Cowser should play against RHP every day since Mullins is out. When Ced is back he has to earn the PT. Now, if Hicks continues to slide back hard it makes it easier to get him more ABs. That said, we are deep enough and versatile offensively that we could play Hays, Mullins, and Santanderin the OF and DH someone not named Cowser or Hicks. Mullins, Santander, Rutsch, Hays, Gunnar, and OHearn (vs righties) are must starts. The other 3 spots you fill in with your hottest or who fits the best in the matchup for the day. Put the players out there that gives you the best chance to win games.
But two notes speficially on Cowser here, the D has to get better and cherry picking the OBP is well cherry picking. Hes hitting .130 and hes slugging .130. Nor do I remember him really driving a ball. Someone is def welcome to refresh my memory as I may be missing one or two going off memory.
Again, I think hes gonna be just fine longterm. But hes gotta believe in himself and play aggressive. You can tell me its my opinion or that I dont know for sure but its pretty apparent to me hes cautious and defensive in everything hes doing right now.
I mean, why is citing his OBP cherry picking but citing his SLG isn't? It's just what he's done.
No, he hasn't hit yet, as I acknowledged. He has 20 batted balls, 60% on the ground, 10% FB, 30% line drives. 45% hard hit is above average, but too many on the ground. Yes, if he doesn't do better than .130 he won't last long. But you bring up these highly touted young guys because you expect their overall numbers to be good, even if their first two weeks or four or whatever suck. You send down Gunnar because you can't afford a guy hitting .192 and you miss a .994 OPS month. I don't think Cowser's necessarily on Gunnar's level, but the industry saw him as a top 20ish guy by the time he was called up and he kinda killed AAA. So you balance winning today and letting him settle in and hopefully you are better as a team in Sept with him. That's the goal, to not just get to October but to have the best team you can in the fall. If the rookie has figured it out by then, I don't care if he was 3-23 in July. At some point if he's still struggling then yeah you can't afford it anymore, but hopefully he figures it out.
That said, Mullins Hays and Santander should be playing almost every day when healthy. So it depends on what they want to do at DH and what they really think of Hicks, and letting Cowser get favorable spots to adjust and get comfortable is a good idea. Confidence is everything, and if he's tentative he won't perform so he needs to shake that off if it's bothering him, I def agree with that.
