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Colton Cowser 2024


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He’s kind of sneaky fast.  His average sprint speed is a decent 27.9 ft/sec but he was clocked at 29.4 on a close play at 1B a couple of days ago.  He has those long strides so he doesn’t really look that speedy but he covers a lot of ground.  

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40 minutes ago, wildcard said:

There seems to be a feeling that Cowser will be merely adequate in center.    I just don't know about that.   

Have we seen cases where Cowser playing center did not get to a balls this season that Mullins would have? Have we seen Cowser not make plays in center this season that he should have made?

He seems pretty solid in center most of the time to me.   I am just not sure about the difficult  plays.

It's kind of like Westburg and Urias at 3B.   Urias is very , even GG caliber at 3B but he does not hit well.   Westburg makes plays at 3B.  Maybe not quite as as Urias but Westburg's offense is so much better that he is playing over Urias.

Could the same thing happen to Cowser and Mullins?  I have questions but not answers at this point.

 

Cowser's listed weight on bbref is 220 lbs. That is extremely heavy for CF (Mullins is listed at 175!!) but Judge has done it, so I guess some teams will accept the tradeoff for less range in CF in exchange for a bat. Bryce Harper said playing CF was really hard on his legs compared to RF so its a position like Catcher that probably needs a day off once a week or so to rest up, if you're expecting plus offense anyway. 

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1 minute ago, jabba72 said:

Cowser's listed weight on bbref is 220 lbs. That is extremely heavy for CF (Mullins is listed at 175!!) but Judge has done it, so I guess some teams will accept the tradeoff for less range in CF in exchange for a bat.

This guy was listed at 225.  I’d say he did okay in CF.

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42 minutes ago, wildcard said:

There seems to be a feeling that Cowser will be merely adequate in center.    I just don't know about that.   

Have we seen cases where Cowser playing center did not get to a balls this season that Mullins would have? Have we seen Cowser not make plays in center this season that he should have made?

He seems pretty solid in center most of the time to me.   I am just not sure about the difficult  plays.

It's kind of like Westburg and Urias at 3B.   Urias is very good, even GG caliber at 3B but he does not hit well.   Westburg makes good plays at 3B.  Maybe not quite as good as Urias but Westburg's offense is so much better that he is playing over Urias.

Could the same thing happen to Cowser and Mullins?  I have questions but not answers at this point.

 

I'd rather go with the player who offers the most overall value to the team

Mullins' 0.3 WAR, 0.2 oWAR, 0.2 dWAR

Cowser's 0.9 WAR, 0.9 oWAR, -0.2 dWAR

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1 minute ago, Frobby said:

This guy was listed at 225.  I’d say he did okay in CF.

Well Jones only stole a season high of 11 bases after he was 23, so I'd say that added weight took away from his speed. Getting good jumps and reads is important for a CF. Jones was probably excellent at that. We dont know about Cowser yet. 

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Just now, ChosenOne21 said:

Sure, but that guy was special. Cowser would be lucky to have half his career.

Point is, weight is only important insofar as it affects speed.  Cowser is actually a little faster (27.9 ft/sec) than Mullins (27.7) right now, so I really don’t care if he outweighs Mullins by 50 pounds.  That’s irrelevant.  (I am not arguing that Cowser is a better CF than Mullins, just that weight has no bearing on it.)

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1 hour ago, jabba72 said:

Well Jones only stole a season high of 11 bases after he was 23, so I'd say that added weight took away from his speed. Getting good jumps and reads is important for a CF. Jones was probably excellent at that. We dont know about Cowser yet. 

Good points but remember Jones knew the Braves pitchers (what they would thow and when), the NL hitters, and the stadiums which allowed him to anticipate pitches then read the swing.  That anticipation allowed him to get better jumps something CC will develop with time.

Cowser is fluid with good hips but I really see him as the perfect LF in Camden Yards-my big issue with him is that arm-it's strong but his throws always seem to tail which is horrible for relays as it goes to the throwing arm side of the 2B/SS.  Ironically HJ hit the SS glove side twice in his one start in LF.

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Good to see the bat heating up and the defense. He did have trouble digging the ball out of the corner and Jorge had to jump about 6 feet to make that a "cutoff" throw and then threw a seed to the plate for the out at home.

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4 minutes ago, Malike said:

Good to see the bat heating up and the defense. He did have trouble digging the ball out of the corner and Jorge had to jump about 6 feet to make that a "cutoff" throw and then threw a seed to the plate for the out at home.

Did they have a radar gun on that throw from Mateo to McCann?

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38 minutes ago, Malike said:

Good to see the bat heating up and the defense. He did have trouble digging the ball out of the corner and Jorge had to jump about 6 feet to make that a "cutoff" throw and then threw a seed to the plate for the out at home.

It was a really nice throw by CC even if a little high.  I have been critical of his accuracy but the runner is safe if CC's throw isn't to Mateo's chest/glove side.  Mateo has been superb at 2b, I love Holliday but watching him learn to play 2b was frustrating-missed assignments etc.-it's tough to learn without being exposed at this level.

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    • Just to be clear, though, fWAR also includes a substantial adjustment for position, including a negative one for Cowser.  For a clearer example on that front, as the chart posted higher on this page indicates, Carlos Santana had a +14 OAA — which is the source data that fWAR’s defensive component is based on. That 14 outs above average equates to 11-12 (they use different values on this for some reason) runs better than the average 1B.  So does Santana have a 12.0 defensive value, per fWAR? He does not. That’s because they adjust his defensive value downward to reflect that he’s playing a less difficult/valuable position. In this case, that adjustment comes out to -11.0 runs, as you can see here:   So despite apparently having a bona fide Gold Glove season, Santana’s Fielding Runs value (FanGraphs’ equivalent to dWAR) is barely above average, at 1.1 runs.    Any good WAR calculation is going to adjust for position. Being a good 1B just isn’t worth as much as being an average SS or catcher. Just as being a good LF isn’t worth as much as being an average CF. Every outfielder can play LF — only the best outfielders can play CF.  Where the nuance/context shows up here is with Cowser’s unique situation. Playing LF in OPACY, with all that ground to cover, is not the same as playing LF at Fenway or Yankee Stadium. Treating Cowser’s “position” as equivalent to Tyler O’Neill’s, for example, is not fair. The degree of difficulty is much, much higher at OPACY’s LF, and so the adjustment seems out of whack for him. That’s the one place where I’d say the bWAR value is “unfair” to Cowser.
    • Wait a second here, the reason he's -0.1 in bb-ref dwar is because they're using drs to track his defensive run value.  He's worth 6.6 runs in defense according to fangraphs, which includes adjustments for position, which would give him a fangraphs defensive war of +0.7.
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