Gerrit Cole and The Potential, Never-Going-To-Happen Extension

With Starling Marte's recent extension, talk turned to who the Pirates could lock up next in an effort to cost control their core players.  Gerrit Cole is the next logical candidate, but since Cole's agent Scott Boras is a well-known proponent of getting his star players to free agency as quickly as possible, it's very unlikely.

If Cole were to sign his extension after the 2014 season, he would have 1 year and 111 days of service time accrued.  This should put him safely outside of the dreaded Super 2 threshold, meaning the Pirates would only have to go to arbitration with him three times instead of four.  After this year, the Pirates can pay Cole approximately the major league minimum ($500,000) for 2015 and 2016.  Then from 2017-2019, he would be arbitration-eligible.  So a potential 6 year deal would buy out all five years of remaining team control, plus one free agent year.

To re-iterate -- this is very unlikely to happen because of the presence of Scott Boras.  But let's continue along.

Using the Extension Tracker on MLB Trade Rumors, I filtered the results for starting pitcher extensions between 1 and 2 years of service time.  Since 2008, eleven pitchers have signed extensions with this level of service time.  Of those pitchers, though, only two are in the same neighborhood of Cole in terms of minor league pedigree (how much hype was given) and ceiling (top of rotation pitcher).  Those two pitchers are the aforementioned Julio Teheran (6 yr/$32.4M, with 1 option year) and Madison Bumgarner (5 yr/$35M, with 2 option years).  It should also be noted that both of these pitchers are clients of the Relativity Baseball agency.

Both Teheran and Bumgarner are low-end #1's or high-end #2 pitchers, in my opinion, while I think Cole could be a pure #1 ace.  Let's look at the year-by-year breakdown for each pitcher:

Teheran

2014 -- $1M signing bonus, $800K salary

2015 -- $1M

2016 -- $3.3M

2017 -- $6.3M

2018 -- $8M

2019 -- $11M

2020 -- $12M option with a $1M buyout

Bumgarner

2013 -- $1M signing bonus, $750K

2014 -- $3.75M

2015 -- $6.75M

2016 -- $9.75M

2017 -- $11.5M

2018 -- $12M club option with a $1.5M buyout

2019 -- $12M club option with same $1.5M buyout

If you compare both of them, the year-to-year salaries (at the same point in their service time cycles) are very similar.  Their "platform season" performance prior to getting their contracts are very similar, too.  In Julio Teheran's first full year in 2013, he put up a 3.20 ERA/3.69 FIP in 185 innings with a 8.24 K/9 and 2.18 BB/9.  In Madison Bumgarner's first full year in 2011, he put up a 2.77 ERA/3.05 FIP in 204 innings, with an 8.4 K/9 and 2.02 BB/9.  The 2014 season will be Cole's first full season.  In 2013, his 3.22 ERA/2.91 FIP, 7.67 K/9, 2.15 BB/9 rates all show that he is primed for a breakout full season.

Although I've mentioned twice now that an extension is not likely with Scott Boras, it's not unprecedented.  Since 2008, Boras has negotiated multi-year extensions for eight players.  However, of those eight players only seven bought out or had an option on any free agent years.  Prince Fielder merely cost-controlled two arbitration-eligible years.  It's also worth noting that only one those players, Carlos Gonzalez of the Rockies, signed a deal before he reached arbitration.  He had just over two years of service time when his deal was signed.  Additionally, only one of these players, Jered Weaver of the Angels, is a starting pitcher.

Even though an extension is highly unlikely, let's assume Scott Boras is in a generous mood with the Pirates.  He'll want Gerrit Cole's contract to be precedent-setting, so he'll want to exceed the Teheran/Bumgarner deals.  Here's a potential framework:

2015 -- $2M signing bonus with a $1M salary

2016 -- $2M salary

2017 -- $4.5M

2018 -- $7.5M

2019 -- $10.5M

2020 -- $13M

2021 -- $15M option with a $2M buyout

That totals up to a 6 year/$42.5M deal with an additional option year worth $15M potentially.  Except that it most likely won't happen because (all together now) Gerrit Cole has Scott Boras as an agent.

Gerrit Cole and the Pirates' History of Pitchers

For all of the Pirates legendary players, the vast majority of the truly great ones have been hitters.  The Pirates have not had many great long-term pitchers, especially since racial integration started to occur in the late 1940’s.

If you look at Baseball Reference’s Pirate Pitching Leaders page, you’ll see it is dominated by pitchers that played in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  This is to be expected for the traditional “counting stats” such as innings pitched, wins, and strikeouts.  It’s pretty easy to rack up the innings total and wins like Wilbur Cooper when you’re regularly pitching 285-325 innings per year.  Those totals will just never be seen on a regular basis again.

I wondered if the Pirates were just victims of their own long standing history, as it related to the leaderboards being dominated by old-timey pitchers.  I went on the Cincinnati Reds’ Pitching Leader page and saw plenty of modern-day pitchers like Jose Rijo (4th in K’s), Bronson Arroyo (7th in K’s, 9th in games started), Mario Soto (2nd in K’s), and Aaron Harang (6th in K’s).  

But even within the last 50 years, there just have not been many truly great Pirate pitchers.  Bob Friend leads them in both innings pitched and strikeouts, but that’s more to the fact of his longevity, as he was a Pirate for 15 seasons and finished with a 191-218 record with the club.  The strikeout was de-emphasized in that era, as well, which is why he has “only” 1,682 strikeouts in 3,480 innings pitched as a Pirate (4.35 K/9, which you couldn’t last in today’s game with that ratio).

Vern Law is perhaps the iconic Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher of the past 50 years, as he pitched all 16 seasons with Pittsburgh and finished with a 162-147 record.  He also appears throughout various Top 10 lists for Pirate pitchers (4th in IP, 5th in K’s, 6th in wins).

Bob Veale was like a less temperamental Oliver Perez, as he racked up some mammoth strikeout numbers, as well as large walk numbers, during his 11 seasons with the Pirates.  Veale finished with a 116-91 record and is 2nd in strikeouts with 1,652.

Since the advent of free agency in 1975, the Pirates have had even fewer all-time great pitchers in their history.  Perhaps the two best pitchers during this era have been John Candelaria and Doug Drabek.  There have been plenty of good to very good level pitchers, plus some fantastic single seasons (Perez in 2004 and Liriano in 2013), but no real iconic careers aside from those two.

Candelaria came up in 1975 as a 21-year old rookie and pitched 12 seasons for the Pirates.  He finished with a 124-87 record as a Pirate and was a key member of their glory years in the ‘70’s.  His 1977 season (20-5, 2.34 ERA, 5th place in Cy Young vote) was his masterpiece.

Drabek only lasted his 6+ seasons that the Pirates controlled his rights, after he came over in a trade with the Yankees, but he put his mark on the rotation during the 1990-92 run of division titles.  As a Pirate, he finished with a 92-62 record, 3.02 ERA, 1.15 WHIP (8th all-time for Pirates), and one NL Cy Young.

All of this is saying that the bar for Gerrit Cole to reach all-time Pirate greatness is pretty low.  He has all the tools and arsenal of pitches to enter into this relatively small modern pantheon.  After this season, he is under control with the Pirates for 6 more full seasons (2014-2019), until uber-agent Scott Boras whisks him away to free agency, where the Pirates may lose out on his services.

Cole is also entering a renaissance period for the Pirates, as it appears as if this is just the start of a prolonged window of contention.  At the very least, it should be a period of “not sucking”, which will afford Cole the opportunity to accrue bulk counting stats like wins, innings, and strikeouts.

While I would love to have Cole here for his entire career like Vern Law, it’s more realistic to expect him to have the Doug Drabek style of 6+ years instead.  If he can replicate Drabek’s career, but with more strikeouts, that would be quite an achievement.  It would probably allow him to be talked about in the same conversation as some of these pitchers mentioned in the article as All Time Great Pirate Pitchers.

The Future Is Now

On Tuesday, June 11th, 2013, the long, long, long suffering Pittsburgh Pirate fan base saw their equivalent of Halley's Comet.  They were able to witness the debut of an actual homegrown, bonafide ace #1 pitcher in the form of Gerrit Cole.

Cole was the first overall pick in the 2011 draft, just two short years ago nearly to the day.  There were many good choices at the top of that draft in the form of Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer, Dylan Bundy, Danny Hultzen, and Archie Bradley.  Bundy and Bauer already reached the majors in 2012 (Bundy is out this year with elbow issues already in his career), but Cole was the overall best mix of pure stuff and proximity to the majors.

Cole's arsenal consists of four pitches, three of which are either plus pitches or have the ability to be plus pitches: He starts and ends every conversation with a 97-99 mph fastball (an 80 on the 20-80 scale), his 90 mph slider (already plus), an 88-90 mph changeup, and a functional curveball.

His debut was against none other than the defending World Series Champs, the San Francisco Giants.  His mound opponent was 2-time (but on the wane) Cy Young Winner Tim Lincecum.  And Cole upstaged both of them.  His final line betrays how dominant he was in this game -- 6.1 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, and 2 K.  The outing got away from him in the 7th inning, where his two runs scored, but he completed his debut in just 81 pitches.  His command was faltering, but not his stuff -- his fastball was still sitting 95-96.

According to Fangraphs, Cole threw 80% fastballs (65 pitches), 17.5% sliders (14), and 2.5% changeups (2).  Obviously those numbers are going to regulate over time to around 65% fastballs and more changeups.

Cole didn't seem overwhelmed at all by the moment.  Not after striking out the first batter he faced in 3 pitches, not after driving in the first 2 runs with his first hit since high school (seriously), and not during his post-game interview with the media.  He's ready.  He's able to shoulder the burden of a downtrodden franchise on his 6'-4", 240 pound frame.

Cole is bushwhacking through the forest, clearing a path for the potential stampede of pitching prospects coming behind him.  This time next year, Jameson Taillon should debut and become a solid #2-level pitcher, just a shade in ceiling behind Cole.  Nick Kingham, recently promoted to Double A Altoona, may see the majors in late 2014.  Tyler Glasnow is breaking out in a huge way at West Virginia, but he's probably 3 years away.  Luis Heredia has yet to debut in 2013, due to conditioning issues, but he's in the mix too.

There may be no flying cars, but the future is here.  June 11, 2013 was the start of a new era of hope for the Pirate franchise.  The debuts of McCutchen and Alvarez were extremely important, but Cole symbolizes the transition from pretender to contender for the Pirates.

All Hail Gerrit Cole

At a few minutes after 7 p.m. tonight, the Pirates called Gerrit Cole's name as the 1st overall pick of the 2011 MLB draft. For months leading up to the draft, it was assumed/hoped/demanded that the Pirates select Anthony Rendon, the power hitting/smooth fielding 3B from Rice. A couple of problems happened though -- Rendon lost his power and was a DH for nearly the whole year. Rendon had a shoulder injury at the start of the year (he said from overstretching) that prevented him from playing 3B and sapped his prodigious home run power.

His medical records were released over the weekend and the diagnosis was severe enough to cause Rendon to drop all the way to 6th overall to the Nationals. He will most likely need some sort of surgical procedure -- the only determination is the severity level of it.

But enough about what could have been. Time to discuss what is in front of us.

Gerrit Cole was a late 1st round pick by the Yankees back in 2008. The only reason he fell to the tail end of the 1st round were his high bonus demands. The Yankees took him and offered him $3M, but Cole decided at the last minute to forgo that bonus and go to UCLA. What was even stranger is that the Yankees were a young Gerrit Cole's favorite team growing up. There is a famous photo of a young Cole holding a sign at the 2001 World Series that reads "Yankee Fan Today Tomorrow Forever". So the fact that he turned down life-changing money and the chance to play for his childhood team was striking.



Even more striking is Cole's current arsenal of pitches. It starts with his fastball which sits 96-97 and touches 100. It is complemented by a plus changeup and a great slider. The bugaboo with Cole in 2011 is that his stats did not reflect the level of his stuff. He finished 6-8 with a 3.31 ERA in 16 starts. In 114 IP, Cole allowed 103 H, 24 BB, and recorded 119 K's. Those are very good, but not eye-popping numbers, especially compared to rotation mate Trevor Bauer who had 203 K's in 136 IP, with a 13-2 record and 1.25 ERA.

Cole's 6 foot 4 inch frame is the perfect pitcher's frame. It is said that his less than awesome stats were due to a mechanical flaw, most likely his front shoulder opening up too early and causing his stuff to flatten out. The Pirates front office are confident that it can be resolved.

With Cole's selection, he becomes the top prospect in the Pirates' system, even ahead of uber-prospect Jameson Taillon. The reasoning is that Cole's stuff at age 20 is a half-step better than Taillon's present stuff at age 19.

Cole will debut in 2012 in the minor leagues; his negotiations this summer will go right down to the wire with "advisor" Scott Boras. Most likely he will get a $7M signing bonus as part of a $10M+ major-league contract. Cole's progression could very well be:

2012 - High A/Double A split year
2013 - Triple A/debut in Pittsburgh mid-season

If all goes well with Taillon, he could be on a very similar timeline to Cole. In July 2013, the Pirates rotation could very well be Cole, Taillon, McDonald, Morton, and a fifth starter from Owens/Locke/Lincoln/Wilson/Morris. I drooled a little bit just thinking about it.

Brighter days are here for the Pirates, with blindingly good days around the corner. Now about that hitting....