In 2011, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected Gerrit Cole first overall in the MLB First-Year Player Draft. Since then, he has completed five major league seasons with the Pirates. Has Cole lived up to what the Pirates expected him to be?
During the 2017 season, a common advertisement on AT&T SportsNet involved Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Gerrit Cole. In it, they help advertise their coverage of Pirates baseball but showing highlights of Cole in action. In it, they also refer to Cole as an ace.
Gerrit Cole’s career stats are good, but they aren’t great. Currently, he is not an ace. He’s had one ace-worthy season.
As rumors continue to swirl about Cole being traded to the Yankees, it’s time to take a good look back at what Cole has done as a Pirate and what he is worth. Cole is being talked about by national media like he is ace, but a team looking to acquire an ace wouldn’t hesitate to give up its top prospect.
Pirates have wanted Gleyber Torres in a Gerrit Cole deal. Can’t see yanks giving GT up. Frazier a more likely centerpiece, but would need to be more than 1 for 1. Perhaps andujar or Adams could be 2nd piece. Still negotiating.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 16, 2017
#Yankees #Pirates close to deal that will send Gerrit Cole to the Yankees….Gleyber Torres will NOT be part of the trade according to a #Pirates source
— Jim Bowden⚾️🏈 (@JimBowdenGM) December 22, 2017
Let’s start at the beginning of Cole’s tenure with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Pre-Draft Expectations
To get an idea of the hype around Cole, take a look back at Project Prospect’s scouting report on him in 2011 prior to the draft.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] “To say Cole has outstanding stuff would be an understatement. His four-seam fastball sits 96-98 MPH touching 99 MPH frequently and occasionally flirting with triple digits. Cole attacks the zone with his four-seamer; he’s not afraid to throw it up or down, inside or out. While he primarily uses his four-seamer, Cole also mixes in a two-seam fastball sitting 91-94 MPH with solid sink. His fastball command has improved greatly since his high school days and now is firmly above-average.” [/perfectpullquote]The fastball projection has been about right as Cole has a career 96.5 fastball velocity, according to PitchInfo. Cole’s slider has been superb in the majors as well, rating as 10.2 runs-above-average in PitchInfo’s statistics. There’s no doubt that Cole’s filthy stuff first observed in college has translated to the majors.
Cole’s stuff ranked favorably in the minors as well. Baseball America credited him with the best fastball and slider in the Pirates minor-league system in 2011 and 2012.
The Pirates wanted a pitcher with good stuff and they drafted one that has lived up to those expectations. However, what separates the good from the elite is the ability to consistently use that stuff to get batters out. Cole has been inconsistent.
First Three MLB Seasons
It’s hard not like what Cole did in his first three seasons. His fastball touched 100 occasionally early on and he improved each season. In 2013, his 7.67 K/9 wasn’t flashy and upset fans who thought Cole to be a strikeout machine. Cole would improve on that in 2014 (9.00) and remain nearly as high in 2015 (8.74).
In his first season, Cole debuted in June and lasted until the end of the regular season. His fastball averaged 97 miles per hour that year, still a career-best. When the playoffs came, Cole pitched twice in the National League Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
In Game 2, he allowed one run on two hits and a walk in six strong innings to lead the Pirates to victory. In Game 5, he controversially started over A.J. Burnett and allowed two runs on three hits and one walk in five innings. Not a bad performance, but not enough since Adam Wainwright tossed a complete game victory to lead the Cardinals into the National League Championship Series.
A year later, Cole turned it on and ramped up his strikeouts with another solid season. Cole turned in his best work late in the season, going 7-2 with a 3.14 ERA in his final nine starts of the season. Even though Cole was thought to be the Pirates best pitcher that season, manager Clint Hurdle opted to start Edinson Volquez in the 2014 National League Wild Card Game instead. The Pirates lost and Cole never saw the mound.
For the majority of the 2015 season, the Pirates’ goal was to set up the rotation so that Cole would enter the Wild Card Game on full rest so that he could go up against Chicago Cubs starter Jake Arrieta. Cole did his best all-year to pitch as well as Arrieta and turned in his finest season to date, finishing fourth behind eventual-winner Arrieta in the Cy Young Award voting. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be enough to top Arrieta and the Cubs as Cole allowed four runs on six hits and two walks in five innings. He also allowed two home runs and the one hit by Kyle Schwarber still hasn’t landed.
NEW ANGLE: Kyle Schwarber CRUSHES Gerrit Cole's Pitch – NL Wildcard Game… #Cubs#WeAreGood http://t.co/jn5AU2Lokm pic.twitter.com/Fz37YHa4Iq
— ✶ Sports Mockery ✶ (@sportsmockery) October 8, 2015
Sorry for that reminder…
As a whole, Cole looked impressive in his first three major-league seasons. The 2015 season was what many had expected when he was first drafted and the expectation was that it was just the beginning of a phenomenal career. Instead, it’s been the peak of his career to date.
Last Two Seasons
Perhaps the 2016 season can be blamed on injuries. Cole spent several trips on the Disabled List and may not have been able to get into a consistent rhythm as a result. However, his struggles in 2016 only worsened in 2017.
First, take a look at the effectiveness of his pitches from 2013-15.
Now, compare that with how he performed in 2017.
The fastball and changeup improved from 2016 and Cole struck out 196 batters as a result. However, considering the record-setting home run binge of 2017 across the league (1.26 home runs hit/home runs allowed was 0.11 better than previous best), Cole’s results may be inflated since more batters were swinging for the fences than ever before. They’re not going to connect every time up to bat.
To best define Cole’s 2017 season, look no further than his first start of the season. On Opening Day against the Boston Red Sox, Cole cruised through the first four innings, allowing only two baserunners among the 13 batters he faced. However, he imploded in the fifth, surrendering five runs — all with two outs. The biggest blow was a three-run homer by Andrew Benitendi, the fifth of nine batters Cole would face that inning.
Cole especially struggled with home runs in 2017. His percentage of balls hit with hard contact was 31.3 in 2017, a career-worst according to FanGraphs. As a result of more of his pitches being barreled up, Cole also allowed career-worsts in HR/FB (15.9-percent), HR/9 (1.37) and percentage of pitches hit that were pulled (40.4). His HR/FB and HR/9 rates were eighth and 14th-worst, respectively, among 56 qualified starting pitchers.
Comparing Cole to the Rest of the 2011 Draft
Cole was the Pittsburgh Pirates first No. 1 overall pick since 2002, when they picked Bryan Bullington. Cole has obviously already surpassed Bullington in terms of effectiveness, but that isn’t saying much.
What about how Cole has done compared to the rest of his 2011 Draft class peers.
Here’s how the Top 15 picks in that 2011 MLB Draft have done in terms of fWAR. WAR is not an end-all-be-all statistic, but it’s the best one to use for comparison like this.
[table id=258 /]Yes, hindsight is 20-20 and looking back on who teams could have selected instead of the player that they did is a timeless and unoriginal tradition, but this is just a look at where Cole ranks with his peers.
Francisco Lindor has developed into the current example of what every team desires from a superstar shortstop and he certainly has done better than Cole. George Springer is fresh off winning World Series MVP and is a legitimate five-tool player. Anthony Rendon probably would have been selected first overall if not for an ankle injury he suffered in 2010. Even though it sapped him of his power projections, Rendon has turned in a stellar career thus far.
Should the Pittsburgh Pirates have picked one of those players instead of Cole? Probably, but they wanted a pitcher that season who could quickly rise to the majors. Cole did that.
The Future
Cole can only improve after an up-and-down 2017 season. The good news for Pirates fans is that he is expected to. Steamer Projections has Cole going 12-11 with a 3.90 ERA and 187 strikeouts in 32 starts over 198 innings. He is also projected to have a 1.03 HR/9 rate and a 3.39 K/BB rate.
Is that what a No. 1 overall pick looks like? No, but it seems to be more of who Cole has become as a major-leaguer. With each passing season, flashes of traits from his dominant 2015 season appear, but more and more, that Cy Young-award candidate season looks like an anomaly.
Cole’s biggest problems have been surrendering too many home runs and containing his emotions. How Cole attempts preventing home runs will be problematic if he is traded to the Yankees. Yankee Stadium yielded 243 home runs in 2017, third-most in all of MLB.
Gerrit Cole is certainly an above-average major-league pitcher. However, he hasn’t been as consistently successful as someone similar to him, like Stephen Strasburg. If they could go back and do the 2011 Draft over again, the Pirates would probably pick someone else, based on Cole’s struggles in the last two season. That’s not to say that he hasn’t been good, it’s just that there have been better players.
Whether he remains with the Pittsburgh Pirates or heads elsewhere, Cole has the makeup of an ace pitcher, but he just hasn’t been able to consistently execute that talent on the field thus far in his major-league career.
Photo credit – Daniel Decker Photography
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