Unless, of course, his father could iron out a contract with the Phillies. Less than an hour before the deadline - with Jarred still playing - Joe Cosart struck a $550,000 signing bonus for his son.
"Most people say, 'Come on, were you really going to go to college? You were going to sign.' " Jarred Cosart said. "Absolutely not. I was going to college."
Instead, he is now in Lakewood, maturing into one of the Phillies' most promising young arms. Cosart's path to the organization was as stressful as an emergency room - from a bitter fall in the 2008 draft to a literal eleventh-hour signing. Now, the dust has settled. Finally, the righthander can decompress. Each game, he's molding an identity. Cosart is taming fastballs and emotion. Balancing brain and brawn.
In his first season with the Class A Lakewood BlueClaws, Cosart is 7-2 with a 3.44 ERA, 77 strikeouts and 15 walks.
Pitching remains somewhat of a novelty to Cosart. Growing up, he was a blue-chip hitting prospect. At Clear Creek High School in Texas, Cosart shattered Jay Buhner's batting average record, hitting .506 as a senior. But his fastball - whistling up to 98 mph these days - was too dangerous to ignore.
Cosart's challenge now is "getting a pitching IQ," BlueClaws manager Mark Parent said.
Cosart pours himself into every pitch. Parent is Cosart's chill pill. He has the task of recalibrating Cosart. Too often, Lakewood's ace loses focus when batters connect on his fastball. Take his start last week against the Lexington Legends, for example. A pair of batters cranked hits off Cosart's fastball, and he began flirting with changeups. He strayed away from who he was.
