Four years later, it looks like all the Orioles will get from this class is whatever Colton Cowser gives them.<\/p>\n
How many games would the 2020 Orioles have ended up losing if they played a full 162-game season? That is a question for which we will never have an answer, because the pandemic shortened that season to 60 games. The O\u2019s were a .500 team as deep as 28 games into that season before ending up with a 25-35 record. That was not too awful compared to what we experienced the year before, but still bad enough that it set up the Orioles with the #5 pick in the 2021 Draft.<\/p>\n
This class of players had had a lot of attention paid to a Big Four group of high school shortstops. After the Red Sox selected Marcelo Mayer at #4, the Orioles could have chosen any of the remaining three guys of that Big Four. Mock drafts from the time all believed that the O\u2019s were going to do that. Nearly four years later, here\u2019s how this Big Four has done:<\/p>\n
Instead of the Big Four, the Orioles turned to Cowser, then an outfielder with the relatively not-major Sam Houston State program. There were draft rankings that liked Cowser; he was #6 in the class at FanGraphs. Others did not like him that much, with The Athletic\u2019s Keith Law rating Cowser 14th. The O\u2019s gave Cowser an underslot bonus reflecting talent more like the #9 pick. Shortly after making the pick, Mike Elias said that the O\u2019s had taken \u201cone of the best pure hitters in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m taken aback a bit in reading that quote\u00a0from my contemporaneous coverage\u00a0because that is not the kind of player that Cowser has been as a major leaguer. Some prospect writers started to flag him as being something else in the minors, even as he generally hit well. On the cusp of his debut, Cowser was dubbed a platoon bat by FG. I like the Milkman, as Ben McDonald has dubbed him and many others have been delighted to call him. But he\u2019s sure not a pure hitter. Across 210 games as an MLB player, he\u2019s batted .227\/.311\/.427.<\/p>\n
That feels about right. Cowser is not a high batting average guy. He swings and misses a lot. Until he has a signature big moment, it will be hard not to think of him striking out in the postseason, with the bases loaded, while swinging at a pitch that ultimately hit him and broke his hand.<\/p>\n
Cowser might walk enough to post a decent on-base percentage, though he has not done so while active in 2025. His value comes from connecting for power when he does make contact. Hitting 24 doubles and 24 homers in what should have been a Rookie of the Year-winning campaign last year was very good. Eight homers through 31 games this year is good. If he can keep putting up three-win seasons, as he did last year, he will go down as a very good pick,<\/p>\n
A comparable player to Cowser from the draft class was Sal Frelick, then at Boston College. Frelick was ultimately selected 15th by the Brewers. Frelick might be inhabiting the \u201cpure hitter\u201d label better than Cowser, as he\u2019s batting .268 through 289 MLB games. Frelick also won a Gold Glove last year. Still, Cowser has the most WAR of any player in the top 14 picks of the class. It looks like the Orioles dodged a lot of flops in their draft range.<\/p>\n
Draft chatter at the time believed the Orioles were primarily interested here in Florida outfielder Jud Fabian, who was drafted one pick before this by the Red Sox. (Fabian didn\u2019t sign and the Orioles got their guy in the 2022 Draft. We\u2019ll talk about him tomorrow.) They went with Norby, from East Carolina, who was always regarded decently as a hitter but whose ultimate defensive home was always a question mark.<\/p>\n
While Norby was never universally regarded as a top 100-caliber prospect, mostly because of those defensive questions, he had his fans among prospect writers, with Law writing about Norby ahead of the 2023 season:<\/p>\n
\nHe can hit, he plays hard, and he seems like he\u2019d knock over his own grandmother just to take an extra base. … he might be a 20-homer guy who plays adequate defense at second and can move to the outfield corners, with strong batting averages and raves from teammates and coaches.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The year after being drafted, Norby showed off the quality of the bat, running through Aberdeen and then-Double-A Bowie (which is now called Chesapeake but is still in Bowie) before finishing with a cup of coffee at Triple-A Norfolk. In a full season at Triple-A in 2023, he batted .290\/.359\/.483, with 21 homers in 138 games.<\/p>\n
With the Orioles prospect situation being what it was, with both infield and corner outfield spots seeming to be locked up by better-regarded guys, Norby was easy to root for as kind of an underdog story but also easy to view as eventual trade fodder. That second one is how he turned out, with the Orioles trading Norby, along with Kyle Stowers, to the Marlins for Trevor Rogers.<\/p>\n
Norby caused Orioles fans some heartburn by dropping a 1.002 August OPS (in a small 12 game sample) after the trade, while Rogers stunk his way out of the rotation promptly. He\u2019s played in 103 games for Miami since the trade, batting .241\/.296\/.390. That should not fuel many regrets.<\/p>\n
There are two interesting pitchers who were drafted in the second round after Norby: Cincinnati\u2019s Andrew Abbott, and Atlanta\u2019s Spencer Schwellenbach. It might have been nice if the Orioles tried to take a pitcher for once. On the other hand, there are plenty of college second round pitchers who\u2019ve either not made it to MLB yet or done nothing good: Jaden Hill, Ky Bush, Matt Mikulski, and Russell Smith, just to name a few.<\/p>\n
Creed Willems<\/h4>\n
The money saved by going under slot with Cowser was ultimately used in the eighth round by giving a $1 million bonus to Willems, a catcher from the Texas high school ranks. Around the time of this pick being made and on into the early period of his pro career, any scouting commentary made about Willems made reference to criticisms about his conditioning, suggestions that he was out of shape, and so on. These are the polite ways that prospect analysts dance around calling a guy overweight.<\/p>\n
Willems appeared with Low-A Delmarva the year after being drafted and struggled substantially. He repeated that level in 2023 and dominated, earning a promotion to High-A Aberdeen, where he again struggled a lot. (The criticisms about his conditioning tapered off in this period.) Repeating Aberdeen in 2024, he played well enough to get promoted to Double-A in the waning days. Willems also received an assignment to the Arizona Fall League, both of which went fairly well. In 2025, he\u2019s batting .246\/.337\/.421, with eight homers through 67 games at Double-A.<\/p>\n
This is good enough that Willems can\u2019t be written off yet, although at the same time, it\u2019s not a sure shot to MLB. One other positive for Willems is that at his notional primary position, catcher, he\u2019s taken a step forward in throwing out 31% of base-stealers this season. That\u2019s better than last year\u2019s 19%. He will surely have more of a path to an MLB career if he can do some catching, even if he\u2019s not a team\u2019s primary starting catcher. If he ends up as a righty-batting 1B\/DH, there will be power expectations that he will have to prove that he can meet.<\/p>\n
The thing about Mike Elias and drafting pitchers<\/h4>\n
We\u2019re now many drafts into Mike Elias\u2019s tenure and this pattern holds true: He doesn\u2019t use either of his top two picks on pitchers. In earlier years, including this 2021 class, Elias went several rounds before taking a pitcher. He made up for it, so to speak, by picking a lot of pitchers in rounds 11-20. This means that it\u2019s not technically true to say \u201cMike Elias never drafts pitchers\u201d but if you say that and really mean he doesn\u2019t use high picks on pitchers, you\u2019re right.<\/p>\n
At different times in the intervening years, some degree of hope was placed on the following:<\/p>\n
\n
- RHP Carlos Tavera, 5th round (highest drafted Orioles pitcher in the class)<\/li>\n
- RHP Justin Armbruester, 11th round<\/li>\n
- RHP Ryan Long, 17th round<\/li>\n
- RHP Alex Pham, 19th round<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Four years after this Draft, the number of these pitchers who have reached and achieved success at Triple-A is zero. This contributes to the ongoing plot of Elias-drafted pitchers having thus far started no games for the Orioles. (Undrafted Brandon Young from 2020 has made four starts.) The only drafted guy who\u2019s even thrown a pitch for the team is 2019 draftee Kade Strowd, who has appeared in three games of relief this season.<\/p>\n
Elias isn\u2019t drafting pitchers highly and he\u2019s not turning the lower-round guys into useful pitchers for the Orioles. Or at least he hasn\u2019t done this yet.<\/p>\n
Billy Cook<\/h4>\n
The Orioles used their tenth round pick on this senior from Pepperdine, and he hit well enough in Double-A and Triple-A in 2023 and 2024 that you could maybe wonder if he\u2019d be some kind of MLB-level super-utility player. The O\u2019s ended up trading Cook to Pittsburgh for another prospect last July rather than worry about protecting Cook from last year\u2019s Rule 5 Draft.<\/p>\n
In that trade, the Orioles received pitcher Patrick Reilly, who they quickly polished into one of their top 10 prospects on the strength of strong Double-A results after the trade. If they\u2019re not going to draft pitchers, that\u2019s not a bad way to try to get them. However, Reilly went on the injured list after three starts this season and has undergone Tommy John surgery, so we won\u2019t be hearing much about him until around this time next year.<\/p>\n
Cook appeared in 16 games for the Pirates after the trade last year, but didn\u2019t carry over as a 2025 incumbent. He\u2019s only appeared in three MLB games in 2025.<\/p>\n
**<\/p>\n
Prior to the 2021 Draft, Elias also said to reporters, \u201cWe feel that we should be getting an impact player with this pick, and that is our goal. I think if that doesn\u2019t happen, we\u2019ll feel like we failed with the pick.\u201d Whether you think he\u2019s succeeded will depend on your feelings about Cowser. He\u2019s got to sustain his rookie season success to prove to me that he is an impact player or even something lesser but still decent like a solid regular.<\/p>\n
One thing that has not happened with any of the Elias draft classes so far is hitting on day 2 or day 3 picks. This 2021 class is a good demonstration of that. There\u2019s Cowser (first round), Norby (second round), and Cook (tenth round). Cook probably isn\u2019t much. Nobody else has made it to the majors, and at this point Willems is the only one who might. This is going to need to change if the Orioles are going to be able to maintain at least an average farm that can reinforce the big league team through promotions or trades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four years later, it looks like all the Orioles will get from this class is whatever Colton Cowser gives them. How many games would the 2020 Orioles… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n
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