Not Shocked: Pittsburgh Pirates To Select Gerritt Cole

During the season last year, the Pirates would get beat on what seemed like a nightly basis

and everyone would just reply with #RENDON #RENDON #RENDON.  It helped everyone keep an eye on the future.  It just sucks that that future has now changed.  It suck for the Pirates, but it really sucks for Rendon.

The reports at MLB.com are swirling that Gerritt Cole will be the Pittsburgh Pirates first selection tonight in the MLB Draft.  He has everything a fan would want in a baseball player, but despite throwing heat early and often, he was more and more hittable this season for UCLA.

One argument for taking a player like Cole is that he is a pitcher that the Bucs could never be able to obtain given their current ownership.  He has the powerful stuff.  The upside.  The pedigree.  Cole has triple digit, radar gun popping stuff that stays  fast, hard, and apparently flat deep into games.  That type of pitcher doesn’t come along very often, well at least the fast and hard part. 

Most of the people who read this site won’t be happy with the selection.  It pisses me off that Anthony Rendon isn’t the pick.  But let’s remember this right now as well.  The Anthony Rendon that we all fell in love with isn’t the Anthony Rendon that is going to be taken in the draft today.

And that really sucks.

Let’s say they take Rendon.  He would be rested.  He would be sent to every Dr. Guru in town.  Once that was completed, Rendon would step onto a baseball field.

Do we think he would hit again? Yeh, we do.

But, of course, we aren’t writing the check.  The people that do apparently have concerns that the health won’t be there.  The power won’t be there.  The player that looked like such a can’t miss, isn’t the player that is staring at them tonight with the first pick.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

The Pirate were awful last season and earned the coveted number one pick.  Then everything went south.  This weekend, some diehard fans were livid at the thought of passing on Rendon, especially with the thought and risk involved in taking Gerritt Cole.

It’s not a matter of ‘will’ Cole have arm problems, the only question is when he will have arm problems.  Let’s trust it never happens, because we’re not sure we could survive the barrage of critics that would let loose on the Pirates brass.

First round picks fail at an insanely high rate.  It just happens.  We trust that Gerritt Cole will prove us wrong.

There are two things we are watching after the Draft today:

1.  The bridges of Pittsburgh.

2.  And Gerritt Cole because, maybe, just maybe, Cole has the character makeup to prove me and a lot of you wrong.

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