By Louis Addeo-Weiss
Yes, you read that right.
Though the title may appear opaque at first glance, there’s legitimate reasoning behind it, and I’ll be happy to outline for you exactly what merits this claim.
If you’ve been watching baseball this season, you’ll know that Gerrit Cole has taken the next step from a good pitcher to arguably the best arm in the sport at the moment.
How good has he been in 2019?
Cole’s 2.50 ERA and 2.64 FIP lead the American League respectively, as did his 326 strikeouts, the most since Randy Johnson’s 334 in 2002, 185 ERA+, and 13.8 K/9, which led all of baseball.
Cole’s 6.8 WAR, according to baseball-reference, ranked second among all AL pitchers, trailing only teammate Justin Verlander, who posted 7.8 WAR during the 2019 season. As many expect, Cole and Verlander will finish either 1 and 2 respectively in this year’s American League Cy Young Award voting.
And given that Cole’s opus season to this point comes in 2019, the year in which he is slated to become a free agent, it is appropriate to say that Cole will earn the largest contract ever awarded to a starting pitcher.
What is also appropriate is how similar Cole is to the fellow right-hander he’ll go toe-to-toe with in Game 1 of this year’s World Series, Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals.
First, it is Scherzer’s current contract, the 7-year/$210M deal he signed with the Nationals prior to the 2015 season, in the context of the deal Cole is expected to receive, that can be cited as a commonality.
In the context of what Cole is expected to receive in free agency, this is merely low-hanging fruit, as the real comparison lies within the numbers.
| Rk | Name | From | To | W | L | IP | BB | SO | HBP | WP | WHIP | H9 | BB9 | SO9 |
| 1 | Cole | 2013 | 2019 | 94 | 52 | 1195 | 315 | 1336 | 42 | 45 | 1.129 | 7.8 | 2.4 | 10.1 |
| 2 | Scherzer | 2008 | 2014 | 91 | 50 | 1239.1 | 389 | 1321 | 44 | 45 | 1.219 | 8.1 | 2.8 | 9.6 |
While the numbers listed above are merely standard for evaluating pitchers, we can see a myriad of similarities, especially when zeroing on W-L records, innings pitched, strikeout rates, hits-per-nine, and walk rates.
What’s also present is the length of time each hurler amassed, as each played in parts of seven seasons before testing the waters of free agency.
Not convinced yet?
The use of analytics only furthers the narrative established here, with WAR (Wins Above Replacement) being the metric that merited the writing of this piece in the first place.
In Cole’s first seven seasons, the right-hander, who began his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, posted 23.4 WAR.
For Scherzer, his ended the 2014 season, his last with the Detroit Tigers, with 23.8 WAR, a number nearly identical to Cole.
Like Cole currently, Scherzer’s true ascendency to ace-status comes two seasons prior to entering free agency.
A side-by-side combined comparison of Cole’s 2018 and 2019 to Scherzer’s 2013 and 2014 seasons only makes it look as if we’re watching the same pitcher.
For each of those seasons, Scherzer and Cole both amassed 12.1 WAR, and a nearly identical WAA (Wins Above Average) of 8.4 (Cole) to 8.2 (Scherzer).
Where we start to see a degree of separation comes via strikeout numbers. Cole’s 13.1 SO9 appears light years ahead of Scherzer’s “pedestrian” 10.2 SO9.
A recently devised metric, known as PtchR (Adjusted Pitching Runs), suggests that Cole was far more dominant during this two-year run when it comes to pitching contributions, with a 76.7 PtchR to Scherzer’s 48.7 respectively.
However, we immediately return to the subject of similarities when we see that both pitchers were nearly neck-and-neck in limiting free passes – with Cole walking 2.4 hitters per nine, to Scherzer, who walked an average of 2.5.
Now, given Cole’s remarkable season, comes in the midst of an era permeated on launch-angle and the three-true outcomes, does any of what the Houston hurler as done need to be discounted?
While this may appear odd, it is amazing the company Cole has put himself in throughout the past two seasons.
Throughout baseball history, only four pitchers have managed to strike out 600 or more hitters during their sixth and seventh seasons: Nolan Ryan (712 over 610 IP, 1972-73), Rube Waddell (651 over 707 IP, 1903-04), Pud Galvin (648 over 1292.2 IP, 1883-84), and of course, Gerrit Cole (602 over 412.2 IP, 2018-19).
More amazingly, Cole was the quickest to 600 of any of them, doing so in just 411.2 innings pitched.
Given the context of this list, for a pitcher to put up numbers such as these despite an era when the league is striking out 23% of the time, one can argue that what Cole is doing shouldn’t be discounted whatsoever, though when it comes down to who wins the Cy Young in the American League, I’m not sure the strikeouts will be Cole’s best friend, given Verlander having the overall better year.
Now, despite the few noted differences between Cole and Scherzer during these respective periods, it is the innumerable comparisons that have served as the basis of outlining how similar the two are, and a reflection of the trajectory Cole appears to be on as he enters the open market and looks to become the richest starting pitcher baseball has ever seen.
And on that aforementioned trajectory, one wouldn’t appear foolish in assuming that Cole could go on a run of dominance similar to that of Scherzer, but for my money, whatever that may matter, Cole has the potential to be better.
