Cole follows, roots for ex-teammate Keller
“You respect guys who went through what he did. ... It’s one thing to have talent. It’s another to keep working at it.”
— Gerrit Cole, pictured, on Mitch Keller
TAMPA, Fla. — The visual was hard to miss — and no, not Oneil Cruz chatting with Aaron Judge in the bowels of George Steinbrenner Field late Thursday afternoon, although that did happen.
As the Yankees finished batting practice, Gerrit Cole stood in the home dugout and chatted with Pirates game planning/strategy coach Radley Haddad, a former player in New York and someone who spent five years as a coaching assistant/ catcher in the Bronx before the Pirates lured him away.
Cole is a big fan of Haddad and can’t say enough about how much he helped during their two seasons together. Cole also knows and respects Mitch Keller a great deal, as the Pirates drafted Keller a few years before trading Cole to the Astros.
While expressing his excitement for Keller’s opening day start and how proud he is of his former teammate, Cole also couldn’t help but point out a key difference between his journey and that of Keller. The Pirates were scarily behind the times pitching-wise when Cole was there, and Keller will enjoy some benefits that he never did — like Haddad.
“He’s got Radley here,” Cole said. “There’s nothing that he’s not seeing or doesn’t have access to. Radley is topnotch. He knows what people are looking at and how to interpret the data.”
This might be a good time to point out Haddad’s role, for anyone unfamiliar.
It includes a lot of stuff, but an easy way of explaining it is that he serves as a liaison between the research and development group and the on-field baseball people.
In other words, Haddad can take the information that’s gleaned from scouting reports or data analysis — heat maps, tendencies, which pitches/locations might work in specific counts or situations — and help the coaching staff work with pitchers to realistically implement those things.
During the season, Haddad will walk around handing out incredibly detailed scouting reports or printouts of pitch location, information that Cole had in other organizations but stuff that seemingly wasn’t nearly as robust in Pittsburgh.
“We didn’t have that when I was there,” Cole said, talking about someone to better interpret or apply data. “We did a lot of analytics and scouting on count leverage; situational baseball; situational pitching; effective, quick outs and things like that, which are obviously staples of baseball.
“We executed those really well. But all of a sudden you could objectively identify who has a good fastball. We just didn’t have that. We were not even discussing that. Then when I got to the Astros, obviously they were on the cutting edge of the sport in general. There was a wide chasm. I don’t think that’s quite the same anymore.”
The point of what Cole was saying wasn’t necessarily to criticize the Pirates, although it’s not exactly breaking news that he was underutilized, didn’t really want to pitch how he was told to pitch, and the organization’s failure to get more out of Cole was one of the reasons owner Bob Nutting cleaned house after 2019.
It was more Cole being genuinely happy for Keller, who was named the Pirates’ openingday starter on Wednesday. There’s plenty of mutual respect there, from how well Keller can manipulate a baseball to the mentality that he hason the mound.
Speaking about Keller, Cole said he could remember how quickly he was impressed with the former’s intensity, drive and fastball. He’s also heard plenty about Keller from ex-Yankees teammates Jameson Taillon and Clay Holmes, who spent more time with the Iowa native.
In fact, when Keller was struggling last season, Cole said Taillon had the two of them watch video of Keller together, to see if they couldn’t come up with some way to help the young scuffling pitcher.
“You respect guys who went through what he did,”
Cole said of Keller. “I’m looking forward to him building on that this year and really kind of solidifying himself at the front of a rotation because he’s worked really hard for that.”
Cole has kept tabs on Keller this spring, too. He has followed the sweeper he’s been working on in Grapefruit League action. He’s rooting for Keller to make 30-plus starts, log 200 or more innings and become a bona fide ace, something Cole thinks could certainly be in the cards given the information at his disposal.
“He’s got everything he needs,” Cole said. “He’s just gotta go out, do it and keep getting better. He’s obviously talented enough and works really hard. It’s one thing to have talent. It’s another to keep working at it. That’s wha the does.”