What Aaron Cook can teach us all (if only we’ll listen)

Aaron Cook has signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. The details, from Philly.com:

The Phillies will have some veterans in spring training to compete with Kyle Kendrick and John Lannan for a spot in the back end of the Phillies rotation. After recently signing Rodrigo Lopez to a minor league deal, the Phillies today have agreed to a minor league deal with veteran sinkerballer Aaron Cook, FoxSports.com reported.

According to the website, Cook will earn $1.625 million if he is in the majors.

That’s neat-o. These days, $1.625 million for a baseball player is like a sawbuck for me and you. The odds against Aaron Cook making a big difference in the pennant race this season are pretty long. Although the Phillies do seem well-positioned for a comeback season of sorts. No, instead I want to take this opportunity to revisit one of my favorite pieces of baseball writing from 2012. The following was published on the 17th of July. At the time, Aaron Cook was pitching for the Boston Red Sox and had struck out two batters in 30 innings.

Yeah. Two.

When this was published, Cook was 2-2 with a 3.34 ERA ...

What Aaron Cook teaches us—and what Scott Diamond, Kyle Lohse, Mark Buehrle, and Matt Harrison also teach us—is that starters can succeed without strikeouts. No shock there! But the stats-inclined sportswriter often barks, “Regression! Regression!” before examining what’s really going on. We can learn from the models, sure, but we can also learn from Aaron Cook.

After that was published, Cook went 2-9 with a 6.72 ERA.

What did we learn from Aaron Cook? Maybe that Deadspin should stick to making fun of stuff, and leave statistical analysis to the professionals.