.

Regardless, I hope he turns it around, and a whole bunch of posts saying we should have drafted this other guy aren’t really going to change anything

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, seak05 said:

It’s all hindsight. You can’t make decisions on hindsight. I would have preferred Lawlar at the time, but none of us would have taken Fralick, and Lawlar wasn’t the Uber prospect some on here have made him out to be. 
 

Applying hindsight also tends to mean you take the wrong lessons, in this case I would say Cowser looks more like a scouting failure, not a process failure.

Regardless, I hope he turns it around, and a whole bunch of posts saying we should have drafted this other guy aren’t really going to change anything

Lawlar was thought of, by most outlets, to be the #1 guy and he was ranked that highly for most of the draft process.  He’s a highly ranked prospect.  
 

Taking him over Cowser was a no brainer.  Totally disagree it’s not a process failure unless you actually believe they ranked Cowser, a player most people had in the 7-12 range, over the guy most people had 1st.

Teams passed on Lawlar because of money, not talent. It’s a poor process by all of them.

[seak05]

54 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Lawlar was thought of, by most outlets, to be the #1 guy and he was ranked that highly for most of the draft process.  He’s a highly ranked prospect.  
 

Taking him over Cowser was a no brainer.  Totally disagree it’s not a process failure unless you actually believe they ranked Cowser, a player most people had in the 7-12 range, over the guy most people had 1st.

Teams passed on Lawlar because of money, not talent. It’s a poor process by all of them.

By draft time, who had him #1? He was generally behind Mayer and Leiter (he was ahead of Cowser, I'm not disagreeing with you on that)

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, seak05 said:

By draft time, who had him #1? He was generally behind Mayer and Leiter (he was ahead of Cowser, I'm not disagreeing with you on that)

BA had him 1.  In doing a quick search, I did forget that some had vaulted Mayer over him.  A few had Leiter ahead too.   Mayer wasn’t ahead of him until closer to the end of the process iirc.  Lawlar was ranked highly for about a year.

[sportsfan8703]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Lawlar was thought of, by most outlets, to be the #1 guy and he was ranked that highly for most of the draft process.  He’s a highly ranked prospect.  
 

Taking him over Cowser was a no brainer.  Totally disagree it’s not a process failure unless you actually believe they ranked Cowser, a player most people had in the 7-12 range, over the guy most people had 1st.

Teams passed on Lawlar because of money, not talent. It’s a poor process by all of them.

Cowser and Fabian or Lawlar?  
 

That was our debate. Sounds like we had a deal with Fabian for $3million. Only like $1.5 million less than what Cowser got. The logic was sound. But there was risk. The Sawx took Fabian. 
 

Elias essentially tried to trade back like in the NFL draft but the MLB draft doesn’t let you do that. I think Elias would be a wheeler/dealer on draft day if you could make trades. 

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Cowser and Fabian or Lawlar?  
 

That was our debate. Sounds like we had a deal with Fabian for $3million. Only like $1.5 million less than what Cowser got. The logic was sound. But there was risk. The Sawx took Fabian. 
 

Elias essentially tried to trade back like in the NFL draft but the MLB draft doesn’t let you do that. I think Elias would be a wheeler/dealer on draft day if you could make trades. 

Lawlar.  And btw, you could have had Lawlar and Fabian.

[Tony-OH]

13 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

It sounds like the plan was to offer Jud Fabian from UF $3million, but the Red Sox took him before us. That’s the risk with the underslot strategy. There is no guarantee your overslots will fall to you. Rhodes was a nice overslot. 

True about the underslot strategy. As for Rhodes, he's had a nice little year, but he's never really shown much game power, even in college. Until he does, his ceiling is not very high. 

[Brooks The Great]

16 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I just remember being p@#sed when I saw Cowser was the O's pick.  It made no sense to me to take a corner OF who was rated about the 15th best player.  Elite SS talent was available and a big area of need in the system.  I refuse to believe that anyone, including the O's thought Cowser was the BPA.

I was also pissed, and I felt the same way you did at the time, and still do. We could have also drafted Khalil Watson or Matt McLain! To me it's just not worth saving a few hundred thousand, or even up to $1 million, to pass on elite talent. I think Elias was too enamored with saving money for later picks, gambled that Fabian would be available for the O's 2nd pick and lost, and overrated Cowser. I believe Cowser can still pan out and be a Nick Markakis kind of hitter for us, but I've always thought it was a mistake to draft him, and I doubt anything will change my mind on that. I disagree with the thought process that we can logically conclude factored into the selection.

And despite that, I'm super high on Elias as an evaluator and how he and his staff draft. Much higher than Tony seems to be. But that doesn't mean that Elias is perfect. To me, Cowser and Kjerstad were mistakes because better players could have been picked instead, and we could have still wound up with players like Mayo, Baumler, and Rhodes.

[LTO's]

I think making any proclamations about what decisions were right or wrong at this stage is foolish. It's certainly preferable when HS guys reach A ball and tear it up, but at the same time, the level of play there is an absolute joke now with the minor league contraction. The jump from A to Hi-A is big nowadays so until a guy gets up there puts up a decent sample of ABs I'm not all that interested. 

In Cowser's case, I'm surprised/disappointed the BA is so low but a .400 OBP and an OPS in the upper .700s isn't the colossal failure that some think it is. Also, development isn't always completely linear. Henderson is a great example of that. Mash A ball, come up to ABD and get humbled a little and then get to a level higher than that and really take off.  We will see how the rest of the year plays out.