Cowser BOMB in the 8th - biggest HR of the season

[Just Regular]

Austin Wells still cold - now at 282 OPS last 14 days, but his team is going to win the division.

It looks like Luis Gil last scheduled turn is the Skenes matchup Saturday.

fWAR this morning gives Cowser a 3.9-3.4 edge on Wells.    Gil at 2.6 there, tied with Cade Smith who will be a lot more famous in a month if things go well for Cleveland.

rWAR at Cowser 2.8, Wells 2.7, so closer there.

Fun can to kick on fWAR and rWAR - most of us watch Cowser every day.    This feel like a 3-win season or a 4-win season?    Performers start to get awfully scarce around that part of the curve.

 

[Aristotelian]

50 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Austin Wells still cold - now at 282 OPS last 14 days, but his team is going to win the division.

It looks like Luis Gil last scheduled turn is the Skenes matchup Saturday.

fWAR this morning gives Cowser a 3.9-3.4 edge on Wells.    Gil at 2.6 there, tied with Cade Smith who will be a lot more famous in a month if things go well for Cleveland.

rWAR at Cowser 2.8, Wells 2.7, so closer there.

Fun can to kick on fWAR and rWAR - most of us watch Cowser every day.    This feel like a 3-win season or a 4-win season?    Performers start to get awfully scarce around that part of the curve.

 

Vegas has Gil at something like -200. 

[e16bball]

2 hours ago, Just Regular said:

Fun can to kick on fWAR and rWAR - most of us watch Cowser every day.    This feel like a 3-win season or a 4-win season?    Performers start to get awfully scarce around that part of the curve.

I’d have to say it feels like a 3 win season to me. 

On the one hand, I think Fangraphs maybe slightly overvalues Colton’s defense as compared to what I see. But I also think that is more accurate than the B-R formulation, which treats him as a (just slightly) negative value defender. Which feels way off, particularly given that they’re knocking him for playing LF in OPACY. That just flatly misses the script.

But on the other hand, the problem with valuing Colton’s season is the timing of his production. Which WAR, by core concept, assumes will be generally smooth. Unfortunately, Colton’s production has not been not smooth. His WPA is -2.65, which is 198th out of 200 batters with 400+ PAs. It seems virtually impossible for a guy with a 120 wRC+ to hurt his team that much, and indeed, his “clutch” rating on Fangraphs is dead last — not just among those 200 hitters this year, but among all 805 hitters that have had 400 PAs in a season since COVID. 

The numbers are just brutal, but at the bottom of it, Colton had an .846 OPS in low/medium leverage PAs this year. In high leverage PAs, he had a .433 OPS, with 32 Ks to just 4 BBs. 
 

I’m hopeful that more experience will remedy some of this with him. Colton is a kid who really badly wants to succeed and really badly doesn’t want to let anyone down. You could even hear it last night, when Hollander asked about the huge HR — his immediate response was I’m glad it happened after the previous half-inning, because there was a ball I think I should have caught but I didn’t. I think failure tends to snowball for him, as it did when he first came up and as it has in these clutch situations. A few more big hits like that bomb last night and maybe the grip on the bat lightens a little in the bigger moments. 

But with all that said, it’s tough for a season to feel like an elite 4-win type campaign when you were a black hole in the moments where the team needed a hero. Those elite 4-win type guys are the heroes. Colton just wasn’t quite there yet this year.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

He’s got to lead the team in 425+ foot homers, even though Santander and Gunnar have hit many more homers this year.   

I was correct!

Cowser 7 (443, 439, 438, 432, 430, 430, 425)

Santander 6 (442, 440, 437, 436, 431, 425)

Henderson 1 (430)

It’s kind of surprising that Gunnar only has one homer of 425+.   Mullins and Mountcastle each have two.  Cowser and Mountcastle are tied for longest O’s homer of the year, at 443.  

[Mooreisbetter27]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I was correct!

Cowser 7 (443, 439, 438, 432, 430, 430, 425)

Santander 6 (442, 440, 437, 436, 431, 425)

Henderson 1 (430)

It’s kind of surprising that Gunnar only has one homer of 425+.   Mullins and Mountcastle each have two.  Cowser and Mountcastle are tied for longest O’s homer of the year, at 443.  

I've said it before, but Cowser does not get many wall scrapers.  His bombs are usually way gone.