Can someone tell me what Cowser needs to do better?

[Alasdaire]

2 minutes ago, Pickles said:

We'll see, but there's literally nothing to suggest as of right now that Cowser is better in right than Santander.

Sure there is: he's faster, has a better arm, and has hundreds of reps captaining an outfield from center.

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Alasdaire said:

Sure there is: he's faster, has a better arm, and has hundreds of reps captaining an outfield from center.

I've seen no evidence his arm is better, and while you tout his "hundreds of reps" others are using his lack of experience as an excuse for his bad defensive play.  Which is it?

[Alasdaire]

8 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I've seen no evidence his arm is better, and while you tout his "hundreds of reps" others are using his lack of experience as an excuse for his bad defensive play.  Which is it?

His arm is significantly better.

Colton's viability as a career CF have been a question for a long time now. The consensus has been that he has the tools to play the position at a serviceable level, but you ideally want more out of a defender at a premium position. That's exactly what we've seen so far.

I'm neither surprised nor worried about how he looks in center. Cedric or Hicks will come back soon and we have Fabian/Bradfield in the future. Colton has the tools and experience to be a good corner outfielder.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Alasdaire

[Pickles]

26 minutes ago, Alasdaire said:

His arm is significantly better.

Colton's viability as a career CF have been a question for a long time now. The consensus has been that he has the tools to play the position at a serviceable level, but you ideally want more out of a defender at a premium position. That's exactly what we've seen so far.

I'm neither surprised nor worried about how he looks in center. Cedric or Hicks will come back soon and we have Fabian/Bradfield in the future. Colton has the tools and experience to be a good corner outfielder.

I'm not shocked to see his arm has more velocity than Santander's.  The most surprising thing from that chart imo is how closely Cedrick tracks to Santander.

That said, there's a lot more that goes into an outfield arm than mere velocity.

Cowser has consistently put himself in bad position to throw the ball, either through bad tracking, or frankly, just bad fundamentals.

Now, this is something that can be corrected, and should get better as he gains experience.  There's nothing to my eye that suggests he won't eventually be able to play a solid corner outfield.  Personally, I've seen enough to decide I don't think he's a long term answer at CF however.

But we're not talking about the future.  We're talking about the here and the now.  And in the here and now, Santander and Hays are both better corner outfielders than he is defensively, and obviously we've got about 4 guys who are better in CF than him.

[Malike]

2 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I'm not shocked to see his arm has more velocity than Santander's.  The most surprising thing from that chart imo is how closely Cedrick tracks to Santander.

That said, there's a lot more that goes into an outfield arm than mere velocity.

Cowser has consistently put himself in bad position to throw the ball, either through bad tracking, or frankly, just bad fundamentals.

Now, this is something that can be corrected, and should get better as he gains experience.  There's nothing to my eye that suggests he won't eventually be able to play a solid corner outfield.  Personally, I've seen enough to decide I don't think he's a long term answer at CF however.

But we're not talking about the future.  We're talking about the here and the now.  And in the here and now, Santander and Hays are both better corner outfielders than he is defensively, and obviously we've got about 4 guys who are better in CF than him.

This tracks, his PART and DRS are both -4 for the season. His positioning has been, not good.

[Pickles]

10 minutes ago, Malike said:

This tracks, his PART and DRS are both -4 for the season. His positioning has been, not good.

It's not just the tracking but you can see it when he positions himself to field a fly ball and make a throw.  He doesn't get behind the ball, and drive through it, and gain momentum for his throw.  I've seen it multiple times where he catches it flat-footed off to the side.  So yeah, you may have better raw arm velocity, but you're not putting yourself in a position to make a strong throw.

[Malike]

7 minutes ago, Pickles said:

It's not just the tracking but you can see it when he positions himself to field a fly ball and make a throw.  He doesn't get behind the ball, and drive through it, and gain momentum for his throw.  I've seen it multiple times where he catches it flat-footed off to the side.  So yeah, you may have better raw arm velocity, but you're not putting yourself in a position to make a strong throw.

PART takes that into account, I believe. Trying to post between site crashes haha. You can tell it's the trade deadline when the OH crashes a lot.

[Alasdaire]

27 minutes ago, Pickles said:

It's not just the tracking but you can see it when he positions himself to field a fly ball and make a throw.  He doesn't get behind the ball, and drive through it, and gain momentum for his throw.  I've seen it multiple times where he catches it flat-footed off to the side.  So yeah, you may have better raw arm velocity, but you're not putting yourself in a position to make a strong throw.

I understand why people are saying that Cowser doesn't pass the eye test. He doesn't have the look of a natural center fielder at all. But I also think people are being a bit too critical of a guy who, despite his form, hasn't made many costly mistakes and in reality isn't the plan at CF.

In general it strikes me that Colton is playing it safe and trying to not make mistakes while he adjusts. He said as much during a postgame in Philly when he drove in the winning run on a sac fly, just not trying to do too much. In the field, he almost always goes for the cutoff man rather than risking he airmails the ball on a long throw. Takes a lot of pitches rather than guessing incorrectly and swinging out of his shoes.

He's not flashing, but he's also not really making a fool of himself.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Alasdaire

[Malike]

1 minute ago, Alasdaire said:

I understand why people are saying that Cowser doesn't pass the eye test. He doesn't have the look of a natural center fielder at all. But I also think it's a bit critical for a guy who, despite his form, hasn't made many costly mistakes and in reality isn't the plan at CF.

In general it strikes me that Colton is playing it safe and trying to not make mistakes while he adjusts. He said as much during a postgame in Philly when he drove in the winning run on a sac fly, just not trying to do too much. In the field, he almost always goes for the cutoff man rather than risking he airmails the ball on a long throw. Takes a lot of pitches rather than guessing incorrectly and swinging out of his shoes.

He's not flashing, but he's also not really making a fool of himself.

His dWAR is -4.5, and his oWAR which I'm much less concerned with is -2.7. His DRS is -4 and that's with only 30 putouts. If it were Aaron Hicks playing that poorly, we'd be gathering the pitchforks, he's been very bad in the field, even on routine plays. His UZR/150 is -25.2. -39.3 in CF, -19.4 in RF. I get that he's had to adjust at each level, but a guy who is going to be an above-average COF or defender, usually shows something after 140 innings where you go, oh I see it.

[Alasdaire]

15 minutes ago, Malike said:

His dWAR is -4.5, and his oWAR which I'm much less concerned with is -2.7. His DRS is -4 and that's with only 30 putouts. If it were Aaron Hicks playing that poorly, we'd be gathering the pitchforks, he's been very bad in the field, even on routine plays. His UZR/150 is -25.2. -39.3 in CF, -19.4 in RF. I get that he's had to adjust at each level, but a guy who is going to be an above-average COF or defender, usually shows something after 140 innings where you go, oh I see it.

Fair enough. Maybe it's an overstatement to say he will be a good corner outfielder since I agree that there's really not much to hang your hat on statistically or based on the eye test. All you can really say is that he'll have tools that will grade pretty well at COF since it's a position where teams stick guys who don't have tools.

People have gotten awfully excited about the slash lines Cowser/Kjerstad have put up over the past year or so, but they both need the bat to be prolific to justify their draft/ranking/hype pedigree since they don't do much of anything else.

[Malike]

2 minutes ago, Alasdaire said:

Fair enough. Maybe it's an overstatement to say he will be a good corner outfielder since I agree that there's really not much to hang your hat on statistically or based on the eye test. All you can really say is that he'll have tools that will grade pretty well at COF since it's a position where teams stick guys who don't have tools.

People have gotten awfully excited about the slash lines Cowser/Kjerstad have put up over the past year or so, but they both need the bat to be prolific to justify their draft/ranking/hype pedigree since they don't do much of anything else.

It's hard to argue with anything here. I think people need to realize that some of these guys just aren't going to work out, as well. We seem to have hit on Adley and Gunnar, we are going to have some busts in there too, it's baseball.

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, Malike said:

How long does it take to get accustomed to fielding in the big leagues? There were 3 plays last night that were very awkward and should have been routine. The first put-out was a routine fly ball to center and he threw his hands up like he couldn't find the ball, then settled under it. He misplayed another routine ball that resulted in him having to break back and do some sort of jump about 30 feet from the warning track, then as was pointed out, he just let the Judge ball drop in.

He's had 64 innings in CF, how many does it usually take to get accustomed to the view from a MLB park? He has 137 innings in the OF, if he hasn't figured out the 2nd deck yet, will he ever?

It’s not abnormal for players to have to adjust to the multi tiered stadiums.

There have been doubts that Cowser could be a CFer but some think he can and no one has ever mentioned any worry about his defense on the corners.

I agree he hasn’t looked good defensively at all..but I think that changes soon enough and he will definitely be a better defensive OFer than Santander.

But, as Moose talked about the other day, we literally just went through  this with Gunnar. His offense was nothing and he was struggling with the glove. We had people doubting how good defensively he was.

At some point, people will learn to trust those who actually see and watch these guys and not be so quick to worry about everything.(not saying you are doing this, just making a general comment)

Edited July 30, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Jammer7]

I think Cowser will be fine, eventually. He looks like he doesn’t believe he belongs just yet. I don’t like him in CF, but he isn’t awful. At the plate, he looks very passive. I like that he is letting it travel and being patient, but he has to be a bit more assertive and look to pull a little more. At least, be more gap to gap. Everything I can remember has been to LF. Some hard hit balls, though. 

The COF is actually more difficult to play than CF, IMO. The reads are much easier in CF, less balls slicing away or hooking, and no tricky corners in general. CF needs someone with range/speed, but the COF takes more skill as an OF to be good out there. 

[Malike]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s not abnormal for players to have to adjust to the multi tiered stadiums.

There have been doubts that Cowser could be a CFer but some think he can and no one has every mentioned any worry about his defense.

I agree he hasn’t looked good defensively at all..but I think that changes soon enough and he will definitely be a better defensive OFer than Santander.

But, as Moose talked about the other day, we literally just went through  this with Gunnar. His offense was nothing and he was struggling with the glove. We had people doubting how good defensively he was.

At some point, people will learn to trust those who actually see and watch these guys and not be so quick to worry about everything.(not saying you are doing this, just making a general comment)

Fair points, I said it yesterday, though, some of our top prospects are going to bust, it's just baseball. Not saying Cowser will be a bust, but they aren't all going to hit.

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Malike said:

Fair points, I said it yesterday, though, some of our top prospects are going to bust, it's just baseball. Not saying Cowser will be a bust, but they aren't all going to hit.

No they aren’t…but I’m guessing Defense won’t be the reason he busts, if he does.