Colton Cowser Will Never Be What The Orioles Oversold Him As, And He's Regressing Again

So much of the Orioles player development failures have centered on Adley Rutschman, who has been downhill since June 2024 and isn’t even one of the top five bats in his draft class.

Gunnar Henderson’s utter collapse this season in every aspect of play has undermined the 2026 campaign and Jackson Holliday’s failure to ever launch, as another first-overall pick like Rutschman, has garnered much attention too. Heston Kjerstad, a second-overall pick who might be stuck in AAA until he exits this organization, is totally off the map.

Colton Cowser, the fifth overall pick in 2021, and his developmental failures are sandwiched in between. A fan favorite whom the Orioles crack marketing staff exploited by trying to milk every penny out of him they could way sooner than they should have - with his own section at games and stylized giveaways and novelties. They created a false narrative for a raw kid with massive holes in his game.

It’s the kind of obviously bush-league stuff that a real baseball operations staff that cared more about winning than making money would have killed before it began. But Mike Elias, fraud baseball czar, cares more about job security and raises for his minions in the front office and making money for his billionaire overlords than he does winning baseball games.

That’s painfully obvious eight years into this mess, and Cowser’s career is another victim of Elias overhyping prospects, selling the hype to his fanbase and lacking a real Major League coaching staff and winning player develop models to actually inform and improve the player. Once MLB begins adjusting to him (Watch “The Daily Flock Show” episodes with Buck Showalter, Jim Duquette, Kyle Glaser and Jarrett Seidler for further edification) it's over.

Cowser had major swing issues all along, he couldn’t hit offspeed pitches ever, his playing time was too sporadic, they resisted giving him a run in centerfield until his hitting profile was already shattered and he looks like yet another spare part who needs to go somewhere else to maybe, eventually, turn it around.

However, he is hardly alone; Elias’s entire organization is filled with these stories at every level of the minors, too. So despite loading up on college centerfielders with MLB-ready gloves and shortstops who could potentially man the OF if Henderson nailed down SS at the MLB level, the Orioles do not have anyone homegrown in their entire system who is any threat to Cowser right now, despite Cowser being arguably more broken than ever.

Welcome to Birdland! Where prospects come to regress!

Cowser’s Strengths

At this point, Cowser is showing he can play centerfield at a solid MLB level with some elite athletic traits. He can cover a lot of ground, he is getting better tracking balls there and he has a plus arm (though accuracy issues at times). He can do that job, but the weaknesses in the hit tool limit him, they don’t want him facing lefties and while he has great speed, it doesn’t manifest into base running.

His carrying trait is immense natural power, which he possesses, but this regime cannot help him harness it and get to it with nearly enough regularity. Not nearly often enough for them to pencil him into the middle of the lineup or top of the lineup, ever, and not enough to even keep him in the lineup and journeyman Leody Taveras on the bench all the time.

Cowser can crush a fastball 450 feet, but he doesn’t see many of them and those bombs come at a price; when he does get hot, he gets caught up in chasing that power even more overtly, which results in the subsequent slump. It’s almost the trade deadline and he has eight home runs and 27 RBIs this season. That won’t play.

He had 24 homers and 69 RBIs in his rookie campaign (2024) when he played in 153 games and produced 51 extra base hits. He has played 182 games total since then, has 24 homers and 67 RBIs and just 41 XBH, with an OPS+ in those two years of 81 (20% worse than the average MLB hitter).

This season, all eight of those homers and 20 of the RBIs came in a 32-game stretch between May 17 and June 21 (100 plate appearances) when he struck out just 24 times to 11 walks and produced a HOF slash: .299/.380/.586 (.966!!!).

The problem is the underlying traits are so poor and there is so much for pitchers to exploit (it’s not just the marketing folks who squeeze the Milk Man) and he gets so little support from the internal PD apparatus that is he literally one of the worst regular MLB batters on the planet the rest of the time.

Cowser’s Weaknesses

What about the stretch that preceded that 32 game tear? What did that look like (cover your eyes):

36 G (90 PA): 0 HR – 7 RBI .169/.270/.195 (.465).

What about the stretch after that 32-game tear (keep your eyes covered):

22 G (57 PA): 0 HR – 0 RBI .102/.228/.102 (.330)

What are we doing here people? Come on now.

A near 60 game sample with no homers, seven driven in and a .400 OPS. Cowser is 1100 plate appearances into his career, in one of the worst funks – even by his standards – of his career with the franchise in desperate need of every run it can score (cuz they don’t score much since June 1), and this is what we’re dealing with. He is a void in a lineiup of voids.

For his career, Cowser has a .215/.301//390 slash. For his career, he is striking out 32% of the time (22% is MLB average) and you cannot endorse that with zero on-base skill (and therefore no stolen base threat), and only the most sporadic power behind it.

This season, Cowser has a .289 wOBA vs offspeed pitches (223rd of 264 MLB batters who have at least 200 PA against those pitches), swinging-and-missing 34% of the time. Last year he had a .285 wOBA vs them (272 of 348), swinging and missing 35% of the time against those pitches. (He has plenty of company in this lineup, which we will be exploring further very soon).

None of that will play especially at a premium offensive position like CF and especially when the rest of the outfield cant produce any power, either. He is getting this long of a runway because Elias is so horrible at judging talent – and college outfield talent in particular – that none of his other first round picks with CF gloves will ever hit above AA if they even get there.

What’s The Verdict?

Just because there is no meaningful competition to push him from within doesn’t mean this is working or will work. Cowser cannot be banked on as part of any long-term solution, no way he faces lefties anytime soon and this is a fourth outfielder on a very good roster with a chance to compete. Or this is an everyday player somewhere else still in tank mode to try to fix him and give him at bats against all types of pitchers and see if they can fix him.

The next front office - please, soon! - has to get real about finding a true MLB everday CF. It must be a priority.

Cowser is yet another tweener for a front office that only drafts and quasi-develops them as tweeners. I’d love to see him dealt for a someone else’s project who needs a change too, and I guess you just run Taveras out in center 50 times to end the season in that case. Taveras is at least clutch, top two on the team in win-probability added; Cowser is -2 in that regard the last two years.

But any serious front office would get real about what this player is, and it doesn’t matter how high he was drafted. The franchise let him down, and he will never live up to their hype here.

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