Gerrit Cole Is Now the Most Important Pirate

Gerrit Cole might not be the best player on the Pittsburgh Pirates — Andrew McCutchen probably still holds that distinction — but over the course of the next 10 days, perhaps no pitcher in the National League, or perhaps in Major League Baseball, will have a greater impact on his team’s season. Cole has slid under the radar of the Cy Young race as Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta, and Zack Greinke are all having historically good seasons. While Cole is a bit behind that NL pitching triumvirate, his 2.60 FIP is third in MLB behind only Kershaw and Arrieta. His nearly identical 2.61 ERA is sixth, behind the above three, as well as Dallas Keuchel and David Price. Cole has already pitched some important games down the stretch this season, but how he pitches in the near future could frame how many people view the Pirates’ season as they head to the playoffs for the third straight year.

Cole has pitched very well as the regular season comes to a close. Over his last four starts, he has faced only playoff teams in the Chicago Cubs (twice), the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Pirates have won all four of Cole’s starts, during which time he’s recorded a 32:5 strikeout-to-walk ratio and allowed just one home run over 27.1 innings, good for a 2.30 ERA and 1.94 FIP. The starts against division rival were of particular importance. One September 6, the Pirates trailed the Cardinals by 6.5 games. A loss at that time would have put the team 7.5 games back, making their shot at a divisional comeback almost impossible. The win also kept the Pirates three games ahead of the Cubs. His next start, against those same Cubs, lengthened the lead for home-field advantage to five games and briefly put them within two games of the Cardinals.

Cole just recently turned 25 years old, and in his age-24 season, he has been one of the best in recent history at his age. Among qualified pitchers 24 and under, Cole’s 5.5 WAR is the best such figure, a full two wins better than Carlos Martinez’s mark. Since 2010, the only pitchers 24 and under with a season exceeding Cole’s current 5.5 fWAR are Clayton Kershaw (twice), Matt Harvey and Felix Hernandez.

While it would be irresponsible to claim that victories in September are more important than those in April or May, it is reasonable to look upon games against competitive rivals as more important given the increased swing those games put on the standings. Cole has started seven games this season against the Cardinals and Cubs. In those seven games, he has pitched 44.2 innings with 48 strikeouts, a 2.22 ERA and 2.16 FIP. The Pirates went 5-2 in Cole starts against the two main division rivals, and 11-17 when any other pitcher made a start against those same opponents. His last start against the Cubs began a three-game series where a sweep would have seen the Cubs close to within half a game. His next start, on Wednesday against the Cardinals, will either serve to keep Pittsburgh alive two games back (if Pittsburgh wins tonight) — or, if the Cardinals win the second game of the series tonight (Pirates have not lost the first two games of a home series since early June), it ensures that Cole will be pitching the all-important Wild Card game next Wednesday against the Cubs.

While Cole was a top prospect for some time before reaching the bigs and as performed incredibly well as a major leaguer, his rise to the current level was not linear. He struggled in 2014 with injuries and, coming into the season, had recorded just 255.1 major-league innings total. In June, Dave Cameron wrote about the emergence of Cole’s slider and how its development allowed the Pirates’ right-hander to become an ace.

With a single breaking ball that now seems far more effective against lefties than his two-pronged approach used to be, Cole no longer looks like a guy who will destroy righties and try to pitch around the lefties. Now, he’s a guy with a legitimate out-pitch against LHBs while also still pushing 100 with his fastball. The change-up hasn’t ever really developed, but with a lefty destroying breaking ball, he probably doesn’t need one after all. At least not right now.

The slider that looked so good early in the year did have a brief hiccup around the All-Star break. He throws the slider 22% of the time, per Brooks Baseball, second in usage among his pitches ahead of the two-seam fastball and only behind his four-seamer. Despite the heavy usage, it is an extremely effective pitch, getting whiffs roughly 22% of the time and producing 44% of his strikeouts — even despite using it roughly half as often. In July, however, the pitch lost some velocity, as the chart from Brooks Baseball shows.

Cole was down a bit on velocity on all of his pitches in July, and his slider got just 13% whiffs and 46% swings compared to the 22% and 52%, respectively, for the season totals. While Cole never really struggled — giving up more than three earned runs to just three teams all season, and never more than five during the two-month period from June 18 to August 17 — Cole’s 3.66 ERA was slightly elevated relative to his established levels (although a somewhat lower 3.19 FIP suggested it might have been a product of variance). Not much concern was expressed during this time, given the positive production he was generally providing, but for a young pitcher breaking through a career-high for innings, any change could be cause for some concern. However, since breaking through his MLB-innings season high, Cole has pitched better than ever down the stretch and his velocity has returned.

Cole’s slider has gotten stronger, and the rest of his arsenal has returned to pre-July levels as well. Among the roughly 150 pitchers this season to have more than 1000 pitches recorded, nobody has more pitches of at least 95 mph than Cole’s mark of 1447, per Baseball Savant. Averaging above 95 mph on both his four-seam and two-seam fastballs, 46.2% of Cole’s pitches have been above 95 mph, second among starters with at least 1,000 pitches — to Noah Syndergaard, who has a bonkers 60% rate. While Cole’s ERA in the second-half at 3.02 is higher than the 2.30 he posted in the first half, his FIP has actually gotten much better, moving from 2.82 in the first half to 2.32 in the second. Watch as ERA and FIP dance around each other until meeting as we ready for the playoffs.

As a rookie two years ago, the Pirates chose to start Cole in the decisive Game 5 of the NLDS despite the game representing A.J. Burnett’s turn in the rotation. Cole was outdueled by Adam Wainwright that day. Last season, he pitched on the final day of the regular season, making him unavailable for the Wild Card start that went to Edinson Volquez. Cole pitched well down the stretch, but the Pirates used him for Game 162 as they still had an outside shot of tying the Cardinals for the division. This season, there are no questions about the Pirates’ 25-year-old ace. He has virtually clinched home-field advantage in the Wild Card game, and he might have the opportunity to help the team catch St. Louis. Whenever the next big game happens for the Pirates, Cole is going to be there, and if the team is going to make a run into the playoffs, he will need to keep pitching like he has been all year long.