Like most of you I watched the Pirates-Giants game and the brawl in Los Angeles last night. In the past a Pirates-Giants matchup is a game most baseball fans usually skip for another game, but this wasn’t a normal game. This was the major league debut of Gerrit Cole, the first pick overall of the 2011 amateur draft.

Cole threw a lot of fastballs (80 percent) and the plus slider 17 percent of the time. The fastball sat 95-96 mph and touched 99 mph at least three times. The slider, which was thrown in the low to mid-80s had tremendous bite to it. After reading the Baseball America’s 2013 Prospect Handbook I thought the slider would have more velocity. In the book it said the slider was thrown at 88-90 mph, but either way a lot of them looked really good. I didn’t learn a lot about Cole because he didn’t throw a curveball and only threw one changeup; I think that was the Pirates game plan entering the game, to challenge the Giants hitters with his plus-plus fastball. As the game wore on, the Giants hitters adjusted and started to gear up for his fastball, which made him more hittable. If he’s going to have continued success he’s going to need to utilize his secondary offerings more.

Pittsburgh Pirates management has given no indication of what they’ll do with SP Gerrit Cole moving forward, but if you own him in a redraft league, hold on to him, even if he gets sent down because he’s one of the best pitchers they have available. Suppose he gets sent down, he’s the first one who will be called upon if someone gets hurt. All that said, if you could trade him for a top 30-35 starting pitcher go ahead and do it. In most cases all rookies have warming up periods because of the adjustments that are needed after the league has seen you.