Is Alex Cobb the right fit for the Philadelphia Phillies?
Philadelphia Phillies fans note again, with frustration, in mid-January, the team has only one real starting pitcher. Who’s still available? Alex Cobb, a free agent formerly of the Tampa Bay Rays, is an intriguing name in this particular winter of baseball speculation, but then so are quite a few who haven’t yet been signed or moved.
The following players have all been called “intriguing” recently: Eric Hosmer, Jesse Winkler, Yu-Cheng Chang, Jackie Bradley Jr., Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson – you get the idea. There’s no safer term in the hot stove season because everybody is “intriguing” to somebody.
For the Phillies, however, Cobb should be intriguing for reasons related to the phrase “the right guy at the right time.” Here’s why:
First, the starters designated or acquired to back up Aaron Nola should ideally be defensible from a perspective of analytics, which the Philadelphia Phillies eschewed “forever,” but not anymore. Second, while the team has money, there’s no reason to think Cobb would break the bank.
Let’s take second things first. Cobb is 30; he has undergone Tommy John surgery that caused him to miss all of 2015 and a bit more; he has never made more than $4.2 million.
What’s more interesting, though, is the analysis piece of this consideration, which (for the average fan) owes a lot to writer Merritt Rohlfing. Rohlfing’s discussion boils down to a couple of demonstrable facts. Since his surgery, Cobb has come to rely more and more on his curve and less on what people called, at the beginning of his career, a splitter or change-up. Also, last season may have been a turning point in major league baseball about curveballs. While they were only thrown 10.9 percent of the time, this was the highest share of the pitch pie for curves in fifteen years.
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Why would this be? In the early era of the “launch angle,” some players seem to have a Pedro Cerrano problem – they can’t hit the curve that well. Rohlfing notes this has been true of Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, Javy Baez, and Aaron Judge. He writes, “All these young hitters came up through the prep leagues, college, even the minors, without seeing too many curves because people simply didn’t throw them.”
In other words, Cobb is a guy who has already pivoted to the curve in a time when pitchers are just figuring out current hitters struggle with curves.
Those of us who have coached Little League are all aware of the horrified recoil from the curve of modern coaches. (This was not always the case. I started throwing a curve when I was about eight years old.)
Rohlfing saw Cobb as a good fit for the Cubs last month; he also reported that four other teams, the Yankees, Orioles, Blue Jays, and Rangers, were also interested.
Next: Which MLB stars are likely to be traded?
The Philadelphia Phillies and any other team still interested in Alex Cobb have one thing to worry about, though. Why has no one signed him yet? Supposedly there are half a dozen teams interested in him. It may be that all these interested teams are wringing their hands and asking, “What do all these other guys know about this guy whose career WHIP is 1.217?”