Cowser in camp and creeping up on eventual promotion to majors

SARASOTA, Fla. – One row of lockers inside the Orioles’ spring training clubhouse starts with infielder Adam Frazier and ends with center fielder Cedric Mullins, prime locations that are a nod to their veteran status.

Austin Hays and Anthony Santander occupy the two lockers that lead to Mullins, the three starting outfielders bunched together under a roof and beneath a blue sky.

More toward the middle are the last three first-round draft choices: outfielders Heston Kjerstad (2020) and Colton Cowser (2021) and shortstop Jackson Holliday (2022), the 19-year-old who was selected first overall.

The row itself illustrates the balance between experienced major leaguers and highly rated prospects who comprise the camp roster. A blend as smooth as top-shelf Scotch.

Kjerstad probably will start out at Double-A Bowie after reaching High-A Aberdeen last summer and receiving the honor of Most Valuable Player in the Arizona Fall League. He’s moving at the exact pace anticipated before his professional career was halted because of the heart muscle inflammation known as myocarditis. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility that he makes his major league debut later in the summer.

Holliday’s age and inexperience, with 20 games total between the Florida Complex League and low Single-A Delmarva, leave him at least a couple of years away from debuting. He could return to the Shorebirds or jump to Aberdeen.

Then there’s Cowser, who played at three levels in 2022 and made 124 plate appearances with Triple-A Norfolk. He’s headed back to the Tides, with the anticipated selection of his contract sometime over the summer.

Cowser joined a group of prospects on the stadium field Wednesday to take batting practice against Tyler Wells, Grayson Rodriguez, Spenser Watkins and others. He has a lot of eyes on him, and not only because he appeared in most top 100 prospect lists – with The Athletic’s Keith Law a notable exception, dumping him in the “just missed” category.

“It’s going good,” Cowser said. “I got out here about two weeks early and kind of getting my feet under me.”

Cowser was part of the exclusive development camp roster in Sarasota that also included Holliday, Kjerstad and infielders Coby Mayo and Connor Norby. He’s approaching spring training in a similar mindset of soaking in the atmosphere, learning from the coaching staff and finding comfort in his surroundings.

Making the club is in the back of his mind, he said, but he can read the room.

“I know ultimately it’s up to me but it’s really not,” he said. “I’m going to go out there and play my game and then it’s ultimately up to the organization to decide.”

Cowser needs only to glance to his left and check the outfielders further down the row to figure out the odds. He can find Kyle Stowers in a shorter row to his right, on the other side of the entrance to the training room and showers.

“When you look at the roster, that’s how it is, but again, I think that ultimately it’s not up to me right now,” he said. “I’m just going to go out there and play my best and hopefully make the club make that decision.”

There’s pride and the feeling of accomplishment in already speeding up the ladder. A return to Norfolk wouldn’t smear what he’s done, including the .341/.469/.568 line in 49 games with Bowie that prompted the Orioles to bump him again.

“It is kind of crazy to think about how it was only my first year last year in Triple-A, but you know, you look at how Stowers’ track was going from High-A to Triple-A in his first full season. Going into last year, that was something in the back of my head, like yeah, that would be awesome to do and that they have done that before with players. The way it turned out was how I imagined it,” Cowser said.

“I really wasn’t going to worry about it. That was me just going out there and playing, and the club decided that I developed at each level, so they went ahead and moved me up.”

Lessons were waiting for him at every stop.

“I’d say mainly just, I learned a lot about myself, not necessarily the game, because it was the longest year of baseball I’ve had when it came to the amount of games played, things like that,” he said. “The biggest thing was just being consistent in my routine, things like that. I wasn’t able to do things quite like I did in college when it came to sleep, eating, all that stuff.

“You can get away with things in college because you’re only playing four games a week, and now you’re playing every day and you’ve really got to take advantage of some of those off-days that you do get.”

I had to pry. What are some specific changes and did any of them involve his food intake?

“Not necessarily diet-wise, which I’m still working on that, but I’d mainly say just understanding that I wasn’t getting as much sleep as I should have been last year and that is a huge thing in my recovery,” he said.

“My body wasn’t feeling that great at the end of the year, and as time went on I was like, ‘OK, I need to start taking care of myself in that way.’ That’s when I really started to play well.”

Cowser will return to the back fields this morning for workouts after the annual spring training photo day. Smile for the cameras and then grind again.

The veterans will remain in his row, but so will the prospects who worked out with him at the development camp. Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg and Joey Ortiz also are there, and Adley Rutschman dresses at the end of the catchers’ row, a short walk from Cowser’s assigned space.

A wave of young talent crashed onto the major league shore in 2022, and there’s another one right behind it.

“It’s really exciting, especially because I’ve gotten to know Westburg pretty well, and Gunnar and Joey, and Norby because we were drafted together,” Cowser said. “It’s awesome to see everyone playing really well and excelling and starting to move up. Not only do we have a lot of great players in the clubhouse, we’ve got a lot of great people, and it’s really easy to get along and play with those guys when they’re pushing you and motivating you and just making you better ballplayers and better people.”