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Jarred Cosart, a top pitching prospect in the Phillies minor league system, was officially called up today. It'll be extremely exciting to see him start tonight, and I look forward to having him around for years to come.
Oh, wait.
Womp womp.
I forgot a very important word in my first sentence. "...formerly a top pitching prospect in the Phillies minor league system...." But the main item in that sentence is, in fact, true. Jarred Cosart was officially called up today by the Astros, and he'll be making his major league debut tonight against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Cosart was chosen by the Phillies in the 38th round of the 2008 draft, and by 2011 was one of their top prospects. He even made appearances in the 2010 and 2011 Futures Game. And then, of course, he was traded. The nearly ceaseless winning of 2011 seems so far away now, as does this trade. At the deadline, Cosart was sent to Houston along with Jonathan Singleton, and in return the Phillies received Hunter Pence. Let's just say that the trade was divisive. Some were thrilled about acquiring Pence, who'd performed well for the Astros. And others were less than thrilled about acquiring the bug eyed weirdsmobile and ALSO not happy about giving up two big pieces of the team's possible future. Pence was gone (also via trade) a year later.
PhillyFriar, our former prospect guru, wrote a detailed account of what the Phillies gave up in the Pence trade back in 2011, and it's worth a read even two years later. For more recent analysis, head over to Crawfish Boxes and take a look at their extremely detailed profile of Cosart from February.
Cosart will be facing off against David Price tonight at 7:10pm. You can watch the game on MLB.TV, or you can not watch it and just pretend that none of this is happening to prevent the Greek chorus from singing "WHAT IF!?" loudly in your head all night, eventually driving you completely insane.