Colton Cowser 2024

[Otter]

41 minutes ago, casadeozo said:

With his season now over, curious what happened to the version of Cowser we drafted.

looking at his scouting report coming out of Sam Houston State, the concern with him was would his power translate to MLB while his plate discipline and ability to draw walks being a plus. Certainly were concerns about the strikeouts but nowhere near the concerns of someone like Honeycutt. 
 

He finishes the year with 52 walks and 172 strikeouts, with a 30% K rate. He was near the top of the league in strikeouts for most of the year. 

is this purely his issues with off speed pitches? Can this be improved or do we accept the awful strikeouts and laud the plus defense.

Yes, the K rate was bad but people seem to forget he was a rookie this year and was still one of the best rookies in all of baseball.  He has a lot of talent, and I expect him to improve his walk rate and production next year even though he'll probably still strike out a ton.  I also hope that with a full year under his belt he won't press as much in pressure situations and improve his terrible RISP stats.  Then again, we don't know what these hitting coaches are teaching these guys so we'll have to wait and see what happens next year...

[Aglets]

Just looking at qualified batters, Cowser's K rate of 30.7% led the team by FAR.  2nd place was Mountcastle at 22.5% which is on par with the MLB average.

His -2.5 Win Probability Added was also by far the worst on the team.  All of the other players on our roster (among qualified batters) were at least above average with that.  Gunnar, Westburg, and Santander were the best.

He was the most "unclutch" player on our team by multiple wins according to bb-ref.

I still hope he wins rookie of the year obviously but I have some serious questions about if he is a long term piece here.

I suppose it's also worth pointing out that he was the 4th best player on the team in terms of overall bWAR so it's complicated.  There is no doubt he has some real defensive skills.  I just pray there is something they can do to help fix his head when he gets in these pivotal at-bats with games on the line.