Cowart

[totdprods]

24 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Cowart should've made the switch to pitcher imo. I doubt he'll ever have a good enough bat to go with his great defense.

Not too late. 

[Angel Oracle]

He's only 24.   He could become the Greg Maddux of pitcher fielding.   Hopefully, he can still hit low/mid 90s with movement.

[Oz27]

12 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Not too late. 

For us it pretty much is. He'd run out of options soon enough and we'd have to DFA him and someone may well claim him by that point. You'd think it would take 4-5 years for him to reach the big leagues, even if everything goes well, at which point he's a reliever hovering around 30. His ceiling is probably Matt Bush as a pitcher and there would be a pretty good chance he wouldn't be doing it for us, so I would rather pursue this hitting thing with everything we've got.

Some good discussion in this thread. I think many posters here underrate the value of his defense to a pretty silly extent. If he plays 3B and produces a 90 OPS+ his defense (and decent baserunning) would still make him a comfortably above replacement player, hovering in the 1 to 1.5 WAR mark for a full season. If he ends up a league average hitter (100 OPS+), you're looking at a 3-ish WAR player and someone who is very valuable. A 90 OPS+ in the big leagues for someone who just put up a .790 AAA OPS, albeit in a hitter friendly environment, isn't out of the question. A 100 OPS+ isn't either. PECOTA projects a .614 OPS for him in the majors next year and that obviously isn't great (but still good enough for him to be a superior utility man than Pennington) but that would be weighed down somewhat by his poor MLB numbers this year, which have come in a small and sporadic sample. I could pretty easily see a .660 OPS or better next year and if he can do that he has some value.

[NrM]

16 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

 PECOTA projects a .614 OPS for him in the majors next year and that obviously isn't great (but still good enough for him to be a superior utility man than Pennington) but that would be weighed down somewhat by his poor MLB numbers this year, which have come in a small and sporadic sample. I could pretty easily see a .660 OPS or better next year and if he can do that he has some value.

depends on the overall offense. Insterting a .600 OPS bat to an already lackluster Angels offense would hurt. Especially if you're replacing Escobar's bat with Cowart's.

[Oz27]

Just now, Mr Meeseeks said:

depends on the overall offense. Adding a .600 OPS to an already lackluster Angels offense would be terrible. Especially if you're replacing Escobar's bat with Cowart's.

A run is a run, whether it's on the offensive or defensive side. Escobar's offensive value is a mere nine runs above average and as an overall player is two runs below average. Clearly Cowart isn't going to be nine runs above average offensively, in fact he would likely be below average, but give him a full season of play and I could see him overall being worth within five or so runs of Escobar (so about -7, which would put him a little over 1 WAR).

[Angel Oracle]

8 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

A run is a run, whether it's on the offensive or defensive side. Escobar's offensive value is a mere nine runs above average and as an overall player is two runs below average. Clearly Cowart isn't going to be nine runs above average offensively, in fact he would likely be below average, but give him a full season of play and I could see him overall being worth within five or so runs of Escobar (so about -7, which would put him a little over 1 WAR).

While saving some $6-7 million to apply elsewhere

See if Simmons can handle leading off.   Escobar doesn't walk  a lot himself, and thus only survives on BA.   Simmons has to be at least a little better than Escobar on the bases.

[Oz27]

19 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

While saving some $6-7 million to apply elsewhere

See if Simmons can handle leading off.   Escobar doesn't walk  a lot himself, and thus only survives on BA.   Simmons has to be at least a little better than Escobar on the bases.

Simmons has an OBP below .320 and a wRC+ below 90, we really don't want him leading off. It all really depends on what the intention of the FO is and what Escobar's trade value is. He's still a below average player, who plays terrible defense and seems to be lacking a bit mentally, plus his BABIP suggests some of his offensive value is a little flukish. But he's on an affordable contract, gets on base a lot and can play multiple positions, albeit not well. Maybe someone is willing to give us a Tropeano level pitcher? If so, you have to move him. But maybe his value is just that of a decent reliever or a fringe prospect and I can see why the FO would decide to hold onto him in that case.

Anyway, trading him would leave us deficient of a leadoff hitter and that obviously is not ideal. If we're looking beyond 2017 as the window to win, then that doesn't really matter. If we think we can actually win in 2017, I guess that would have to be addressed by acquiring a LF or 2B who can lead off if we dealt Escobar.

[Lou]

On September 24, 2016 at 3:37 PM, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

Is Cowart still on this team or did they send to the instructional league or something else. He hasn't been any worse than Pennington but hasn't played in a week or more.

yes, he has been worse than Pennington 

 

[Lou]

On September 26, 2016 at 3:16 AM, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

He has got to be the worst .310+ hitter in baseball. His WAR is 1.8, OPS+ 112

you mean he's not as good as Ortiz, Betts, Trout, Altuve, Ramirez,Martinez or Pedroia ?

that's a pretty bold statement 

[Lou]

On September 26, 2016 at 11:51 AM, ksangel said:

In the first 14 games since Cowart was called up on August 20th he hit .292 (14 / 48) with hits in 13 of the 14 games.  He then went 0-2 and 0-3 and was benched for three games.  Over the next 15 games he has started four games and gone 0-12.  During that time Pennington has hit a whopping .235 and Petit .167 so it's not like either of the other options has set the world on fire.

It doesn't seem to make sense he was benched after a 0-5 "slump".  Did something happen that made Scioscia bench him after the two games where he went 0-2 and 0-3?  Did Cowart react poorly to Scioscia telling the press that he needed to play winter ball and work at being a 2B?  Is their an attitude problem? 

Cowart had too good of a 20+ game stretch (.292) not to merit continued playing time. 

Let's look a little deeper.

He wasn't benched because of an 0-5 slump. he was benched because he had 5 hits in 28 ABs (.178 BA) at that point. This included 0 xbh, 0 walks and 9 Ks. He went 0-3 with 3 Ks in the final game of that stretch. 

 

[Lou]

19 hours ago, Dochalo said:

They're 7-3 over their last ten games.  Does anyone really care?  

the players and the rest of the organization care. 

[Angels#1Fan]

11 minutes ago, Lou said:

the players and the rest of the organization care. 

This.

[Lou]

9 hours ago, hangin n wangin said:

Cowart not getting consistent at bats in a season like this is why Mike Scioscia can be an absolute stubborn idiot sometimes.

Buss? Pennington? You have got to be fucking joking me. I don't care if Cowart hits .004. Let the guy play.

Look at the Twins running out Berrios and Buxton. We should be doing the same.

Since being recalled on Sept 1,  Buxton is hitting .288 with 7 HRs and 12 XBH. THAT'S why he's getting consistent ABs. 

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

1 hour ago, Lou said:

you mean he's not as good as Ortiz, Betts, Trout, Altuve, Ramirez,Martinez or Pedroia ?

that's a pretty bold statement 

Other than his BA and OBP, all other STATs could be from a .220 hitter. He's negative defender, base runner. He has a WAR of 1.8 which is more like someone hitting .250.

[Lou]

25 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

Other than his BA and OBP, all other STATs could be from a .220 hitter. He's negative defender, base runner. He has a WAR of 1.8 which is more like someone hitting .250.

and? 

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

1 minute ago, Lou said:

and? 

That's all, he is a 1 tool player and I won't be upset if he is traded.

[Docwaukee]

a lot of us just don't care what cowart was doing over a 20 or 30 or even 40 PA stretch at this point in the season.    

[Lou]

22 hours ago, Oz27 said:

He has 68 plate appearances since he was called up on August 21, well over a month ago now. His results obviously haven't been great, but to just leave him to rot on the bench while we constantly run out someone like Pennington when we are playing meaningless games makes no sense. Good players have terrible 68 plate appearance sample sizes all the time, especially if they only get to play sporadically. I'm not saying Cowart *is* a good player, just that there isn't even close to enough evidence to determine that and we sure as hell shouldn't be giving up on him or leaving him to sit on the bench.

yes, but good players have shown they can succeed at the major league level

[Lou]

34 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

That's all, he is a 1 tool player and I won't be upset if he is traded.

I don't think anyone would be

[Lou]

21 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

a lot of us just don't care what cowart was doing over a 20 or 30 or even 40 PA stretch at this point in the season.    

but you care what he would do with another 20? 

[AngelsLakersFan]

11 minutes ago, Lou said:

but you care what he would do with another 20? 

It's not about results, its about getting the reps against major league pitching.

[Lou]

12 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

It's not about results, its about getting the reps against major league pitching.

you mean like the 411 pitchers who have been called up from the minors since Sept 1st? 

 

[Lou]

nice throw, Kaleb 

[Oz27]

42 minutes ago, Lou said:

yes, but good players have shown they can succeed at the major league level

Plenty of good players wouldn't if they were just given 68 ABs of irregular playing time.

[Lou]

8 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

Right. And he sucked ass before that and they still ran him out there again.

they ran him out there after demoting him to the minors. At the time, he had an ops of .567 .   Cowart has an ops of .481 

Cowart sucked ass last year and the Angels ran him out there again this year...

and he sucked even more