Cole dominant in first start

February 21, 2009 by Mike Axisa 49 Comments

Gerrit Cole, the Yanks’ famously unsigned first round pick, made his collegiate debut for UCLA this afternoon, one hitting UC Davis over six innings. His final line was 6 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, with the lone run coming in the 4th inning on a single, two-base error to move the runner to third, and a sac fly. It’s a shame he choose not to do this in a Yanks’ uniform, but what can you do. Such is life when you gamble on uber-talented but tough to sign players.

Doug

but not sure the yanks thought he was going to be tough to sign. from what i read at the time, he blind-sided the yanks when he spurned them for college
Reggie C.

nice debut. He’ll make a good selection for the Padres or Mariners in a few years.

And i agree with Doug. Cole wasn’t a tough sign. He was a dont-call-me-&-oh yea!-I-won’t-call- you sign.
http://thebronxzoo.wordpress.com iYankees

I’m sure it was a tough decision, but I honestly think he’ll be very happy with his choice. College is an awesome experience.
- steve (different one)
  
  it is.
  
  but so is having $4M in your pocket and playing minor league baseball.
  
  i have no problem with his decision. my only problem is that his family lead the Yankees to believe he wanted to sign before they selected him.
  - Craig
    
    The selfish Yankee fan part of me wants him to suck if he ends up with someone other than the Yankees (or Mets, but that’s besides the point and not for this site). Objectively, you can’t go wrong with college. It’s an amazing personal and growing experience. You can’t really blame him, you just wish the Yankees would’ve known.
- http://theenlighteneddespot.com NC Saint
  
  College is awesome, but I doubt I would have had as much fun there if my body was a multi-million dollar asset that needed protecting. Not that there isn’t a lot for college to offer to these guys, but serious athletes can never experience college the way the rest of us do.
  - http://Ranger2709.blogspot.com Old Ranger
    
    Amen to that!
    Both good; athletes get better treatment, in some ways…and bad; they don’t have time to do a lot of the things other students just take for granted.
http://nyfaninboston.blogspot.com/ Manimal

I think it was his parents decision for him to go to college and he just went along with it. He didn’t really like to talk about it when I used to talk to him. It must have been a hard decision to decline your favorite team.
- Conan the Barack O’Brian
  
  Yeah. I can definitely see a parent, especially an affluent one, making this choice. But like steve (d.o.) says; somehow the Yanks were under the impression that Cole would go for the higher slot money. It’s just a shame. Not a shame of Brien Taylor-ish proportions, but a shame.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=15305165&ref=profile Doug
    
    Being one of the best pitching prospects of the past 25 years, then ruining your arm for good in a bar fight that your brother started is one of the greatest EPIC FAILS in sports history. That makes it kind of awesome, actually.
    - Mike Pop
      
      http://weblogs.newsday.com/spo.....aylor2.JPG
      
      And he currently works in Real Estate.
http://theenlighteneddespot.com NC Saint

I’m sure they thought they would be able to sign him, but I also think they’ve been making a point of establishing that people can’t hold out for infinity dollars in any negotiation with the Yankees any more. A track record of leaving top picks on the table certainly improves your negotiating credibility going forward. Again, I’m not saying they wanted this, but there is always an amount of money that would change a draftees mind, and it makes a difference in everyone’s calculations that we have now shown the will to walk away with one signing out of our top three picks.
- steve (different one)
  
  except that’s not really what happened with Cole.
  
  they hardly left him on the table.
  
  the Cole family never allowed them to make an offer.
  
  there was literally no negotation at all.
  - http://theenlighteneddespot.com NC Saint
    
    No negotiation is a type of negotiation, though. If you really, really want to go to college, that’s a good place to negotiate from, but there is no reason to go through the exercise of pretending you’re available if you aren’t ready to listen to at least an absurdly high offer. We could have communicated one to him, and we didn’t (that anyone knows), which is only sensible, but not at all a given.
    - Artist formerly known as ‘The’ Steve
      
      The fact that teams get the same pick again next year gives them leverage. But that’s a draft rule, having nothing to with the Gerrit Cole case specifically. I can’t make any sense out of the rest of your post.
      - Craig
        
        While I agree that prospects, especially those being selected in our neighborhood of the draft, should not be able to ask for absurd contracts, I also feel like the draft is someplace where the Yankees should aggressively flex their financial muscle. I’m all for the Yankees giving above slot money to convince kids to sign. Look at guys like Crawford and Sizemore who fell to later rounds because they had D1 scholarship offers (I’m assuming that’s why they fell, I could be wrong). If the Yankees can lure high-risk high-reward picks like that by offering larger signing bonuses then go for it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=15305165&ref=profile Doug

One of Gerrit Cole’s cousins goes to my college, and we were on the same study abroad trip to Kenya together last month. I’ve known her for three years, but I never knew that they were family. (her last name is Cole, too) I was stunned.

So I had to ask her about her cousin. She said that her uncle (Gerrit’s dad) and Gerrit were basically seriously considering college the entire time. While the Yankees’ offer was tempting, I guess his family simply viewed it as an offer, not an obligation to sign. I didn’t press the issue much – it just would have been untoward, you know?

Anyway, she also told me that at UCLA, the dude lives the high life. He lives in an athletes-only condo, has laundry service and some kind direct hotline to a tutor at all times. His course load consists of “History of Rock & Roll” and subjects of a similar academic rigor. This I found completely unsurprising.

Oh and, Gerrit Cole is of Frisian Dutch descent. The more you know!
Rich

I think he will regret not being a Yankee at some point in his life.
vinny-b

if you major in History of Rock & Roll, what exactly is the point in attending college?

take the 4 million, and begin your MILB/MLB career. You can always go back to school.
- http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike A.
  
  Yep. MLB even has a scholarship program to help minor leaguers go back to school after their playing days are over.
- http://ibbw.wordpress.com Jamie
  
  He’s just a kid. Give him a break. He deserves to have the opportunity to be an idiot and make stupid mistakes… have a one night stand, pull an all-nighter, etc.
  
  From what I remember anyway, didn’t he have an attitude problem – immaturity – that was pretty well documented? College is there for him to be an idiot. Yes, millions of dollars are amazing, but take into account the fact that he’s not even legal to drink for a number of years in the minors (not that he should be anyway) and he has to deal with all of that. To me he sounded kinda like a baby, and he and his family were perceptive enough to use college as the place to do that.
  - Rich
    
    You don’t think mLers still act like idiots (and have one night stands, etc.)…or college graduates (or law school graduates), for that matter?
  - Drew
    
    LOL, well as a future graduate(90 days!)He made a horrible choice. Given the choice, Accounting degree, or heralded Yankee prospect, hmm…
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=15305165&ref=profile Doug
  
  “College life as a D1 athlete on a scholarship” was probably more attractive than a college education was for young Gerrit. Just guessing.
- http://statspeak.net dan
  
  I can think of a good reason or 5…
  
  http://i.cnn.net/si/multimedia.....CLA_29.jpg
Januz

The situation with Cole is this, he never wanted to go to the Yankees in the first place. If anyone remembers, he did not even want to meet the press after the draft (He was too busy playing golf). Another clue is when Brian Cashman PUBLICALLY stated he held Scott Boras “Blameless” for the Cole situation. That told me that Cole and his family were responsible for him not signing. PS: I am sure Boras appreciated that, and it did not hurt when it came to dealing with Teixeira.
I am not going to cry over this guy. The Yankees have a ton of pitching prospects, and even in a down year, they landed guys who really want to be here such as Brett Marshall (Who said NO to the Sox & Mets), and Garrison Lassiter. I have a gut feeling,that because of his attitude and immaturity, that even if he made the majors, the Bronx was the worst possible place for him, and the probability was he would not have succeeded. Good riddance to him.
http://nyfaninboston.blogspot.com/ Manimal

Atleast he wont be naive and stupid like arod.
- Januz
  
  Athletes like Cole who are nothing but party animals are much worse than Alex Rodriguez (And anyone who has read ANY of my posts knows I do not like Arod). At least Arod was willing to ride the bus in the minors. This Prima Donna, with Daddy Warbucks millions, thinks he is too good to do that. The guy he reminds me of is Ian Kennedy, another laid-back Southern California type, who thinks too highly of himself.
  I could imagine him having to trade a “Beach Boy” surfer dude or 50 Cent look (Depending on which way he perfers), for wearing sports jackets or suits on the road, and having to look like a professional with no facial hair. I would pay to see that.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=15305165&ref=profile Doug
    
    Kids still want to dress like the Beach Boys?
    
    What a world.
  - Mike Pop
    
    Januz, you have no idea that is Cole’s thinking at all. You just assume everything you have said in your past 2 posts about him. I know you don’t like the guy but what if he just wanted to go to UCLA and have a little college experience. YOur really putting him down and saying all this stuff but you really have no idea if any of it is accurate. Also, you say he wouldn’t have succeeded here in your other post because of his attitude. What do you know about his attitude? Everything you have stated about Gerrit, I take with a grain of salt. You say he is just a Cali kid who thinks he is the man, shit if I was rich, a stud baseball pitcher in high school, got drafted by the Yanks and they were willing to give me 4 mill or w.e it was, and I had a baseball scholarship to UCLA, I would think quite highly with myself. Yes, he did screw the Yankees but that is no reason to state all this stuff you say when you really have no idea if it is true at all.
    - pat
      
      Word Pop. As much as we hate the guy for not signing with us ou have to remember this is someones actual life we’re talking about. His dad reportedly thought that Gerritt wasn’t ready for pro ball and said college was the better choice. In the end you can’t get mad at a father for doing what he thinks is best for his son. That’s the bottom line.
    - Januz
      
      Mike the incident about playing golf, and the Cashman statement about Boras were direct quotes, not my opinion. If Cole wanted to go to college and get an education AND play ball, that is one thing. But he went to college to party. If he was that serious about baseball, he would have NOT chosen UCLA. Jackie Robinson Field (At the UCLA campus) is considered the worst in the PAC-10). He could have went to Fresno State (They won the College World Series), Oregon State (They won in 2006 & 2007), or USC or Arizona State that have traditions of excellence in baseball. This does not even include Cal or Stanford who are world class in the classroom (Let alone non-west coast schools).
      I am a big fan of college football (Penn State in particular), and I follow stuff like “National Recruiting Day” very closely. In general, schools in the South, Southwest, and West get the best players. Even PSU with Joe Paterno can’t compete with Miami, Texas & USC. One thing is really stressed, is the facilities (Stadium, weight training, practice facilities, video etc), another major factor is TV exposure (I am not going to get into academics or party school atmosphere).
      The New York Yankees facilities are better than Miami’s (Their facilities were awful, which is why they moved from the Orange Bowl to Dolphins Stadium). What they put into the new stadium and the Tampa Complex are state of the art, and if I wanted to be a better ballplayer, that is where I would want to go. Ask David Robertson about the difference between the Yankees and the University of Alabama sometime (They saved his career by drafting and signing him, because the Tide Coach made him stop throwing a curveball that had major league quality, and they had him throwing it again).
      When you sit down and compare the Yankees to UCLA, there is no comparison. Imagine a team with 26 World Championships, superior facilities, and lots of exposure, against a middle of the pack Pac-10 team (Below Arizona, Arizon State, Oregon State, USC, and even Stanford). Nothing more needs to be said.
      - Mike Pop
        
        Ok, cause no good players in the MLB went to UCLA right? I bet Chase Utley, Garret Atkins, Troy Glaus, Eric Byrnes, Todd Zeile and Eric Karros went there just to party and not care about playing baseball but look how they turned out. They all should of went to Rice if they wanted to be major leaguers, instead of just wanting to party. Since I don’t know most of the names on this list and only named the ones that stood out in my mind(minus Jackie Robinson cause that’s the obvious), I’ll link it for you.
        
        http://www.baseball-almanac.co.....yers.shtml
        
        Plenty of players from UCLA that went to the MLB, so your point about him wanting to go to UCLA for just the partying alone is all specualtion on your part. His father wanted him to go to college to party is what your telling me? Just because he chose UCLA does not mean he just about partying and that is all, he could of had a dream since he was a kid to go there, you don’t know that, do you? The Bruins were ranked 21st in all of college baseball last year but your telling me that they are not a good baseball program? Now this year they are ranked number 12, but your right he should of went to a top 5 school if he was serious about baseball.
        
        I do not mean to be snarky or come off as a dick but your saying things based on your opinion like he only went to UCLA to party. There is no proof of this at all. Also, who cares if he did not want to meet the press afterwards? He was going to UCLA, that is all that needed to be known. He will answeer those questions when he gets drafted again in a few years, not a big deal.
        
        For those who have pet-peeves, sorry for my grammatical errors.
        
        Mike Pop
        
        Also, when you compare the Yanks to UCLA of course there will be no comparison as there should not be. I really do hope my favorite baseball team that is in the major leagues has better trainers, facilities, and an overall baseball staff than one of the better college programs. Just because he went to college does not mean he is not serious about baseball. Maybe his brother/friends or whoever told him stories about their time in college. That does not mean he went there all for the partying, plus when your family is wealthy, it is less of a risk. If he was a young man of lower class, he probably would of taken the Yankees offer. But it is completely understandable why he went to UCLA and we do not know that it was just for the partying. Because it probably wasn’t just that.
        
        Januz
        
        Mike,I do not mind what you said, because you did not get personal towards me. Besides, I was able to learn a bit more about Bruin Baseball, and some of their alumni. As for Cole, I am not sure that even if he was not well off economically, it would have made much of a difference. There are people who do not fit in well with the Yankee Structure, and level of expectations. I remember Miguel Cabrera, said he could not “Live With The Yankees Rules, So He Would NOT Want To Play There”, and Mario Lemieux admitted he would have “Hated To Play For The Canadiens, Because Of The Pressure Level”. Top Wide Receiver prospect, Vidal Hazleton chose USC over Penn State, and hated the Trojan Program to the point, where he transfered to the University Of Cincinatti (Talk about a drop down in quality).
        If this turns out to be the case, then the Yankees are lucky that he did not sign him, and the guy they draft in his place, could actually be a better fit in the Bronx. One more factor to consider. If they did not have the Cole and Bittle picks, they would have would they have had to wait until the 4th Round to pick, so would they have signed Sabathia, Teixeira, AND Burnett? That is an interesting question to think about?
http://www.bronxbaseballdaily.com Bronx Baseball Daily

I’m glad the Yankees are the gambling type though, it got the Joba Chamberlain and hopefully Brackman turns out to be a decent pitcher as well.
Baseballnation

I agree that if he really is studying hisory and rock & roll then there is no point in going to college and pass on 3-4 mllion dollars. The college experience is a very broad term and if all Cole wanted to do was act like jock/frat douche bag for 3 years then by all means do it, I won’t bash him for that…But if that is the case then pasing on 3-4 million make him a bigger douche than the Douchery he would atain for just being a jock/frat douche.
- http://statspeak.net dan
  
  http://i.cnn.net/si/multimedia.....CLA_29.jpg
  
  Turn that down. I dare you.
  - Mike Pop
    
    I….I could not.
  - rafael
    
    Meh, for those in particular.
    
    3-4 million could get you way more than that, and that mainly by reputation (not by paying for it, although I’m sure you’d get pretty good quality that way too).
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MJ

I’m confused. What’s great about going to college? Sounds like a lot of you people love attending classes.
- Mike Pop
  
  Well, I would never go to college if I didn’t have to. If I had the oppurtunity/talent to get drafted through the MLB or NBA,(When you could)I would definitely do that rather than going to school. I would go play ball in Europe if I could befor going to college.
RobC

how long do the Yankees have his draft rights?
2 or 3 yrs?
- Mike Pop
  
  They don’t.
- http://statspeak.net dan
  
  for negative 6 months and 7 days
Jake H

My guess is that he gets over worked by his college coach.
The Scout

Hey, RAB:

Dude, it’s over — the whole Cole thing. He’s not a member of the organization. Turn the page, move on, and forget him.
- http://Ranger2709.blogspot.com Old Ranger
  
  Best one yet.