Colton Cowser Is Not An Everyday Outfielder. The Orioles Must Accept It

Colton Cowser has not appeared in a AAA game, outside of a brief rehab assignment, since 2023.

He will be 27 by Opening Day, he has nearly 1400 MLB plate appearances and the former fifth-overall pick has been in Baltimore, extensively, at a time the team has had almost no productive everyday outfielders, with that position a virtual wasteland in terms of player development and outside additions (Tyler O’Neill; Taylor Ward). And yet Mike Elias, the failed baseball exec who drafted him and hyped him, and really wanted this to work, preferred AAAA journeymen types like Leody Taveras and Christian Franklin to him in a lost 2026 season.

Cowser has proven to be a capable defender in centerfield, but not nearly as special as his supporters would have you think, and certainly not close to being special enough to overcome a bat that – for long stretches of each of the past two seasons – has looked like it belonged in AAA. Pretending he is more than a fourth outfielder would be silly and the fact that Ward, despite being dealt before the Aug. 3 deadline, and Taveras had considerably more plate appearances than Cowser, who was healthy almost all season, tells you exactly what the Orioles think of his realistic ability to warrant full-time duty in 2027 (go get Byron Buxton, please).

His failure to establish himself and build off a promising rookie campaign, coupled with the complete collapse of Heston Kjerstad, the second-overall pick in 2020, has created acute need at multiple outfield positions, and it’s so pronounced the Orioles would be silly not to try to use shortstop Gunnar Henderson to land an All-Star centerfielder in return.

“None of the outfielders on this roster can be starting outfielders next season,” Orioles analyst and former All-Star shortstop Mike Bordick told me, disputing that even Cowser’s defensive prowess is as great as some numbers might suggest.

Here’s why it’s time to accept Cowser for what he is:

Rampant Inconsistency

The highs are Hall of Fame high and last three weeks generally, following by two months of at bats that are such abject failures you get length stretches of the season with a sub-.500 OPS. It’s basically automatic. You can bank it. Even Elias seems to be banking on it based on Cowser’s usage and how even when Taveras started booting balls all over the place he still cut deep into Cowser’s playing time.

Here are his OPS by month for 2026: .489, .891, .725, .403, .845, .666

How about that Sept/Oct total? The “Number of the Beast.” Can’t make that stuff up.

I’m not saying you need to be steady Eddie but this profile is so fundamentally unsound and he is so prone to becoming lost in chasing his natural power and so reliant on seeing fastballs, that it’s downright hard to watch. He suffers from quickly losing confidence and this clubhouse doesn’t seem to bring out the best of him from any sort of cutting edge standpoint.

Career with RISP (336 PA): .201 / .281 / .386 - .666 OPS (there’s that number again)

Career with Men on Base (572 PA): .210 / .284 / .396 - .653 OPS

No thanks.

Massive Holes In His Swing

Jul 25, 2026; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles pinch hitter Colton Cowser (17) against the Atlanta Braves at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Lexi Thompson-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Well, Cowser has 11 homers and 28 driven in over 312 PAs ve left-handed pitching and they’ve pretty much scrapped that now (.198 career average, .606 OPS, 37% K-rate!). So that alone screams – platoon at best. He showed a willingness to take pitches and work counts early in his career, before he went on his first home-run jag, but we are now looking at a .305 career OBP, abject failure for a player this athletic who should make a difference on the base paths (only in the 62nd percentile in baserunning value, ugh).

His plan at the plate seems dubious at best – looks like a guess hitter to me – landing in the bottom 3% of all MLB hitters in squaring balls up, bottom 8% in whiff rate, bottom 5% in K rate, bottom 11% in expected BA. That’s rough.

The whole league has known for years he cannot hit a changeup and anything offspeed is a massive problem and then in 2026 he ends up with a -4 run value off fastballs. Check please!

The D Still Needs Work

Cowser can make acrobatic catches with the best of them, he has great speed and the ability to flip his hips and recover from bad ankles and bad reads … But he also does not have a high baseball IQ, and while he has cannon for an arm he can’t harness it – hence being in the 86th percentile in arm strength and 53rd% in arm value.

Perhaps that’s why Fangraphs gave him a -0.1 fielding rating in CF in 2026. Per baseballsavant.com he had the 12th-best field value in CF (the guy he replaced, Cedric Mullins, was sixth with the Rays), and the arm got a -1 rating from this site as well.

That’s not a Gold Glove caliber, consistent enough defensive profile to outweigh the sweeping issues at the plate. Elias seemed to recognize that as much as anyone. Now he needs to go out and do something about it (and the infield, too, while he’s at it).

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