Colton Cowser 2024

[waroriole]

19 minutes ago, Frobby said:

If by best, he means worst.  

Best from the Yankees perspective. 

[Roy Firestone]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Cowser has cooled off.  Mountcastle actually has been very steady.  

at the time I wrote that comment...Mountcastle had cooled off a bit...Cowser is ice cold.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Roy Firestone said:

at the time I wrote that comment...Mountcastle had cooled off a bit...Cowser is ice cold.

Cowser has 4 hits in his last 28 at bats, so that qualifies as ice cold, I’d agree.  On the bright side, his four hits included 2 homers and a double, and he also walked 6 times, so his .687 OPS in that stretch isn’t all that awful for a slump.  

As to Mountcastle, I just don’t see that he’s really had any significant slump.  But this thread is not about him, so I don’t want to steer it off track.

[Rbiggs2525]

Like someone posted before, every player has ups and downs. We can’t hold Cowser at some extreme level of expectations because we want him to win ROY. He will most likely have another hot streak coming. 

[dzorange]

Just want to clarify what Girardi said about Mountcastle, to break up any confusion on what he said or by what I meant he said. Not trying to derail the topic off of Cowser, just want to clarify.

After the commentary team talked about how the Orioles are aggressive at the plate and don't walk, Girardi said:

"Talking about the young hitters with the Orioles, the fourth highest in chase rate. But Mountcastle isn't one of those guys. He's in the top, uh, lowest 8th percent of chase. But we just got him to chase that good cutter."

Take that however you want.

Edited April 30 by dzorange

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, dzorange said:

Just want to clarify what Girardi said about Mountcastle, to break up any confusion on what he said or by what I meant he said. Not trying to derail the topic off of Cowser, just want to clarify.

After the commentary team talked about how the Orioles are aggressive at the plate and don't walk, Girardi said:

"Talking about the young hitters with the Orioles, the fourth highest in chase rate. But Mountcastle isn't one of those guys. He's in the top, uh, lowest 8th percent of chase. But we just got him to chase that good cutter."

Take that however you want.

I take it to mean that Girardi doesn’t know how to read Baseball Savant.

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I take it to mean that Girardi doesn’t know how to read Baseball Savant.

 

He's never heard of it. 

[Malike]

The downside of an otherworldly start is the inevitable regression to the mean and the hope is it doesn't come crashing down all at once. Everyone knew Cowser wasn't going to keep up what he was doing and pitchers have been throwing him a lot of breaking balls now. He'll have to make the adjustment and we'll have to live with the inconsistency until he shows he can. 

[interloper]

4 minutes ago, Malike said:

The downside of an otherworldly start is the inevitable regression to the mean and the hope is it doesn't come crashing down all at once. Everyone knew Cowser wasn't going to keep up what he was doing and pitchers have been throwing him a lot of breaking balls now. He'll have to make the adjustment and we'll have to live with the inconsistency until he shows he can. 

Yeah. He's still taking decent ABs and getting walks and sprinkling in hits here and there, so overall the comedown hasn't been too harsh. Just want him to keep making hard contact. 

He's also gotten hosed on a few strike 3 calls, like everyone else this season. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

3 minutes ago, interloper said:

Yeah. He's still taking decent ABs and getting walks and sprinkling in hits here and there, so overall the comedown hasn't been too harsh. Just want him to keep making hard contact. 

He's also gotten hosed on a few strike 3 calls, like everyone else this season. 

Cowser will be ok in the long run even after course correcting to a more realistic stat line.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/colton-cowser-681297?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

[LGOrioles]

14 minutes ago, interloper said:

Yeah. He's still taking decent ABs and getting walks and sprinkling in hits here and there, so overall the comedown hasn't been too harsh. Just want him to keep making hard contact. 

He's also gotten hosed on a few strike 3 calls, like everyone else this season. 

He has been pretty bad on breaking balls and especially off speed pitches so far this year, so hopefully he can adjust similar to Gunnar last year. His whiff rates on both those pitch types are nearly 50%, compared to 20% on fastballs. He doesn’t chase much and is making solid enough contact against breaking balls, so hopefully he can adjust and go from there. 

ZiPS has him as being worth 1.9 WAR over his next 423 at bats, about a 3 WAR pace over a full season. And that’s with him striking out 30% of the time, providing negative base running and fielding value, and a roughly league average ISO (maybe a little higher). His xISO is currently almost double that and he’s been great defensively. If he can cut down on the whiffs, and continues playing good defense, he’s probably looking at a 4+ WAR season even if his ISO is .160 the rest of the year (as ZiPS projects).

He definitely has been dogged on some strike calls this year but hopefully that doesn’t change his approach. 

Edited April 30 by LGOrioles

[G54377]

Cowser will probably strike out a lot because he typically gets deep into counts. That's fine, because his walk rate is going to be very good and obviously hit for power. I think he'll be a permanent fixture as our 5th/6th hitter in the lineup.

[Tony-OH]

Strikeouts and whiff have always been part of Cowser's game. But so has putting up good numbers.  He's going to fine.

[Moose Milligan]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

He hit an oppo double on Sunday.

Good, keep doing it. 

[Sports Guy]

6 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Good, keep doing it. 

Good approach tonight on every at bat.