Pirates Promote Gerrit Cole To AA

On Friday the Pirates announced the promotion of the 2011 first overall draft pick, Gerrit Cole to AA Altoona. This is no major surprise to anyone who has been following Cole this year being he has posted a 2.55 ERA so far this year in just 67 innings in High A Bradenton.

The Pirates promoted Cole the day after his stellar performance of five shutout innings and 7 K's. This promotion is going to make Cole the least professional experienced pitcher to ever play for Altoona with his short 67 innings in Bradenton. The previous owner of this title was Paul Maholm whenever he reached Altoona with just 94 innings of professional experience.

Cole has been surprisingly consistent in his first year playing professional ball. Most people probably expected Cole to have his great starts and his bad starts but instead he has just had a whole bunch pretty good starts which is good thing. If Cole can keep this consistency in AA then you might see Cole start his season in AAA next year with Indianapolis with a target date in July to see him make his major league debut in Pittsburgh.