A.J. Cole Dfa’d

[jrobb21613]

Cole was at one point considered to be among the most promising pitching prospects in all of baseball, and surely the strikeout rate, swinging-strike rate and chase rate could hold appeal to another team — particularly one that is thin on rotation depth and/or has multiple bullpen spots up for grabs. He’ll need to learn to keep the ball in the yard, but the level at which Cole missed bats in 2018 would be elite if he proved it to be sustainable; the 15.9 percent swinging-strike rate he logged as a Yankee would’ve ranked 12th in the game among qualified relievers last year.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/02/indians-designate-a-j-cole-for-assignment.html

wouldnt Cole be a step above Wright and other pitches on our team?

[BohKnowsBmore]

Why not? He’d be two years younger than Wright as well. 

[Tx Oriole]

34 minutes ago, jrobb21613 said:

Cole was at one point considered to be among the most promising pitching prospects in all of baseball, and surely the strikeout rate, swinging-strike rate and chase rate could hold appeal to another team — particularly one that is thin on rotation depth and/or has multiple bullpen spots up for grabs. He’ll need to learn to keep the ball in the yard, but the level at which Cole missed bats in 2018 would be elite if he proved it to be sustainable; the 15.9 percent swinging-strike rate he logged as a Yankee would’ve ranked 12th in the game among qualified relievers last year.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/02/indians-designate-a-j-cole-for-assignment.html

wouldnt Cole be a step above Wright and other pitches on our team?

 I don't see Mike E. signing him.

[jtschrei]

Did you guys watch Cole last year? I was not impressed. Maybe Mike E can work some magic with the guy, but I didn't like what I saw. 

[BohKnowsBmore]

Looks like he was really burned by long ball. Elevated FB rate and HR/FB. Contact profile doesn’t appear to have changed, but batters pulled more balls in 2018. I’m not clamoring for the guy, but I’d be interested in giving him a shot over Wright at this point. If only because he’s 2 years younger and has an additional year of control (giving him more value if he can be something). 

[Rene88]

Definitely better than Wright 

[wildcard]

I am not sure the question is whether he is better than Wright.  He has no options left and has to win a job in the O's pen.   He is no longer a starter.    So the question is whether he is better than Givens, Bleier, Castro, Scott,  Fry, Yacabonis, Kline, as well as two of Means, Rogers and Ramirez (loser in for the 5th starter compete for the pen).

Frank;y I don't see how he is.   His WHIP is way too high repeatedly.

So the only way I can see him as an Oriole is if he clears waiver and becomes a FA  and the O's sign him to a AAA contract.

[sportsfan8703]

I’m a big fan of thinking the top waiver priority spot in the AL is a big deal. We pretty much had it all last year. We’ve had it all offseason. We’ll likely have it all this current season. Given the leverage we have we should not have players on the end of of our 40 man roster that have ZERO options and must make the OD 25 man. Like Wright and Hart. 

I realize that it took a minute for Elias to assess the roster. Heck, he’s probably still doing that, but any incremental improvement should be considered. 

Cole may not be the best candidate because he to is out of options, but he does have some nice swing and miss stats. Obviously the HRs are an issue, but even with that his ERA with the Yankees(SSS) was still pretty decent. 

My best guesses are the we want to give Wright a chance based on the IP he can eat and some small sliver of hope that it will “click” for him with some new teaching. As for Hart, he was nasty in 2016, overworked in 2017, and had a down year in 2018 like the whole team, but he doesn’t have a high spin rate slider. 

Bottomline, having the top waiver spot in the AL the last 10 months should probably have produced more than Renato Nunez.