Cowser taken 5th by Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles selected Sam Houston outfielder Colton Cowser, a Cypress Ranch product, with the No. 5 overall pick in Sunday’s MLB draft.
“Colton has been and is one of the best pure hitters in the country since setting foot on campus at Sam Houston,” Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias told the Baltimore Sun. “All-American, Team USA, year after year, and this year put up a superlative line for them, showing power, hitting for average, speed, defense.
“He’s a five-tool player, and he’s somebody that we project to impact our team and our lineup on both sides of the ball both offensively and defensively. I think it’s rare to get those type of physical tools and all five of them in a college performer, like we just did, so that’s why we took him. It’s a very exciting start to our draft.”
Cowser was the Southland Conference Player of the Year for the Bearkats, batting .374 with a 1.170 OPS and 16 home runs as a junior, but his entire career there was productive. He was the league’s hitter of the year as a freshman in 2019, batting .361 with a 1.052 OPS and earning a spot on the US Collegiate National Team that summer.
He plays a true center field but has the arm to play anywhere in the outfield, providing a combination of present talent and future growth that excited the Orioles.
“He’s got a lot of projection ahead of him,” Elias said. “This isn’t a totally finished product.”
MLB.com rated Cowser as the draft’s 10th-best prospect, while Baseball America had him at No. 11. To the extent Cowser was linked to the Orioles in pre-draft analysis, it was as a player who would possibly sign for below the recommended slot amount of $6.187 million, allowing the Orioles to give a larger portion of their overall $11,829,300 signing bonus pool to players taken later in the draft.
As part of the punishment for their 2017-18 signstealing scandal, the Astros were without a first-round pick for the second consecutive year. Their first choice, 87th overall, will come in Monday’s third round.
The Pittsburgh Pirates selected Louisville catcher Henry Davis with the first pick, with the Texas Rangers then taking Vanderbilt pitcher Jack Leiter.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the choices from Denver’s Bellco Theater. Major League Baseball moved the draft from its longstanding June slot to July’s All-Star weekend in an effort to better showcase its future stars.
Davis has big power and an even bigger arm, throwing out 46 percent of wouldbe base stealers to become a finalist for the Buster Posey Award as college baseball’s best defensive catcher.
He batted .370 and led the Cardinals with 15 homers, and his .482 on-base percentage was best in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Rangers grabbed Leiter with the second pick, landing a righthander with a mid-90s fastball and two overpowering breaking pitches.
Leiter is the son of former big league All-Star pitcher Al Leiter. His repertoire that could play near the top of a big league rotation. He was 11-4 with a 2.13 ERA with the Commodores, including a no-hitter against South Carolina, and struck out 179 in 110 innings.
After MLB slimmed the draft from 40 rounds to five last year in response to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s event will go 20 rounds spread over three days. Rounds two through 10 will take place Monday starting at noon. Rounds 11 through 20 are Tuesday, beginning at 11 a.m.
The Detroit Tigers went with Oklahoma high school pitcher Jackson Jobe at No. 3, a year after taking Arizona State slugger Spencer Torkelson with the top pick.
Jobe was expected to be the first high school pitcher drafted after going 9-0 with a 0.13 ERA at Heritage Hall in Oklahoma City.
The AL East-leading Boston Red Sox picked fourth and selected slick-fielding shortstop Marcelo Mayer.
After the Orioles took Cowser, the Arizona Diamondbacks snagged another Texan, shortstop Jordan Lawlar of Jesuit College Prep in Dallas, with the sixth pick.
Detroit selected Texas righthander Ty Madden with the 32nd pick. The Cypress Ranch product was the Big 12 pitcher of the year.