Gerrit Cole : Pirates Future Ace?

With the 1^st Pick in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft, the Pittsburgh Pirates select:

Gerrit Cole, RHP – UCLA

Last night the Pirates had the 1^st overall pick in the MLB Draft for the 1^st time since 2002 when they drafted Bryan Bullington out of Ball State.  He is currently pitching in Japan so obviously that wasn’t a great pick.  However, that was with Dave Littlefield steering the ship and so far Neil Huntington has done a great job thus far selecting, Pedro Alvarez, Tony Sanchez and Jamison Taillon with his 1^st round picks.  So enough about the past, let’s look at the future and Gerrit Cole.

The Good:

Cole has the look and feel of a future top of the rotation work horse, with three big time power pitches. His fastball is 92-99 mph and sits comfortably at 95-96 deep into starts. His hard slider comes in at 88-90 mph, and even his changeup is 88-90 mph. In some ways, that's been the problem -- no variation of velocity, allowing good hitters to time him.

The Bad:

Occasionally Cole can overthrow and therefore has trouble staying consistent in both his delivery and pitch location.  During a stretch when he was getting hit around a bit, despite his stuff looking just fine, he was opening his front side so his release point was right down the middle, meaning his pitches were catching off the white rather than living on the black.  It was at this point that his pitches would tend to come in flat, with less late movement, ultimately leading to more solid contact.  Overall though his control is fine and he doesn’t hurt himself with walks.  

The Overall:

Cole has three plus pitches and has all the tools to be the “ace” on the Pirates staff for years to come.  He has had, to this date no arm problems and since he is a bigger kid (6’-4”, 220 lbs) will hold up much better throughout a long, inning heavy season.  Cole will need to work on replicating his delivery and keeping his front side closed but both of those should be easily corrected with hard work and the attention of the Pirates minor league pitching coordinator Jim Benedict.  I expect Cole to rise through the system relatively quickly, and a 2013 arrival in Pittsburgh doesn’t seem out of the question.