A Trip to Charleston: Jameson Taillon

Yesterday, I took a three hour drive down to Charleston, West Virginia, home of the West Virginia Power, to see former first round pick, James Taillon, pitch against the Hickory Crawdads (Rangers low-A).  It was an exciting moment to see this talented 19 year-old kid in person, three years before Major League Baseball has any idea how good he will be.

And at 19, he is every bit as good as advertised.

The 6'7 220 lbs native of Texas is equipped with an arsenal of plus pitches of which he commands all of them extremely well for his age; a fastball that sits in the mid-90's with explosive movement, a devastating curveball which gives the true meaning to the word "hammer", a sharp slider with biting movement, more horizontally, and a changeup with good inside run on right handers (although that pitch still needs some work). He's still somewhat raw as a prospect.  As you'll see on video, he leaves his fastball up in the zone a little too much, leading to a lot of contact.  Since it appears he will spend the entire season in class low-A West Virginia, Taillon will have plenty of time to work on his fastball command.  Nevertheless, if the Pirates remain conservative with Taillon's pitch count and he avoids serious injuries, they'll have their Ace as soon as June 2013.

Below is a rundown of his start against Hickory.  I have videos for 4 of the 5 innings (my camera crapped out in the third inning  and I had to scramble to fix it).  I had to cut down the quality of the video to lower the size of the video.  If you want an unedited version, go to my youtube channel.

1st Inning

 

What better way to start off the game with a first pitch out?  Jurickson Profar, the Rangers' second best prospect according to Baseball America, took a first pitch fastball for a lazy flyout to centerfield.  If you're scouting Profar, he is extremely aggressive at the plate looking first pitch every time.  The out brought up Odubel Herrera who struck out.  Taillon threw all fastballs to Herrera and after the foul ball, Taillon worked inside on Herrera before setting up the fastball on the outer third.  Before the draft, scouts indicated Taillon needed to be a little meaner on the mound  and it appears he is trusting his command to hit the batter's box but not the batter, when appropriate.  The last batter of the inning, Josh Richmond, grounded out to third.

Result: F-8, K (looking), 5-3      10 pitches, 8 strikes 2 balls


2nd Inning

After getting Andrew Clark to groundout to second, Taillon showed off his powerful curveball to strike out Villanueva.  I didn't realize until I got home that the white background hides the ball on my video so I apologize if it is hard to pick up the pitch.  After the strikeout, Taillon got Jacob Skole (#9 Rangers' prospect) to ground out to third. 

Result: 4-3, K, F-8   13 pitches, 9 strikes, 4 balls

3rd Inning
At 5'10 175 pounds, Alejandro Selen surprised the West Virginia crowd when he took the first pitch he saw for a ride in the top of the 3rd inning.  The fastball was effortlessly crushed over the left field wall.  After that, Jameson Taillon settled down and got both Deglan and Martinez to flyout, then got a ground out to first from Jurickson Profar. 

Result: HR, F-9, F-7, 1-3   10 pitches, 7 strikes, 3 balls.

4th Inning 
Herrera led off the 4th inning with a double down the line that eventually got stuck in the tarp on the right field wall.  The Crawdads would never see that runner score as Taillon got Richmond to ground out before striking out Clark on another power curveball.  Herrera stole third as Taillon did not look to second base to check him; normal for an inexperienced professional.  The stolen base did not hurt the West Virginia Power as Taillon induced a ground out to third base to end the inning.

Result: 2B, 6-3, K, 5-3. 11 pitches, 9 strikes, 2 balls.

5th Inning
 After giving up an extra base hit in each of the last two innings, Taillon shut down the third inning, completely.  Skole struck out, Selen lined out softly to short and Deglan grounded out to Matt Curry (now with Altoona) at first.  Taillon was effective, throwing just 9 pitches, 8 of which were strikes.  

Result: K, L-6, 3 UA. 9 pitches, 8 strikes, 1 ball.

Recap
Overall, an excellent start for Taillon who allowed only two base runners in the first five innings of the game. Unfortunately, the radar gun at the ballpark was extremely off so I could not get gun reads for each pitch.  However, I spoke with one of the scouts at the game who indicated to me that Taillon reached 96 mph a few times with his fastball.  With that type of velocity, he can get away with leaving the ball up a little more than most of the arms in the Pirates' rotation.  However, Taillon still needs to work on keeping the ball down in the zone and elevating fastballs in pitcher's counts.  All-in-all, his command was solid.  The home run was more of a result that Taillon started every batter with first pitch fastballs, likely a requirement from the development staff in the organization.  When you see Taillon pitch, you forget he's just 19 years old.  If his arm was conditioned enough, he could probably start in AA right now; that's how polished Taillon is for his age.  It will certainly be exciting to see the franchise's first Ace since Doug Drabek once he reaches Pittsburgh.  

Final Line:  5 IP 2 H 1 R 1 ER 4 K's 0BB  53 pitches 41 strikes-12 balls




Special thanks to my girlfriend, Maura, who made the trip with me and helped track pitches while I (poorly) handled the camera.

Pittsburgh Pirates vs Chicago Cubs 5-28-2011

Paul Maholm takes the mound, looking to record his second win this season.  Currently, Maholm is 1-7 with a 3.65 ERA.  These stats translate into one thing:  Paul  Maholm is a very unlucky pitcher.  One of the unluckiest, in fact, as Maholm ranks second in the league in lowest run support as the offense as scored an average of 1.9 runs per start.  Ironically, Paul is 7-2  with a 5.89 ERA in his career against the Cubs.  High win total+ high ERA= lots of run support.  This could be the perfect recipe for the Pirates' offense to get on track while helping Maholm to pick up that elusive second win of the season.

Starting lineups:

Pittsburgh Pirates 23-26 (14-12 Road)

Tabata
Jones
McCutchen
Walker
Overbay
Pearce
Snyder
Cedeno
Maholm

Chicago Cubs 22-27 (11-15 Home)

Campana
Barney
Castro
Ramirez
Soriano
Montanez
Pena
Hill
Wells

New Post on Trade Rumors involving Joel Hanrahan

A post on why the pirates should NOT trade Joel Hanrahan:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/710481-texas-rangers-interested-in-joel-hanrahan-should-the-pirates-deal-him

Pirates' Starters Keeping Brad Lincoln in AAA

Earlier today, Brad Lincoln tossed seven shutout innings for AAA Indianapolis against Buffalo.  He surrendered four hits and one walk while striking out seven as the Indians defeated the Bisons (AAA Mets) 6-1.  It appears the former first round pick of the 2006 Draft has turned things around after starting out the year 0-3 with a 7.17 ERA.

That was April. 

This month, Brad Lincoln is 4-0 1.80 ERA 23 K's 6 BBs. With the starting pitching in Pittsburgh starting to slide down the rankings, Lincoln could be called up to provide a jolt.  As mentioned before, Lincoln was the Pirates' first round pick (4th overall) in the 2006 Draft.  An elbow injury ended his 2007 season and it appeared Lincoln was one of the long list of Pirates' pitchers that would never recover.  His call up to the Pirates last year did not disprove that "here we go again" thinking.  This year, Lincoln is poised to make it to the majors again; this time to stay. There's only one problem:

The Pirates' starting rotation has overachieved. 

After the pitching staff produced a league-worse 5.00 ERA last year, the Pirates have a team ERA of 3.92.  Correia has been a pleasant surprise since coming over from the Padres, while Maholm has improved his play as well.  The most impressive turnaround has been Charlie Morton who has already doubled his win total from last year after dropping his arm slot to three-quarters.  Still, the biggest road block at this time, for Lincoln, appears to be Jeff Karstens who is filling in for an injured Ross Ohlendorf.  Since Ohlendorf went down on April 8th with a shoulder injury, Karstens has started six games.  In five of those starts, Karstens has surrendered three runs or less.

It is normal protocol to call players up in June if they've shown success in AAA.  In the past the Pirates, have usually turned to the farm system for a boost in an attempt to keep their head above water.  While the Pirates are currently five games under .500, the pitching has saved this team from disaster as the offense has been atrocious out of the gate.  Although Lincoln was a two-way player in college for Houston, he is not talented enough to give the team a jolt on offense.  Well...maybe.

Another talented starter playing in AAA Indianapolis is 23 year old  Justin Wilson.  On the website Pirates Prospects, Tim Williams posted a nice piece on Wilson being the left-handed version of Charlie Morton.  While I have never seen Wilson pitch in person, his statistics in AAA have produced results to make that comparison respectable. This year, he is currently 4-3 2.27 ERA 34 K's 23 BB's.  Like Charlie Morton, Wilson struggles with his control at times and it appears he will need to pound the strike zone more consistently before he can ascend into the majors.

The Pirates are trying to build up the persona of a franchise who is tired of getting kicked down.  They brought in Clint Hurdle to further pound this message into the organization.  After undergoing Tommy John Surgery in 2007, taking a line drive off the arm in Spring Training and rebounding to post superb numbers in AAA, Brad Lincoln is becoming exactly the type of player Clint Hurdle could use in his rotation.  The problem, if it truly is a problem, is making room.

Blog Update

My apologies for not posting on this site in the past two weeks.  I am currently writing for Bleacher Report and I'm also trying to get an internship with KDKA.

If you want some of my stories, please go to bleacherreport.com and go to the Pittsburgh Pirates page.

In the meantime I will post brief recaps and minor league wrap ups on here along with misc stuff.