Cowart's 4 RBI Night Gives Bees Second Victory

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

Kaleb is off to a good start this season in Salt Lake trying to prove that last season was no fluke. He is 4 for 7 in the first 2 games for the Bees.

 

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20160409&content_id=171300208&fext=.jsp&vkey=recap&sid=t561

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=cowart001kal

Edited April 9, 2016 by Ace_Richards

[totdprods]

Would be huge if he kept up what he did last year. 

Even if he just puts up huge numbers inflated by SLC it'll improve his trade value.

[Second Base]

I'll go out on a limb and call his performance in AAA last year a total fluke. Yeah, I'm certain he made the adjustments and hot his career on the right path again. But nothing about his batted ball profile supports the gaudy AAA numbers, not last year or any point in the year.

I will gladly eat crow in this one, but I don't see Cowart hitting better than .280 across 100+ at bats in AAA.

Now Marte, Cunningham, and Ortega (three new guys Eppler brought in), all have profiles that indicate they're even better than what we've seen so far.

[QuinlansMinion]

Meanwhile were still stuck with crappy infied defense by putting Escobar at 3rd and JG at 2nd. This team needs to put Escobar at 2nd where he can hold his own and put CowaKubi at 3rd. Been saying it for months. JG's bat is not worth the crappy defense we will have.

[AngelsLakersFan]

I'll go out on a limb and call his performance in AAA last year a total fluke. Yeah, I'm certain he made the adjustments and hot his career on the right path again. But nothing about his batted ball profile supports the gaudy AAA numbers, not last year or any point in the year.

I will gladly eat crow in this one, but I don't see Cowart hitting better than .280 across 100+ at bats in AAA.

Now Marte, Cunningham, and Ortega (three new guys Eppler brought in), all have profiles that indicate they're even better than what we've seen so far.

 

Salt Lake is a pretty good park for BABIP I believe

[Docwaukee]

I'll go out on a limb and call his performance in AAA last year a total fluke. Yeah, I'm certain he made the adjustments and hot his career on the right path again. But nothing about his batted ball profile supports the gaudy AAA numbers, not last year or any point in the year.

I will gladly eat crow in this one, but I don't see Cowart hitting better than .280 across 100+ at bats in AAA.

Now Marte, Cunningham, and Ortega (three new guys Eppler brought in), all have profiles that indicate they're even better than what we've seen so far.

 

there is a fair amount of luck in his AAA numbers from last year, but he had 22 xbh and 29 bb in 220 AAA at bats so it's not like his resurgence was total smoke and mirrors.  There was a decent amount of swing and miss at AAA for him last year.  That will go down a shade and so will his BABIP, but even normalized, he's still gonna hit .270-.280 with some pop, a .340obp and excellent defense.  

 

I would take that all day long at the major league level.  BTW, he's still not even 24.  

 

The bottom line is that after his solid 2012 as a guy who turned 20 mid season and played over half his year in high A as one of the younger guys in the league, they changed his swing.  

 

Upon doing so, they send him to one of the most difficult hitting environments in all of baseball.  After two full years and another half year of the 'new' swing it was clear he couldn't square up the ball.  He wasn't striking out an egregious amount and he was still drawing walks but he just wasn't hitting the ball hard.  You know as well as I do, this was wholly mechanical.  My guess is that his view of the ball relative to his hitting position made it so his timing wasn't right and he could never get on time.  

 

So he goes back to his old swing and almost instantly starts crushing the ball.  His line drive rate goes back up and he starts getting hits.  Sure there's probably a hole in his swing, but a lot of major leaguers have a hole somewhere.  

 

Even if they learn to exploit it to some degree, maybe he hits .250-260 with 15hrs and a .330obp with great defense.  Fine by me.  

[Second Base]

Yup, if Cowart hits .250/.330 with 15 HR and elite defense, he'd probably be a 3-4 win player. I'd have him in my lineup like that.

Personally, I think that's a small measure of optimistic for his career, but even if he only hits .240/.320 with 10 bombs like I think he would, the defe she alone makes him an option to consider.

I mean just imagine for a second having Simmons and Cowart line up next to each other on defense. Forget hitting the ball to the left side.

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

Would be huge if he kept up what he did last year. 

Even if he just puts up huge numbers inflated by SLC it'll improve his trade value.

Actually last season Cowart had better numbers away from Salt Lake than he did at Salt Lake. Check it out.

[totdprods]

Actually last season Cowart had better numbers away from Salt Lake than he did at Salt Lake. Check it out.

I know, I'm talking about this season. I'm saying that even if the most he does this year is take advantage of the favorable hitting conditions and rake in SLC/PCL, he'll at least rebuild some trade value.

Not saying that I want to trade him away, but with Escobar under contract for a couple years, Marte, Kubitza, and Baldoquin in the minors, and Cowart's lackluster history, if his trade value increased to a point where he was a legit prospect again it'd at least give us the option.

Personally I hope he becomes the next 3B. If we're out by the break, flip Escobar for a prospect and give Cowart the rest of '16. Even if he puts up mediocre or league average offensive production coupled with his defense he'd be worth it to save money.

Edited April 9, 2016 by totdprods

[Stradling]

Meanwhile were still stuck with crappy infied defense by putting Escobar at 3rd and JG at 2nd. This team needs to put Escobar at 2nd where he can hold his own and put CowaKubi at 3rd. Been saying it for months. JG's bat is not worth the crappy defense we will have.

He's been fine defensively so far this year.

[stormngt]

Meanwhile were still stuck with crappy infied defense by putting Escobar at 3rd and JG at 2nd. This team needs to put Escobar at 2nd where he can hold his own and put CowaKubi at 3rd. Been saying it for months. JG's bat is not worth the crappy defense we will have.

Gio has looked a he'll of a lot better than escobar

[tomsred]

The kind of errors that Escobar is making aren't going to go away by putting him at second base, and I agree with the last two posts that Gio is looking a lot better this year.

[Lou]

He's been fine defensively so far this year.

The kind of errors that Escobar is making aren't going to go away by putting him at second base, and I agree with the last two posts that Gio is looking a lot better this year.

like clockwork

[nando714]

Then when we call cowart up he'll go 2 for his for 20 AB and 2 errors in 5 games

Edited April 10, 2016 by nando714

[Lou]

I keep reading about how great Cowart's glove is @ 3b, but his minor league

stats over the last few years don't really reflect it.

What am I missing?

[2112]

Yup, if Cowart hits .250/.330 with 15 HR and elite defense, he'd probably be a 3-4 win player. I'd have him in my lineup like that.

Personally, I think that's a small measure of optimistic for his career, but even if he only hits .240/.320 with 10 bombs like I think he would, the defe she alone makes him an option to consider.

I mean just imagine for a second having Simmons and Cowart line up next to each other on defense. Forget hitting the ball to the left side.

And all that at the minimum for 3 years, and cost effectiveness for another 3. Something this org needs since they tend to pay stupid money on players they don't need.

[AngelsLakersFan]

I keep reading about how great Cowart's glove is @ 3b, but his minor league

stats over the last few years don't really reflect it.

What am I missing?

 

What stats are you referencing?

[Stradling]

like clockwork

I was referring to Giavotella

[Lou]

I was referring to Giavotella

I know

he made an error

[Lou]

What stats are you referencing?

the sh*tload of errors he's made playing 3B

[eaterfan]

Josh Donaldson sucks too!

[Inside Pitch]

the sh*tload of errors he's made playing 3B

 

Errors can be the sign of a bad defender, or a great one reaching balls others cannot...  Donaldson is a pretty good example of a guy with an elevated error total while being a truly great defender.   As a solitary stat, errors are often a  poor marker for defense albeit the only one people really looked at for a long, long, time.

 

Consider this, Escobar only had 7 errors as a 3B last year, his FLD% was well above average...  Donaldson had 18, with  FLD% 20 points lower....  Donaldson was 2.5 dWAR better as measured by bb-ref.