Neal Cotts

Neal James Cotts is a professional baseball player from the United States of America who plays as a Pitcher. The left-hander played baseball at the collegiate level for the Illinois State University where he was named to the First-Team All-Missouri Valley Conference team as well as to the ABCA All-Midwest Region team. In the second round of the 2001 MLB draft, Cotts was picked 69th, becoming the second-highest draft for a Illinois State University player, by the Oakland Athletics. Cotts was fifth-overall in the all-time list of strikeouts (263) after playing just 3 seasons with the Redbirds.
Cotts spent his first season at the A-league, with Modesto in the Californian League. He won 12 games in his 28 starts and during the off-season, was traded out to the Chicago White Sox as part of a six-player deal involving Billy Koch and Keith Foulke.

Cotts was the no.3 prospect in the White Sox minor league system and began his AA-league career at Birmingham, in the Southern League. He had a 9-6 record with a 2.12 ERA with 131 strikeouts. In 2003, he was called up to be the starting pitcher for the United States in the Future's Game of the MLB. He walked out for Chicago in 2003, against the Anaheim Angels, where in 201 innings, he gave away 2 runs, 2 hits and 6 walks.

His first win came against the Texas Rangers, a game in which he pitched 5 innings with just 5 hits. He ended the season with a 1-1 record and an ERA of 8.10. In 2004, a change in management at the White Sox meant that Cotts got a chance to get into the bullpen. Although he finished April with a 0.90 ERA, his next three months went badly and he had an 8.28 ERA to show for it. He ended the season with a 4-4 record and had pitched in 65.1 innings. His ERA stood at 5.65. In the same season, Cotts also got his first hit in the Major League, a double.

In his 69 games in 2005, Cotts had a 4-0 win-los record while throwing 60.1 innings at an ERA of 1.94 with 58 strikeouts and giving away just one home run. His performance made everyone take notice and Cotts even won the MLB's "Setup Man of the Year" award. In the American League Championship Series, Cotts became the only pitcher to be called out of the bullpen as the White Sox won the series 4-1. Cotts threw 2/3 of an inning in Game 1 of the series. In the World Series, Cotts was a part of all four games and won Game 2 for the White Sox.

In 2006, Cotts moved to the Cubs in exchange for Relief Pitcher David Aardsma and Carlos Vasquez. The Cubs immediately sent him down to AAA-Iowa while bringing back Sean Marshall to pitch for the Major League team. In 2008, although Cotts began the season in the AAA-league, he was called to the Major League side in May and has been a part of the team roster since. Cotts is the most-likely choice to become the left-handed specialist since the Cubs traded Scott Eyre.