Finding an Objective Way to Measure Gerrit Cole Against Other ‘Aces’

Ever since his overall number one draft selection in 2011 and his much anticipated call-up in the 2013 season, Gerrit Cole has been viewed as the Pirates number one starter of the future.

Gerrit Cole has been a great pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, especially in 2014 and 2015 when he established himself as a hard throwing right-hander that could blow it by the best of hitters.  Even though he struggled with injuries in 2016, he still afforded fans glimpses of his potential for greatness.  Cole is coming up on his first year of arbitration in 2017 and the Pirates will have to start thinking about a potential contract extension.  The Pirates have shown they are willing to sign longer term deals for young position players – Gregory Polanco and Starling Marte come to mind – but they have judiciously refused to sign a starting pitcher to more than three years.

Even though some have problems with the term “ace,” the Pirates front office will have to decide if Gerrit Cole deserves an ace-level contract because that is most likely what Cole and his agent will be looking for.  The Pirates don’t have to decide in 2017, but they will need to lay the groundwork if they want a deal to happen.  Other aces have inked huge deals, such as Zack Geinke, 6 years and $206M with Diamondbacks and Clayton Kershaw, 7 years and $215M with the Dodgers.  It would be a mistake to offer Cole this kind of “ace” money because, quite simply, he has not demonstrated that he is one.

First, a note. Though many have issues with the term “ace,” we will be using it here to reference established, front-line, “put him at the top of your rotation and fill in the rest later” type of starters.

Cole’s Solid Resume

Cole is a very good pitcher, but there are several telling indicators that he is not that top of the rotation cornerstone that you can build a consistent winning team around.  but you have to dig beyond the traditional statistics to find them.  He has a career ERA of 3.23 and had his best season in 2015 with an ERA of 2.60.  He has averaged 8.4 Ks/9 and 2.3 BB/9 and in 2015 he pitched 210 innings.  A starting pitcher’s win-loss record doesn’t mean a whole lot, but Cole’s is 47-30, which, if extrapolated out to 1000 innings, would rank him 13th overall in winning percentage among active players.  He’s built a solid resume and is clearly a very good pitcher.

Comparison to the Ace Standard

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]It would be a mistake to offer Cole this kind of “ace” money because, quite simply, he has not demonstrated that he is an ace.[/perfectpullquote]

But is he an ace?  They only way to evaluate this question is to compare him to other pitchers who are bona-fide aces.  We could consider many outstanding pitchers for this honor.  Players such as Zack Grienke, Corey Kluber, Dallas Keuchel, Chris Sale,  Noah Syndergaard, Johnny Cueto, Chris Sale, Felix Hernandez, Adam Wainwright, Cole Hamels and Jon Lester would surely show up on many people’s list of aces.  However, there are four pitchers who would most likely be on everybody’s list.  They are: Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta, Madison Bumgarner and Max Scherzer.  For purposes of holding Gerrit Cole up to the ace standard, we should look at how he stacks up against these four pitchers.

	Years of Service	Career ERA	Career Ks/9	Career BB/9	Career WHIP
Clayton Kershaw	9	2.37	9.8	2.4	1.007
Madison Bumgarner	7	2.98	8.9	2.1	1.096
Gerrit Cole	4	3.23	8.4	2.3	1.205
Max Scherzer	9	3.38	10.0	2.5	1.141
Jake Arrieta	7	3.54	8.2	3.2	1.154

 

Of these pitchers, Max Scherzer and Jake Arrieta seem more like Gerrit Cole than they do Clayton Kershaw.  In Scherzer’s case, he has always been a tremendous strikeout pitcher, but he has been an even better pitcher since moving to the Nationals, sporting a 2.80 ERA with 11.0 Ks/9 and just 1.056 WHIP.  Similarly, if you remove Arietta’s early years with the Baltimore Orioles, he has a 2.44 ERA with 8.9 Ks/9 and a spectacular 0.974 WHIP.  These recent performances have moved both Scherzer and Arrieta into ace territory.

 

Less Traditional Methods of Evaluating an Ace

However, what truly signifies an ace is how they perform in pressure-packed situations when their team is depending on them.  If a pitcher has a low ERA, they are usually a really good pitcher.  If that same pitcher can consistently bear the weight of his team on his shoulders and personally drive them through to a win, then he gets to be called an ace.  Besides more standard measures like ERA, Ks/9, BBs/9 and swing-and-miss percentages there are other ways to determine the true grit of a pitcher.  Let’s take a look at some of those less-obvious metrics.

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