Jameson Taillon threw his first live batting practice today at Pirate City, going up against Corey Hart and Sebastian Valle. Ignoring performance, and ignoring the fact that Taillon is now throwing to live hitters, the most encouraging sign was what Taillon said afterward about how his elbow feels.
“Bending it doesn’t hurt. That’s good. It feels strong,” Taillon said. “I think tomorrow, it would be natural for me to be a little sore. But I feel really good right now. I felt good out there. The ball is coming out really good. I got some late swings. It’s a good sign that it was crisp.”
Taillon was throwing 35 pitches in his bullpen sessions prior to this step in his rehab process. Today he threw 28 pitches in the bullpen, followed by 20 pitches during the live BP.
“I had a really good throwing program before my bullpen,” Taillon said. “Started my bullpen off pretty well. And I think when we got out there, the extra added adrenalin sped me up a little bit in my delivery. Corey Hart was facing me, and he said that the second time through it looked a lot better. A lot more on time, and the ball was a lot crisper. It’s good feedback, and it felt good.”
Taillon said that he was a little amped up facing hitters for the first time in a year, but that he felt he did a good job of staying calm and having a good delivery. On Tuesday, I wrote about the evolution of his delivery, focusing on how he has reduced the drop in his delivery, and is now staying strong on his backside, and driving his head forward, which leads to better command and an easier ability to drive the ball down through the zone. I asked Taillon how those things were holding up against live hitters today.
“I thought I was staying back well,” Taillon said. “The slope of the mound and the extra adrenalin will sometimes cause you to drift a little bit towards the plate. I thought I did a good job of staying back. I nailed my finish. I wasn’t rolling off towards first, which was a good sign. I thought my head, for the most part, stayed inside the front of my foot. There were definitely a couple where I could feel it pulling off. That’s a good sign that I can feel it on my first one, and I know how to correct it now.”
The Pirates have kept Taillon on a conservative Tuesday/Friday schedule. He will remain on that schedule going forward, throwing bullpens on Tuesday, and live BP on Friday. Eventually he will move to a five-day schedule, which will probably come when he can go multiple innings, and when he’s ready to have the L-screen removed during live BP. Taillon doesn’t know at this point when that will be.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
Love seeing a good number of the guys PIT draft be so open to coaching and changes. Interview after interview you hear Taillon/Glasnow/Kingham etc talk about how they love working with the coaches to work on things that the coaches mention.
I’ve always had high hopes for Taillon, but these recent articles make me feel even better about him. He’s focused, open to coaching, and he’s got a really good feel of what his body is doing, which allows him to actually work on things when asked to.
Couple this kind of self-aware, cerebral, and hard-working approach with the raw talent, and he has a decent shot to be something special.
Big thing for me is will he be able to consistently keep the ball down? In some prior video Tim showed his curve looked nasty.
A Vernon Law type??? That would be a very good thing.