Colton Cowser 2024

[AdamK]

Starting to notice Cowser is staring at homers lately... perhaps a little too long for those old school types in the league.
 

I don't mind it, of course. I love to see the guy gaining confidence and working on getting better at this level. But lately I have been wondering if he is going to wear one soon for looking a little too long.


 

[waroriole]

I wonder if Cowser will be helped by the Yankees and Red Sox each having two candidates. Maybe they split the vote. 

[Aristotelian]

2 minutes ago, AdamK said:

Starting to notice Cowser is staring at homers lately... perhaps a little too long for those old school types in the league.
 

I don't mind it, of course. I love to see the guy gaining confidence and working on getting better at this level. But lately I have been wondering if he is going to wear one soon for looking a little too long.


 

Holliday got a good look at his last one. I'm all for it. I would love it if MLB went full KBO style encouraging of bat flips and heroics.

[Can_of_corn]

9 minutes ago, waroriole said:

I wonder if Cowser will be helped by the Yankees and Red Sox each having two candidates. Maybe they split the vote. 

I don't think folks in this day and age are biased by the teams when they vote.  As I stated earlier it's not as if the Yankees have been getting a lot of RoY winners in recent history.

I think most voters start with looking at WAR and going from there.

[RZNJ]

32 minutes ago, AdamK said:

Starting to notice Cowser is staring at homers lately... perhaps a little too long for those old school types in the league.
 

I don't mind it, of course. I love to see the guy gaining confidence and working on getting better at this level. But lately I have been wondering if he is going to wear one soon for looking a little too long.


 

This is nothing compared to a lot of guys in the league.   

[Say O!]

I’m honestly more bothered by some of his reckless throwing.  Just when it seemed he wisely started reining it in, making better decisions, yesterday he goes ahead and airmails the cutoff man yesterday allowing runner to advance to 2B. 

[AdamK]

42 minutes ago, Say O! said:

I’m honestly more bothered by some of his reckless throwing.  Just when it seemed he wisely started reining it in, making better decisions, yesterday he goes ahead and airmails the cutoff man yesterday allowing runner to advance to 2B. 

Agreed. Assuming you are referring to this one:

He has a great view of the baserunner (who was already 5 steps around 3rd at the time Cowser possessed the ball). With two outs in the inning already, the runner had a huge head start.

It was almost as if he wanted to showcase his arm for some other time, like getting it on film. That can't be it though -- I am just looking for some excuse. 

[Conway12]

On 6/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, Conway12 said:

Count me among those that say to be more productive he needs to start hitting more Pull side Flyballs. If you breakdown all of his splits when he pulls the ball over half the time it's on the ground (66.7% to be exact). When he elevates the ball, it's to the opposite field (only 12.8% of his flyballs have been to the pull side), and those batted balls just aren't as valuable. It's the same reason Mountcastle had big splits last year on his expected numbers vs. real numbers. 

A pulled flyball is the most valuable type of batted ball. If he wants to improve his numbers he needs to elevate his pulled batted balls and stop smashing them into the ground at 100 mph. 

Or he could start smoking line drives into the gaps that aren't going to be caught (ala Westburg). His line drive rate is only 16.8% which is below league average. 

With Cowser's recent success, using a new bat (Thank you to Anthony Santander), and his move to the lead off spot I wanted to check back in on these numbers. I picked post All Star break since that is when he switched to the new bat. 

Previously he pulled only 12.8% of his fly balls, post All Star Break that number is up to 28%. Also, his line drive rate was 16.8% at the time of my post. Post All Star break, it is 20% which is right around league average (19.7%). He is still hitting the ball just as hard as before, but the batted ball profile is much more conducive to better production. 

 

[e16bball]

24 minutes ago, Conway12 said:

With Cowser's recent success, using a new bat (Thank you to Anthony Santander), and his move to the lead off spot I wanted to check back in on these numbers. I picked post All Star break since that is when he switched to the new bat. 

Previously he pulled only 12.8% of his fly balls, post All Star Break that number is up to 28%. Also, his line drive rate was 16.8% at the time of my post. Post All Star break, it is 20% which is right around league average (19.7%). He is still hitting the ball just as hard as before, but the batted ball profile is much more conducive to better production. 

 

Just to build a bit upon this post, from the standpoint of what’s changed since the ASB, I’m sure we all recall the difficulties Colton had with the slow stuff early in the year. Specifically, he was the absolute worst hitter in baseball against changeups, providing a -5.7 run value against them. And he also struggled badly against the curveball, with a -1.8 run value that was 469th (out of 517 batters with 10+ PAs).

So has he adjusted?

Since the All-Star break, he’s been worth +1.7 runs against changeups, second best on the team (behind only Santander) and 33rd best in baseball (out of the 417 hitters with at least 10 PAs). And against the curveball, he’s been worth a whopping +4.9 runs, which is the absolute best in baseball (by a pretty wide margin over second place Jake McCarthy at +4.2 runs).

Just a night and day difference in his ability to answer the challenge and deal with the slow stuff that ML pitchers were throwing at him over and over and over in the first half.

[interloper]

I think he cranked a change up for a home run the other day. That was great to see. 

[Mooreisbetter27]

23 hours ago, AdamK said:

Starting to notice Cowser is staring at homers lately... perhaps a little too long for those old school types in the league.
 

I don't mind it, of course. I love to see the guy gaining confidence and working on getting better at this level. But lately I have been wondering if he is going to wear one soon for looking a little too long.


 

Only way this would bother me is if he Josh Donaldson'ed it and it became a single.  But Cowser doesn't get many cheapies though.  

[AdamK]

2 hours ago, interloper said:

I think he cranked a change up for a home run the other day. That was great to see. 

Agreed. He's improving at the plate. You can see the work paying off in those moments.

[Hallas]

On 8/12/2024 at 8:45 AM, AdamK said:

Starting to notice Cowser is staring at homers lately... perhaps a little too long for those old school types in the league.
 

I don't mind it, of course. I love to see the guy gaining confidence and working on getting better at this level. But lately I have been wondering if he is going to wear one soon for looking a little too long.


 

I've noticed that pitchers are a little less thin skinned than they used to be.  Staring at a home run doesn't seem to be a beanable offense anymore.  You have to make it really obvious now, or you have to gesture at the pitcher, for beanings to happen. 

 

Gunnar stares at his home runs too.

[RZNJ]

On 8/12/2024 at 11:45 AM, AdamK said:

Starting to notice Cowser is staring at homers lately... perhaps a little too long for those old school types in the league.
 

I don't mind it, of course. I love to see the guy gaining confidence and working on getting better at this level. But lately I have been wondering if he is going to wear one soon for looking a little too long.


 

BTW, this is not something new.   If you back to April when Cowser hit a no-doubter on a 3-0 pitch, he admires it for good second or two before he goes into his home run trot.

 

[AdamK]

2 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

BTW, this is not something new.   If you back to April when Cowser hit a no-doubter on a 3-0 pitch, he admires it for good second or two before he goes into his home run trot.

 

He earned that one! Extra innings with 2 on and 2 outs...  

I would've too.