Joey Gallo is about what we can expect/hope Cole to be like as a hitter. He played 10 seasons in the big leagues and was pretty good for 5 of them. Gallo walked 15% of the time and struck out 38% of the time.
Adam Dunn was pretty good at that. He had a 220+ strikeout, 100+ walk, 40+ HR, 0.200 BA, 0.800 OPS season.
You are referring to Big Donkey. If we can get Adam Dunn out of Zach Cole, I’d be inclined to refer to him henceforth as Little Donkey. That would be remarkable. Adam Dunn was awesome. Little Donkey with Wheels.
It seems like that's the type of player he is at this point which isn't bad. Dunn lead the league in strikeouts 4 times while having an OPS close around 900.
Here is another crazy stat for Cole. He's only ground out into a double play 11 times in his entire career including college. He's such a fascinating player.
There is a paywall but here are some interesting stats from the article. He can throw 99 mph from the outfield and his first 14 swings as an Astro had an average swingspeed of 78 mph. Aaron Judge's and Kyle Schwarber's average is 77 mph. The reason he was even looked at was because everyone on his team including his coaches called him a "freak" https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6628813/2025/09/15/astros-zach-cole-isaac-paredes-lance-mccullers/
I'm going to put it out there. If Cole makes it in the major leagues, his nickname should be "The Freak"
Zach King Cole early leader in the clubhouse. I once knew a dude named Cole and his nickname was Lump, like Lump of Cole.
Man he has 4 legit plus tools, he reminds me a bit of Chris Davis at the plate. I like that he isn’t really swinging at balls, he’s mostly whiffing at pitches that are strikes.
That's the surprising thing to me so far...he's not chasing pitches, when he swings-and-misses he's swinging-and-missing at stuff in the zone
Kalas was calling him “Wonderboy.” Reference to The Natural because he’s like lightning in a bottle or something?
There is a paywall but here is something interesting https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6628813/2025/09/15/astros-zach-cole-isaac-paredes-lance-mccullers/ From what I've read, his misses are from aggression and not from chasing. That is why he walks at a decent clip.
As a pitcher, facing guys with the profile of Cole can be difficult. He isn’t going to swing at anything outside the zone. You don’t want to walk him because he has such a high strikeout rate rate, so you throw throw him strikes - but you are playing Russian Roulette and if he makes contact he has a good chance at an extra base hit. Pitchers will make adjustments and he will have to make his own adjustments. One thing that crossed my mind is that he could work on decreasing his strike zone. It would increase his walk rate, pitchers will fall behind in the count more and the area he has to swing in would decrease as well.
