Interview with Jarred Cosart

Welcome to the third installment of JKEARSE123 interviewing prospects from the Phillies minor league organization. Jarred Cosart is a much different prospect to one I have interviewed before primarily because I asked him more questions and secondarily because he is a 38th round draft pick from the 2008 MLB Draft. Typically, 38th round picks from high school generally move on to college to see if they can get picked earlier in the draft a few years later. So being the baseball fan I am, I went and looked up the history of 38th round picks. Dennis Tankersley, Mike Jacobs, Randy Wells, and Mark Buehlre highlight a list of players that were drafted (names I could recognize) in the 38th round, signed that year, and made it to the major leagues with Buehlre being the only superstar. Hopefully, Cosart will have similar success to Buehlre but nothing is guaranteed.

But more on to Cosart himself and his stats. This guy has absolutely fantastic stats in Rookie League especially for a 19-year old fresh out of high school. In 24.1 innings, Cosart struck out 25 batters, gave up only 12 hits to 7 walks, and started 5 games to a 2.22 ERA. These pitching stats round out to an unhittable .781 WHIP, not bad for a late round pick. To show how nasty these stats are, Roy Halladay back at one year younger in ROOK league for the Blue Jays in 50.1 innings had 48 strikeouts, 1.013 WHIP and gave up 4 homeruns. Cosart has yet to give up a homerun in rookie league which is impressive as well. Yet again, I’m not saying Cosart is guaranteed to be Roy and his greatness, but for a 38th rounder to put up stats that only a 1st round pick would be expected to get is just incredible.
Please comment and thanks to Jarred for his time!

Via thebaseballcube.com, you have an efficiency rating of 97/100 (which is similar to WHIP in that it is ability to limit base runners) but a control rating of 58/100. Looking at your stats, the number for WHIP it is pretty accurate (.781), but control maybe is only based on the fact you gave up 7 walks to 12 hits in 24.1 innings. Would you agree with this rating?

I’m not sure why the control rating would be only 58 out of 100, if you base it on my numbers. But that has been something that vie been trying to work on to become a better pitcher is control, I felt that I improved tremendously from high school in that department though.

Would you consider yourself more of a power pitcher or a control pitcher?
Definitely a power pitcher with control coming along, my fastball is 93-95 I’ve hit 98 and I think my off-speed pitches are getting better. My curveball is ahead of my changeup but I’ve been working hard on improving both.

What was it about the Phillies organization that a 38th round pick from high school want to play with the team instead of college?
I had the opportunity to pick from quite a few schools and I settled on Missouri for the fact I was gonna get to pitch and hit and play as a freshman. The Phillies drafted me and told me, ‘don’t give up on not going to school’ because they were interested and going to follow me.
It’s just a great organization and they showed that they wanted me to help build a rotation for the future, and they invested something in me to do that.

Brody Colvin got arrested recently and then proceeded to be ripped by Phillies fans. This not only will hurt his prospect hood but definitely increase yours. What are your feelings about Brody getting arrested and do you think that eventually you will rise to be at least the #1 pitching prospect?

Well, I got to know Brody pretty well when he signed and all the charges were dropped and sounded like a misunderstanding to me. He'll be fine and he's a good pitcher. As far as prospects according to baseball America on Trevor May was ranked higher than myself, but I really try not to pay attention to that we all have the same goal of reaching the big leagues and I’m good friends we Trevor also. We hope to make it up together one day but it is definitely a goal to be the number one pitching prospect for such a great organization and hopefully one of the top prospects in all the minor leagues. My goal is to be there by 2012 lol but I can’t control how I get moved or anything.


Dream rotation: May, Colvin, Cosart, Aumont, and Moyer, in no particular order? (Just kidding)

Haha I’d say May, Cosart, Colvin, Halladay and Aumont.

Speaking of Roy Halladay: is he all as advertised?
Yes, he is a machine with workouts and everything he takes hard work to another level and is completely dedicated like no one I’ve ever seen.

Any Other Comments?

Just looking forward to this season and moving along throughout the system and show everyone what I can do.

*shout out to baseball reference, mymlbdraft.com, the baseballcube.com, and phuturephillies.com