#5 Gerrit Cole

Pittsburgh Pirates

DOB: 9/8/1990

Previous Rank: N/A

ETA: 2013

Cole was the first guy off the board in 2011, and it is pretty tough to make a strong case against that pick (except for the $8 million price tag).  We did not view him as the top guy available, but no one could blame Pittsburgh for viewing him as just that either.

Cole has reached well beyond the 100 mph plateau, and his changeup was the best changeup of any draft class in recent memory.  He also features a knockout slider that routinely gets 60 grades.  He has a terrific arsenal of pitches and has average or better command as well. His mechanics are hit and miss, though, which is why we liked several guys a little more than Cole going into the draft.  With someone of his caliber, it’s really just nitpicking.  Gerrit Cole has a chance to be the best pitcher in baseball and immediately ascended to the top of the Pirates’ rankings ahead of noteworthy players like Jameson Taillon and Starling Marte.

Cole looked a little sloppy in the AFL, but he still was able to make five starts and record 15 innings of professional baseball.  Let me just take this time to mention how terrific we at The Sombrero think the AFL is, especially for those guys like Cole and Hultzen who signed late and are looking to snag their first few starts of professional baseball before winter shut-downs.  Anyway, Gerrit Cole is absolutely a stallion and he should debut early in 2013.

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When a reader of The Sombrero commented on our write-up of Bubba Starling, it became apparent that implicit within our rankings, we were making a claim regarding the entire prospect landscape.  After a little reflection about how we could both be somewhat down on Starling and also rank him as high as we did, it was obvious that we were boosting hitters to levels that they might not quite deserve relative to the pitchers they were ranked alongside.

For instance, Tyler Skaggs and Archie Bradley are found adjacent to Anthony Rizzo and Devin Mesoraco in our rankings.  Skaggs and Bradley both project as #2 arms at worst.  Both are very young as well and have obvious paths to Big League action.  Skaggs might even be a member of the 2012 defending NL West Champion rotation in Phoenix.  Bradley should breeze through the Minors and wind up in a Major League rotation within three years, barring injury of course.  There is simply nothing in the way of these two aces becoming very good Major League contributors on a championship caliber club.  That’s not to say it’s by any means a done deal or even highly likely that this will be the case.

However, the idea is that there are no reasons to expect these two arms to fail in their ascent.  Mesoraco and Rizzo are older than both of the pitchers, both are large-bodied guys who likely are inflexible in terms of positioning, and both have already failed in Major League auditions, although the samples were small and both were rushed to some extent.  Nevertheless, both players are assumed to begin 2012 in Major League uniforms even if Rizzo is not shipped somewhere between now and then.  It’s no secret that we are quite high on both hitters and even higher on Starling, but there are serious flaws apparent in each case, and it is certainly conceivable that they may never succeed in the Show.  Rizzo is a below-the-ball hitter who approaches the hitting zone using a nonlinear approach that takes entirely too much time to barrel up on pitches on the inner half with decent pace.  Additionally, Rizzo plays first base with minimal chance of successfully sliding to a more valuable defensive spot.  The Padres even brought back Yonder Alonso in the Latos deal, effectively dropping Rizzo to second or third on the depth chart at 1B.  Mesoraco has less noticeable flaws, but he still has been injury prone and at-best will probably cap at under 500 plate appearances in a season, a huge reason that the Royals slid Myers away from the dish and the Nats did the same with Harper.

Basically, within the top 20 prospects as well as within the top 50, there is far more to like about the pitchers and far less flaws that might keep them from Big League success.  Even within the top 10, which again features more pitchers than hitters, we really only see Harper with no obvious flaws or roadblocks that might or should keep him from an all-star career.  We see injury, poor stats, and lack of positional flexibility or ability to even be average on D in each case except Harper’s.  Yet with our pitchers we see nothing but elite stuff, elite command, elite makeup, and obvious paths to innings.  Don’t get me wrong, the hitters are elite prospects and deservingly are considered among the top prospects in the game, but why if the pitchers are simply better?

An obvious disparity exists between hitting and pitching prospects collectively.  Pitchers are ahead of hitters by a lot.  What’s more, hitters tend to reach their peak years earlier than pitchers and, therefore, should be ready to contribute at the Major League level before pitchers of the same age.  How should we adjust the values that we apply to prospects in light of this?

In the case of pitchers, it is far easier to assign grades to pitches than it is to, say, hit tool.  Evaluating hit tool requires at least several looks and is far easier to do when a player is facing quality pitching.  Brandon Nimmo went in the first round, but slapping grades on his skills and makeup was far tougher to do than it is for someone like Bradley, who has reached triple digits with his fastball.  Additionally, as professionals, pitching prospects, specifically rotation guys, pitchers only take the rock every fifth or sixth day leaving most of the week to train physically in a relatively low-stress environment.  This has likely never before been such a massive advantage for pitchers simply because of the way PED abuse is policed today.

Entire workouts must be totally altered to accommodate the grueling season and average day of a professional or even collegiate athlete.  Pitchers have a great deal more time to train athletically at high intensity in season than hitters do.  Naturally, we should expect pitchers to be ahead of hitters more so today than ever before if for no other reason than that pitchers should be athletically better conditioned than hitters since hitters (and pitchers) face far greater difficulty abusing drugs than they ever have before.

The NCAA has done professional baseball very few favors, but the incentive for pitchers to enter professional baseball at younger ages is greater than that for hitters and always has been.  As was the case with Rendon and even Harper, the two best offensive prospects in the game who retain rookie status, a hitter must be frequently evaluated and is usually required to display his skills at top showcases and tournaments with and against top clubs and schools…or go to college where that happens nearly every game in top conferences.  Prep pitchers who feature mid-90’s heat will draw cross checkers nearly every start and truly are far less required to show it off against quality opponents.  A 60 fastball is a 60 fastball whether throwing it to Griffey or throwing it to a geriatric patient.  What is a 60 hit tool, though?  Implicit within that grade is a level of consistency that is not necessarily required in the same way with regards to fastball scores.

Additionally, when pitchers are evaluated, the system is far easier to apply.  Fastball velocity? Fastball activity?  Fastball command?  Secondary stuff?  Size? Mechanics? Makeup?  It’s very easy to understand how valuable each of these is relative to each other.  Few successful pitchers can last long in the game if they can’t pitch off of their fastballs due to a lack of pace, action, or command.  Clubs tolerate a lack in effective secondary stuff for years, but can a team tolerate a lack of hit tool in young hitters?  “Not really” should be the answer, but it is far more challenging to ensure that the top hit tools or even potential top hit tools are evaluated as accurately during amateur years.  In addition, clubs tolerate pathetic hitters in exchange for stellar up-the-middle defense.  Jose Iglesias was in many top prospect lists a year ago despite using a wet towel for a bat.  He has virtually no chance of long-term employment as a Major Leaguer at anything more than the minimum because glove-first middle guys simply come cheaply due to a far greater supply than demand.  And yet he still made onto many lists including our own.

The point is that a total reevaluation is required when ranking prospects.  The most important tool in baseball is the hit tool.  It is more important than every other offensive tool by no small margin and more valuable than any pitching tool including fastball velocity.  Consider Robbie Erlin.  While we were quite aggressive with our ranking of Erlin, it had very little to do with his fastball velocity, which is not all that impressive.  Erlin, however, commands his stuff better than any other young pitcher in the game in our opinion and is perfect for his home yard.  Good luck to any hitter who is planning to make a career out of hitting who lacks an average hit tool.  Selling out for pull power still requires the ability to barrel up on mistakes, a tough skill to master if barreling up has proven difficult in the past.  And yet so few players in the Minor League landscape today possess impact hitting ability, let alone middle-of-the-order ability, that it has shifted the balance strongly in favor of pitchers.

Arlo and I attempted to account for this in The Sombrero’s rankings, which is why you see Rizzo and Mesoraco next to Skaggs and Bradley and why you’ll see Machado and Montero next to Gerrit Cole and Julio Teheran.  Which of these do you think we are more confident will achieve Major League success?  Obviously the pitchers, but we think the quality of position players is declining at the Major League level in large part due to the inevitable response of harsher penalties on drug abuse and greater ability to detect when players are abusing PEDs.  With this comes more opportunity for high intensity training for pitchers in season and therefore better results, especially as the season drags on and off-days become more and more necessary.  Baseball is, however, a game of scoring and preventing runs with equivalent value to the team’s collective effort to accomplish both, because a run for is the same as a run against.  Resultantly, we should not find ourselves with a top 10 that includes 9 pitchers and Bryce Harper.  We should more or less have equal amounts of hitters and pitchers.  With today’s prospect landscape, in order to accomplish this a drastic reevaluation of the weights of tools is necessary.

On Tuesday afternoon, Major League Baseball and the Arizona Fall League announced this year’s participants for the 2011 Rising Stars Game.  The game, which will played on Saturday, November 5 at Surprise Stadium, will house many of baseball’s top prospects, players who will be appearing on the Sombrero’s Post-2011 Top 50 Prospects list.

Several of the top pitchers from the 2011 draft class will make their professionally televised debut, including Gerrit Cole (No. 1 overall, Pittsburgh Pirates), Danny Hultzen (No. 2 overall, Seattle Mariners), and Jed Bradley (No. 15 overall, Milwaukee Brewers).

Of course, the Rising Stars game would not be complete without the likes of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, who will man the outfield for the East along with Robbie Grossman, Xavier Avery, and Tim Wheeler.

Who am I most excited to watch? Well, here’s a brief list with absolutely zero explanation as to why: East: Terry Doyle (CWS), Trey McNutt (CHC), Nolan Arenado (COL), Junior Lake (CHC), Joe Panik (SF); West: J.J. Hoover (ATL), Christian Colon (KC), Nick Franklin (SEA), Anthony Gose (TOR), and Wil Myers (KC).

The game will be played at 7 pm eastern and will be broadcast live on both MLB.com and the MLB Network.

RISING STARS ROSTERS

Gerrit Cole: This is a tougher call than one might expect, as Jameson Taillon is also a power righty in Pittsburgh’s system that arguably had the finest pitch of his draft class too.  Cole’s fastball is bigger and he is more polished than Taillon and probably closer to the Show.

Danny Hultzen: Hultzen is not really competing against anyone here and was the most polished guy in the ’11 class with excellent command and secondary stuff to go with a plus fastball from the left side.

Trevor Bauer: This is another tough one to call because he probably does not have the limitless projection that Archie Bradley possesses.  Nevertheless, he will arrive very quickly and will succeed from the second he shows up.  He has the unshakable poise that will allow him to immediately adapt to the Major League environment.

Dylan Bundy: Manny Machado is awesome and quite clearly the top infield prospect today, but Bundy would have been my first overall selection if I was Pittsburgh.  I personally believe that no other high school pitcher in history has been on the same level as Dylan Bundy.

Bubba Starling: Starling might take a little while to get there, but his tools are without rival in the Royals’ system and quite possibly the Minors today.  He needs time and patience from the organization because he is not remotely close to a finished product.  KC must remember that this is a good thing.

Francisco Lindor: The Tribe dismantled their system to get Ubaldo, so this is a no-brainer.  Nevertheless, Lindor has tremendous upside and tools.  I was not as high on him as many, but I think I am a little slow to accept the fact that the SS landscape is far from what it once was.  The way prospects are evaluated must adapt with the Major League landscape, and I personally have a difficult time assessing premium positions like SS.

George Springer: He has tools to drool over but lacks zone judgment and has his share of mechanical flaws.  I think he will take longer than other guys who were available, but this was far from the typical botched Houston pick.

Taylor Jungmann: Milwaukee made the smart pick here by going with the polished big-conference collegiate superstar.  Jungmann is already close and should arrive quickly.  After blowing the system up over the winter, this was the kind of draft they needed in Milwaukee as they collected two high profile collegiate aces in Jungmann and Jed Bradley.

Matt Barnes: Oh what it must be like to be the Red Sox during a draft like this.  With unlimited funds they were able to take 3 guys I had in the top 20 in Barnes, Blake Swihart, and Jackie Bradley Jr., and Henry Owens who I had immediately outside of it.  Their top guy prior to this week was Will Middlebrooks, and I just don’t see the same kind of upside in him that I do in Barnes.  Barnes certainly needs to improve his secondary stuff as well as command of all of his pitches, but he can work at 95 mph for 70 pitches and is very comfortable throwing in the cold New England air.  Oh, and I see him as a starter.  Duh.

Other teams that totally killed the draft were Washington and Tampa who have the Minor Leagues’ best hitting and pitching prospects respectively.  It should be noted that no one drafted this year would land in front of Bryce Harper or Matt Moore in any ranking of mine.

As the collegiate baseball season continues to pick up steam, we at the Sombrero think it’s time to examine some recent events that will inevitably shake up the 2011 draft landscape.  Prior to the start of the 2011 NCAA season, Anthony Rendon of Rice was widely regarded as the top talent in the 2011 Draft.  With a double-plus hit tool grading and power to spare, Rendon profiles as a middle-of-the order hitter on any team in Major League Baseball.  Because of his eye, which grades at least a 60, and ability to barrel up the baseball, Rendon will have a very short stint in the Minors before debuting with whatever club drafts him in June.  His glove grades at plus, and there has never been any reason for concern regarding his ability to stay at third, his position at Rice.

What does cause reason for concern, however, is Rendon’s ankle, which he severely injured last summer with Team USA.  This most recent injury is not the first injury to Rendon’s ankle, and he has spent some time at DH this season as a precautionary measure.  Rendon must demonstrate that he can play third on a daily basis this season to justify the top overall ranking headed into the draft.  Everything about his stats at Rice this season suggest that he is the same old Anthony at the dish, but this is not the year to select a player with injury concerns with the first overall selection.  The talent is simply too deep for that.

However, there really is only one collegiate position player who will even draw the slightest interest from the Pirates at the #1 spot, and he is University of Connecticut outfielder George Springer.  Springer has insane tools, but is not nearly as polished as Rendon at the plate, and will take considerably longer to reach his full potential despite possessing a potentially higher ceiling.

Many scouts now view UCLA ace Gerrit Cole as the top talent available.  Cole has outstanding numbers through the first month of the season, and many scouts think he could be successful in the Big Leagues today.  Reports of triple-digit fastballs and double-plus secondary pitches are beginning to warrant the Stephen Strasburg comparisons.  Signability issues exist with Cole, however, and his refusal to sign with the Yankees out of high school was highly publicized.

A draft-eligible sophomore who many after the 2010 season thought could challenge for the top overall selection is TCU’s Matt Purke.  Purke has had a somewhat pedestrian spring so far relative to the borderline unprecedented success he experienced in his freshman season, however.  The lefty has missed time due to a blister and experienced a dip in velocity.  Saturday night saw Purke work in the 88-92 mph range, and despite striking out 11 UNLV hitters, that velocity simply is not enough to justify the top selection at this point.  When at his best, though, Matt Purke is perhaps the finest amateur pitcher in the United States.

Another pitcher, who many still view as a longshot to move into the #1 overall discussion, is Vanderbilt ace Sonny Gray.  Gray has the best pitch in the draft in his triple-plus breaking ball and a fastball that has reached 97 mph.  His delivery is repeatable and fluid despite being a tad on the aggressive side, and he is considered an easier sign than Cole and Purke, who both have turned down multi-million dollar bonuses in the past.

While no high school player has drawn serious consideration with regards to the top pick, the premier position player and pitcher deserve mention.  Bubba Starling of Gardner High in Kansas has tools to drool over and profiles well at both CF and RF.  His bat speed is otherworldly, and his arm is double-plus.  Unfortunately, he also is an exceptional football talent – why anyone even cares is beyond me – but it will likely take a great deal of dollars to keep him from fulfilling his commitment to play both sports for Nebraska.

Archie Bradley of Broken Arrow High in Oklahoma is beginning to distance himself from a strong crop of prep arms in Dylan Bundy, Daniel Norris, and Dillon Howard.  Bradley works in the mid-90s with a plus to double-plus breaking ball, and possesses tremendous athleticism and size.  He, like Starling, is also an excellent football player and is committed to play both football and baseball in college (Oklahoma), and, like Starling, a massive bonus is the only way to keep him from wasting his arm playing something other than baseball.

If the draft was tomorrow, I predict the Pirates will select Cole first, and the subsequent selections will be Rendon, Gray, Springer, Purke, Starling, and Bradley.  The collegiate pitching crop is especially talented, however, and there is plenty of reason to believe that someone like UConn’s Matt Barnes or Virginia’s Danny Hultzen could break into the #1 discussion as well.

#8 Jarrod Parker – Arizona Diamondbacks

RHP

DOB: 11-24-88

ETA: 2011

Kevin Towers, the Sombrero’s favorite GM, has quite a decision to make this spring with how to handle Jarrod Parker in 2011.  Parker is now more than a year removed from Tommy John surgery and has repeatedly stated that he feels as good now as he ever has.  His fastball is reaching the mid-90s and the slider is as deadly as ever.  It is most likely the best right-handed slider in the Minors today, and Parker has two other secondary offerings that should grade as a 60 by the time he reaches his mid-20s.

Unfortunately, Parker missed all of 2010 due to his surgery, so this ranking may seem ludicrous to some people and is considerably more aggressive than most other ranking systems out there.  Here’s why: Parker is the only guy in the game with the combination of arm speed, athleticism, command, and diversity of pitches, as well as a clear path to Major League starts in his early 20s.  The fact that he already had TJS only reinforces his value because he basically has a new elbow.  Based on early evaluations of his recovery, he seems more like a Jordan Zimmerman than a Francisco Liriano right now.

With the insane talent in 2011’s draft class, and the Diamondbacks possessing two of the first seven picks, there is a chance we might see a rotation along the lines of Parker, Daniel Hudson, and any combination of two guys from a list of Gerrit Cole, Matt Purke, Sonny Gray, and Taylor Jungmann.  Wow.  Can’t wait.  Go Diamondbacks!

• Our friends over at Splashing Pumpkins were lucky (not in the sense that they were undeserving!) enough to attend Giants Media Day this week, and capture a candid video interview with Madison Bumgarner.  Among the topics discussed in this must-watch interview: the Verducci effect, the Giants’ new Showtime series, and his hitting prowess.

• At the beginning of the week, MiLB.com sat down for an interview with San Francisco Giants’ prospect – a fan favorite here at the Sombrero – Brandon Belt.  After just one year in the Minor Leagues, Belt was recently named the #26 prospect in baseball by MLB.com.  Considering how careful the Giants were with their development of Buster Posey, I really don’t know what to think of GM Brian Sabean’s claim that Belt could break camp with the parent club.

• Baseball America has released their 2011 Preseason All-America Team as voted upon by MLB Scouting Directors.  The First Team is comprised of many of the names that we would expect to see on the list: Anthony Rendon (Rice), Alex Dickerson (Indiana), Gerrit Cole (UCLA), and Matt Purke (TCU).  One interesting note: incoming Stanford freshman Austin Wilson managed to sneak on to their Third Team.  This makes me wonder how good this kid has to be to receive such a prestigious recognition without having had a single collegiate at-bat…

• Earlier this week, Blue Jays manager John Farrell mentioned that Kyle Drabek could crack the starting rotation out of Spring Training, and possibly log more than 200 innings in his rookie season.  After coming over from Philadelphia in the Roy Halladay trade, Blue Jays’ fans – as well as all of baseball – were offered a glimpse of Drabek’s potential thanks to a September call-up.  This winter, Drabek was named the Blue Jays’ #1 prospect, as well as the 12^th-best prospect in all of baseball.  Here at the Sombrero, we ranked Drabek as the 33^rd-best prospect in baseball.

• Today I will be at Prep Baseball Report’s Super 60 – a showcase that features the best high school players from Illinois, Missouri and Indiana, and is attended by over 40+ Major League scouts.  The players I’m most looking forward to see include New Trier (IL) OF Charlie Tilson, Oak Forest (IL) OF Tim Barry, Warsaw (MO) SS Johnny Elerman, McCluer (MO) outfielder Lance Jeffries, and Vianney (MO) 3B Matt Brown.  The event is being held at the Max-McCook Athletic & Exposition Center, which might be the largest and most impressive indoor facility on this planet.

Prospect Buzz is the new, prospect-related link drop of The Golden Sombrero that will appear every Wednesday and Sunday.  As you may already know, we love prospects here at the Sombrero.  So if you have an article or link that you would like us consider for this segment, feel free to either email us or send it our way on Twitter.