Consolidated O’s top 100 rankings

[Frobby]

Baseball America, MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN (Kiley McDaniel), The Athletc (Keith Law), Just Baseball, Fangraphs:

Holliday 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

Basallo 10, 17, 13, 27, 20, 20, 7

Mayo 25, 30, 15, 19, 27, 12, 23

Kjerstad 41, 32, 41, 48, 62, 31, 24

Cowser 34, 19, 51, 50, —, 36, —

Ortiz —, 63, —, 91, 58, 43, 45

Bradfield —, —, 82, 94, 64, —, —

Hall 93 on BA*

Norby 76 on Just Baseball

* Hall meets BA’s criteria for prospect status but isn’t eligible for the other lists.

I know Ortiz and Hall are no longer O’s, but included them here since since the O’s drafted and developed them through their major league debuts.  
 

Edited February 15 by Frobby

[Sports Guy]

Averages:

Holliday: 1

Basallo: 18

Mayo: 20

Kjerstad : 43

Cowser: 38 (but obviously only 5 lists)

To me, this is represents close to where these guys should be ranked. I think I would have Basallo closer to 10 than 20. Mayo 15-20.

Kjerstad and Cowser in the 30-50 range.

Makes sense to me.  

 

[btdart20]

Average/mean rank:

Holliday - 1

Basallo - 17.8

Mayo - 21.3

HK - 42.5

Cowser - 52.5*

Ortiz - 84.2*

EBJ - 102.5*

 

*For Cowser, Ortiz, and EBJ:  For the rankings where they didn't make the top 100, I arbitrarily used 125 as the filler rank.  As a sanity test, I recalc'd it with 150 and it didn't move the needle very much: Cowser (56.7), Ortiz (92.5), and EBJ (115).  

[btdart20]

9 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

To me, this is represents close to where these guys should be ranked. I think I would have Basallo closer to 10 than 20. Mayo 15-20.

It's hard for national pubs to be purely objective.  Not from a "let's slight team X" perspective.  But from a "can we really have team/city X over-represented?" perspective.  I can see a group discussion for final rankings including that level of discussion.  At least if marketing/editing is involved.  Rankings are their sacred business, so they scouts can always point to their tiers and say "Well #15 and #21 are all 50 guys.  Shuffle them around however you want."

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

It's hard for national pubs to be purely objective.  Not from a "let's slight team X" perspective.  But from a "can we really have team/city X over-represented?" perspective.  I can see a group discussion for final rankings including that level of discussion.  At least if marketing/editing is involved.  Rankings are their sacred business, so they scouts can always point to their tiers and say "Well #15 and #21 are all 50 guys.  Shuffle them around however you want."

I’d say it’s much harder for fans of a particular team to be objective about where their prospects rank in relation to prospects in other organizations.  

[Sports Guy]

50 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

It's hard for national pubs to be purely objective.  Not from a "let's slight team X" perspective.  But from a "can we really have team/city X over-represented?" perspective.  I can see a group discussion for final rankings including that level of discussion.  At least if marketing/editing is involved.  Rankings are their sacred business, so they scouts can always point to their tiers and say "Well #15 and #21 are all 50 guys.  Shuffle them around however you want."

I could see that. I don’t think there is much difference between 30-50 and 70-120.  

[LookinUp]

It's useful seeing the profiles about all of these guys, both from Tony and even from the national guys. I do tend to look at them differently though, and Cowser's the perfect example why.

He's a highly rated prospect that plays good, but not great, outfield defense, has a good eye, good exit velos, but problems with offspeed stuff, LHP and premium velocity.

To me, I care more about his problems than his ranking. I think we make a mistake when we look at prospect write-ups as if they're the finished product. The real value I gain is in understanding the profile and then (hopefully) seeing improvements. Look at McDermott. Last year he was a 2-pitch reliever in Law's eyes. Now there's more and he may be a starter. Bradish was similar. Means also took a jump forward. I don't love Bradfield's profile, but I have hope. 

I don't even know why I'm writing this, lol. Maybe it's a pep talk to people who think Cowser really will only be a 4th OF/platoon guy. I'm not saying he won't. I'm just saying that just because it's what he looked like last year or the year before doesn't mean that's where he'll settle as a player. 

I'm a huge believer in player development in general, what can be accomplished in the offseason, and the Oriole's current approach, so I expect continued improvement from guys like Povich, maybe Cowser, etc., and for those prospect write-ups to be proven premature when they say that they'll not get closer to their ceilings. 

[RZNJ]

4 hours ago, LookinUp said:

It's useful seeing the profiles about all of these guys, both from Tony and even from the national guys. I do tend to look at them differently though, and Cowser's the perfect example why.

He's a highly rated prospect that plays good, but not great, outfield defense, has a good eye, good exit velos, but problems with offspeed stuff, LHP and premium velocity.

To me, I care more about his problems than his ranking. I think we make a mistake when we look at prospect write-ups as if they're the finished product. The real value I gain is in understanding the profile and then (hopefully) seeing improvements. Look at McDermott. Last year he was a 2-pitch reliever in Law's eyes. Now there's more and he may be a starter. Bradish was similar. Means also took a jump forward. I don't love Bradfield's profile, but I have hope. 

I don't even know why I'm writing this, lol. Maybe it's a pep talk to people who think Cowser really will only be a 4th OF/platoon guy. I'm not saying he won't. I'm just saying that just because it's what he looked like last year or the year before doesn't mean that's where he'll settle as a player. 

I'm a huge believer in player development in general, what can be accomplished in the offseason, and the Oriole's current approach, so I expect continued improvement from guys like Povich, maybe Cowser, etc., and for those prospect write-ups to be proven premature when they say that they'll not get closer to their ceilings. 

Good post. I think the point is that some players keep improving and others hit a wall.   If Cowser improves his weaknesses he can still become an all-star level player.  He improved all during his first year playing at 3 levels.  He finished at Norfolk and was just okay.  He returned to Norfolk and was much better there.  He really struggled in a SSS in the majors.  Now we get to see if he can make further adjustments.

Edited February 13 by RZNJ

[LookinUp]

12 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Good post. I think the point is that some players keep improving and others hit a wall.   If Cowser improves his weaknesses he can still become an all-star level player.  He improved all during his first year playing at 3 levels.  He finished at Norfolk and was just okay.  He returned to Norfolk and was much better there.  He really struggled in a SSS in the majors.  Now we get to see if he can make further adjustments.

Right. And I'm not saying Cowser will be the guy to really improve his profile. I'd put more money on Povich to be honest. Less on Fabian and Bradfield, though obviously I hope I'm wrong there.

With that said, of everyone, I think Cowser almost gets the benefit of legit failure. That brings clarity. If he didn't get into the offseason with open eyes, I don't know who did. Hopefully that really benefits him because he, and all of the experts trying to help him, really should know what he has to work on.

[Frobby]

I edited the OP to include Fangraphs’ rankings that came out today.  

[btdart20]

On 2/9/2024 at 6:00 PM, btdart20 said:

Average/mean rank:

Holliday - 1

Basallo - 17.8

Mayo - 21.3

HK - 42.5

Cowser - 52.5*

Ortiz - 84.2*

EBJ - 102.5*

 

*For Cowser, Ortiz, and EBJ:  For the rankings where they didn't make the top 100, I arbitrarily used 125 as the filler rank.  As a sanity test, I recalc'd it with 150 and it didn't move the needle very much: Cowser (56.7), Ortiz (92.5), and EBJ (115).  

Holliday - 1

Basallo - 16.3

Mayo - 21.6

HK - 39.9

Cowser - 62.9*

Ortiz - 78.6*

EBJ - 105.7*

 

Updated with FG - nudged HK into the top 40 and Cowser out of the top 60.

[Frobby]

It’s fascinating to me how the opinions on Cowser vary so much.   He’s got three evaluations in the top 40 (including as high as 19) and two outside the top 100.   And listening to Longenhagen on Effectively Wild, Cowser wasn’t a borderline case for him, he was way outside the top 100.   

Somebody’s going to be proven very wrong about Cowser, I just don’t know who yet.  
 

[LTO's]

14 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s fascinating to me how the opinions on Cowser vary so much.   He’s got three evaluations in the top 40 (including as high as 19) and two outside the top 100.   And listening to Longenhagen on Effectively Wild, Cowser wasn’t a borderline case for him, he was way outside the top 100.   

Somebody’s going to be proven very wrong about Cowser, I just don’t know who yet.  
 

It's interesting but makes sense. A 23 year old former top 10 draft pick who put up a .937 OPS in AAA with good exit velos is usually a lock to be in a top 100. On the other hand, he's a corner outfielder who will most likely never hit lefties well enough to be an impact everyday player. Good news is Kjerstad is going to be a stud imo. 

[RZNJ]

34 minutes ago, LTO's said:

It's interesting but makes sense. A 23 year old former top 10 draft pick who put up a .937 OPS in AAA with good exit velos is usually a lock to be in a top 100. On the other hand, he's a corner outfielder who will most likely never hit lefties well enough to be an impact everyday player. Good news is Kjerstad is going to be a stud imo. 

Combined, Cowser had a .253 avg and .745 OPS against LHP last year.

A little soon to be declaring he can’t hit lefties.