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Jameson Taillon Ranks Fifth Among Right-Handed Pitching Prospects

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On Wednesday, MLB.com released their list of top ten right-handed pitching prospects in baseball and Jameson Taillon was fifth on the list. On the previously released lists, Alen Hanson was named the eighth best shortstop and the Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t have anyone among the top ten left-handed pitchers.

Jameson Taillon ranked fifth among RHP prospects
Jameson Taillon ranked fifth among RHP prospects

First the omission. Tyler Glasnow didn’t make the top ten despite an amazing season at West Virginia as a 20-year-old. Glasnow was however mentioned in the “next wave” section and he was only one of two players mentioned, so that likely means he was considered strongly for the tenth spot. He average 13.3 K/9 during the regular season this year, posting a 2.18 ERA and a .142 BAA.

As for Jameson Taillon, the ranking in the top ten shouldn’t come as any surprise. He has been rated among the top twenty prospects in the game since being drafted and he has the pitching arsenal to be a front line starter, possibly as soon as this July. Taillon will start the season in Indianapolis, where he went 1-3, 3.89 in six regular season starts and he also threw five shutout innings in his only playoff appearance.

A surprise among the rankings for Taillon, might be that he had the lowest rated fastball among the group of ten pitchers. On the 20-80 scouting scale, he was rated a 65, while the others were all 70, except Jonathan Gray, who got an 80. Taillon throws 94-97 MPH and has hit triple digits, so the low rating seems to be unjust.

Taillon was recently invited to Spring Training and while he has no shot of making the big league club on Opening Day, he isn’t far off either. He suffered a minor setback during the Arizona Fall League, when he had a minor groin injury that limited him to two innings, but he is healthy and ready to go for the 2014 season.

Tomorrow’s top ten list will be catchers, where Reese McGuire is a possibility. Friday is first baseman, an obvious weak spot in the Pirates farm system.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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