Colton Cowser 2024

[Frobby]

Here's a reel I made of the two defensive plays by Cowser mentioned above from last night, as well as his two hits.   The well-placed double is the third item on the reel.  You can judge the swing decision for yourself.

https://www.mlb.com/video/00u7tgd3tufIUmaZP356/reels/cowser-reel-4-2-24?partnerId=web_multimedia-search_video-share

Edit -- I'd need to know more about Cowser's happy zones to know if that was a good pitch for him to swing at.  I will say this -- when the 3B is shifted over far towards SS, I like seeing a LHH hit one down the 3B line.   I don't mind that he didn't try to hit one to the right side, down 3-0.

Edited April 3 by Frobby

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Here's a reel I made of the two defensive plays by Cowser mentioned above from last night, as well as his two hits.   The well-placed double is the third item on the reel.  You can judge the swing decision for yourself.

https://www.mlb.com/video/00u7tgd3tufIUmaZP356/reels/cowser-reel-4-2-24?partnerId=web_multimedia-search_video-share

Was a better pitch to hit than the one Perez swung at. 

[EdwinRip]

I don’t really see a bad swing decision by Cowser.  He just pulled off the ball a bit and didn’t stay on it….it happens in baseball.

[RZNJ]

11 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Borderline breaking balls are not a pitch you should be swinging at with no strikes.  This is literally the exact thing they're talking about when they talk about swing decisions.

I know they rank every swing decision and then have some app to share them with the players after the game.

Sure would like to have that available right now.

Cowser.

“I think for him it’s about rebuilding that confidence again,” he said. “I feel like when he got up here, he was kind of being more passive, whereas I want him to be more aggressive. He was walking, he was having great at-bats, but at the big league level it just comes down to being aggressive. I just think for him, it just seemed like he was starting to lose his confidence a little bit, and once you lose that as a young player in the big leagues, it’s kind of tough to regain it back.”

[Frobby]

Statcast judged the first fly out to be a 60% probability catch, and the second one an 80% probability catch.   Honeslty, neither looked that hard to me, but I guess that's because Cowser has some speed and got a good jump on both.

[Daddy-O's]

9 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Here's a reel I made of the two defensive plays by Cowser mentioned above from last night, as well as his two hits.   The well-placed double is the third item on the reel.  You can judge the swing decision for yourself.

https://www.mlb.com/video/00u7tgd3tufIUmaZP356/reels/cowser-reel-4-2-24?partnerId=web_multimedia-search_video-share

So the pitcher knows he is going to try and advance the runner by hitting to the right side and throws him a strike on the outer half of the plate.  Seems like a decent bit of hitting to take what they give you.

[RZNJ]

10 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Statcast judged the first fly out to be a 60% probability catch, and the second one an 80% probability catch.   Honeslty, neither looked that hard to me, but I guess that's because Cowser has some speed and got a good jump on both.

Can’t find catch probability on Savant for the game.  Curious on how to find it so I can find the probability on the O’Hearn play.  Thanks.

[Sports Guy]

17 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Statcast judged the first fly out to be a 60% probability catch, and the second one an 80% probability catch.   Honeslty, neither looked that hard to me, but I guess that's because Cowser has some speed and got a good jump on both.

I wouldn’t characterize them as hard plays…but I think you are right that he had good jumps.

Weather wasn’t ideal, so that’s a little feather in his cap too.

That said, the real key for me is that last year his defense (early on) was an issue. He didn’t appear to get good jumps, etc…that is behind him now. He started to look better out there towards the end of his time last year and looked very comfortable yesterday.  His arm is excellent too.

 

[Pickles]

20 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Cowser.

“I think for him it’s about rebuilding that confidence again,” he said. “I feel like when he got up here, he was kind of being more passive, whereas I want him to be more aggressive. He was walking, he was having great at-bats, but at the big league level it just comes down to being aggressive. I just think for him, it just seemed like he was starting to lose his confidence a little bit, and once you lose that as a young player in the big leagues, it’s kind of tough to regain it back.”

I agree they want him to be more aggressive this year, and that's going to include attacking strikes earlier in the count.

I do not agree they want him swinging at borderline breaking balls ahead in the count with no strikes.

There is a fine line between passive and aggressive.

I would really like access to their swing decisions app.  That would be fascinating to me.

I'd like it if a reporter asked this kind of question of Cowser and management, but I don't expect any to because this is of little interest except to baseball autists.  

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, RZNJ said:

Can’t find catch probability on Savant for the game.  Curious on how to find it so I can find the probability on the O’Hearn play.  Thanks.

They don’t post in the GameCast, which is frustrating.   To find a play, you have to go to the player page, choose fielding, scroll down to the chart that shows hang time and distance, and then hover over the dot that represents the play you’re looking for.   It’s a pain in the butt and becomes more difficult as the season goes along and more plays are populating the chart so it’s hard to find what you’re looking for.  I wrote to @tangotigerlast year to see if they could just give a link in the GameCast.  He seemed to say it would be pretty easy for them to do this but they chose not to because some people misinterpret the data.  I didn’t really understand his answer, to be honest.  If he sees this, maybe he’ll elaborate.  

As to the O’Hearn play, for some reason it’s not represented on his chart.   It wasn’t as easy a play as some suggested, IMO.

 

[Sports Guy]

41 minutes ago, Pickles said:

What's bat shit crazy about what I've said?  Be specific.

Look at the video Frobby posted. The ball was a strike and he took it the other way.

A bad swing decision would have been if that ball was more outside and lower. 
 

You are acting like he swung at a ball off his shoe tops. He took an outside pitch the other way.

We also know he has been a good off speed hitter, where as he has had some issues with fastballs, especially up in the zone.

So maybe he saw that as a pitch he could handle.

Where I agree with you is that there’s a good argument that it was more of a pitchers pitch and that you lay off of it.  But you don’t know that you are going to get a better pitch to hit and he did swing at a strike.

You are just being over dramatic about it.  If anyone was reading your posts and didn’t see the at bat, they would think he swung at an Actual bad pitch in a 3-1 count, which wasn’t the case.

[RZNJ]

1 minute ago, Pickles said:

I agree they want him to be more aggressive this year, and that's going to include attacking strikes earlier in the count.

I do not agree they want him swinging at borderline breaking balls ahead in the count with no strikes.

There is a fine line between passive and aggressive.

I would really like access to their swing decisions app.  That would be fascinating to me.

I'd like it if a reporter asked this kind of question of Cowser and management, but I don't expect any to because this is of little interest except to baseball autists.  

Was it a great pitch to hit?  No.   Was it a pitch he can hit?   Yes.   Was it an “atrocious” at bat?   Hell, no!

[Sports Guy]

I know it was only one start but Cowser just looked more relaxed and comfortable to me.  Maybe it’s just a bias because he played well but he just didn’t seem pressed like he did last year.

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Look at the video Frobby posted. The ball was a strike and he took it the other way.

A bad swing decision would have been if that ball was more outside and lower. 
 

You are acting like he swung at a ball off his shoe tops. He took an outside pitch the other way.

We also know he has been a good off speed hitter, where as he has had some issues with fastballs, especially up in the zone.

So maybe he saw that as a pitch he could handle.

Where I agree with you is that there’s a good argument that it was more of a pitchers pitch and that you lay off of it.  But you don’t know that you are going to get a better pitch to hit and he did swing at a strike.

You are just being over dramatic about it.  If anyone was reading your posts and didn’t see the at bat, they would think he swung at an Actual bad pitch in a 3-1 count, which wasn’t the case.

He swung at a breaking ball that was a borderline strike.

That's the definition of a pitcher's pitch.

He was ahead in the count and had no strikes.

Why was he swinging at a pitcher's pitch with no strikes?  That's not a good decision.

I don't think I'm being dramatic.  I've stated over and over again it was a borderline strike.

@RZNJ If this is just about semantics, then yeah, ok, atrocious is too strong of a word.

It was a poor at bat and a poor decision, but it worked out well for him.

[Can_of_corn]

9 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Look at the video Frobby posted. The ball was a strike and he took it the other way.

A bad swing decision would have been if that ball was more outside and lower. 
 

You are acting like he swung at a ball off his shoe tops. He took an outside pitch the other way.

We also know he has been a good off speed hitter, where as he has had some issues with fastballs, especially up in the zone.

So maybe he saw that as a pitch he could handle.

Where I agree with you is that there’s a good argument that it was more of a pitchers pitch and that you lay off of it.  But you don’t know that you are going to get a better pitch to hit and he did swing at a strike.

You are just being over dramatic about it.  If anyone was reading your posts and didn’t see the at bat, they would think he swung at an Actual bad pitch in a 3-1 count, which wasn’t the case.

Not every hitter has the same "hot zones".  Based off of no where near enough data it appears that's a pitch he can handle.

And it was a strike.

Edited April 3 by Can_of_corn