TT: It's time to bring up Colton Cowser

[HandsomeQuack]

Yup, with Stowers down it feels like the O's are one bat short of a lineup vs RHP. I guess it's a dead horse since it's the whole purpose of this thread but I don't see any reason Cowser shouldn't be up, unless the team is that concerned about Super 2.

[24fps]

3 hours ago, HandsomeQuack said:

Re: Top 100 lists, once you get outside the top 50, the margins become pretty thin. I forget who I saw say this, but there isn't a ton of difference in value between being ranked 50 and being ranked 150. Just looking at some Orioles, Coby Mayo was 36 on FGs, 69 on Baseball Prospectus, and unranked on the other major lists. Kjerstad was 80 on MLB's list and unranked everywhere else. Are those guys "Top 100" prospects? Heck, Cowser was ranked around 40 by most publications but completely left off by Keith Law and FGs.

The lists are nice barometers for the level of buzz around some guys (and most importantly, nice content for us fans to consume and argue about before the regular season kicks off), but outside of the guys that are universally regarded as blue chip prospects, I wouldn't take them too seriously.

Because I now have more time on my hands than I used to, I compared ten different top 100 lists before the beginning of this season to see if a suspicion I had was true. It was and I can confirm your findings.  Maybe a few dozen players appeared on all ten lists and there wasn't much consensus on their value.  For example Arizona pitching prospect Brandon Pfaadt was ranked between 16 and 95 depending on the list.  Top SP prospect Andrew Painter fell between 5 and 27.  Going forward, I intend to limit myself to Baseball America and Fangraphs and reclaim a lot of time.  Prospects are inherently very volatile and too much simplistic information is simply not useful.

Edited May 16, 2023 by 24fps