4 Orioles players who have been major disappointments this season

Colton Cowser's first look in the big leagues with Baltimore was not great

While the sheer amount of young infield talent the Orioles have gets most of the press, folks seem to forget that Colton Cowser is one of the better prospects in all of baseball in the outfield. MLB Pipeline currently has Cowser as the #14 prospect in all MLB and in almost 300 plate appearances this season in Triple-A, he has slashed .314/.443/.531 with 12 homers. Those are the numbers you hope to see from a big time prospect.

Unfortunately, Cowser's first look at the big leagues in 2023 was not nearly as fruitful. In an admittedly small sample of 77 plate appearances this season in the majors, Cowser only managed a .115/.286/.148 line and 39 wRC+ with zero homers which is quite bad no matter how you look at it.

At the end of the day, all that we know now is that Cowser wasn't quite ready for prime time yet and that is perfectly fine. The Orioles don't really NEED him to be ready this season given how well things are going, but it sure didn't feel great to see him struggle as much as he did in the big leagues. Hopefully some more plate appearances in Triple-A will get him back on track.

Jorge Mateo hasn't brought much to the table in 2023

This one is a minor quibble because Jorge Mateo's role on this team is fairly straightforward. He just needs to be a good fielder who can fill in where needed, run really fast, and not be completely embarrassing at the plate. However, despite that relatively low bar, Mateo has somehow failed to reach even that in 2023.

Mateo's defense this season has been fine, if unspectacular, at shortstop this season which is a noticeable drop off from his excellent defensive season last year. Moreover, he has been really, really bad at the plate with a sub .600 OPS and 61 wRC+. At least the speed has been there as he does have 26 steals in 2023, but the rest of the numbers have been pretty rough.

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