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First Pitch: Here’s Why Jameson Taillon is Ready and Tyler Glasnow Is Not

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Jameson Taillon really makes things unfair for everyone else.

He returned from Tommy John surgery about as flawlessly as you could hope for. Most players see inconsistent command in their first year back, and it takes some time for them to get back on track. Taillon has avoided this so well, that a normal return like Clay Holmes — who was very inconsistent the first two months of the year, but has been much better as the year has gone on — looks bad. Not only did Taillon return with consistent command, but he also actually found a way to improve his mechanics during his rehab process.

Then there’s his debut so far in the majors. We’re in a time when prospects are covered closer than ever, and expectations are higher than ever. When a player is projected to eventually be a star, the expectation is that he will be an impact player right away, and he starts to get viewed as a disappointment if he takes a year or two to adjust to the majors.

Meanwhile, Taillon has a 2.85 ERA and a 3.16 xFIP in 60 innings over his first ten starts, with a 7.05 K/9 and a 1.20 BB/9. That’s better than Gerrit Cole’s debut in every category, and Cole’s debut was also about as good as you could expect.

Taillon’s ability to excel in these areas comes from his maturity and composure. Over the years, he has been open to changes, and put a big focus on reworking his mechanics to get more downward movement on his pitches. During his rehab process, he put in a lot of work to not only get back with no issues, but to improve in the process. Prior to his jump to the majors, he worked on the things that he needed for MLB success, even when it was during the month of May and he looked ready, but the Pirates were holding him back for Super Two to keep his innings and pitches limited.

But in all seriousness, there was a benefit to keeping Taillon down a few extra weeks (some of that was time off to limit his innings), and he used that time to further develop. Here were his comments when I talked to him back in May, when he looked ready.

“I’ve kind of been reassured that it’s not all about [Super Two]. There are things I need to work on and get better at. There’s pitches I need to hone in on. I need to get back in the groove of facing upper level hitters. From my part, I’ve been throwing the ball well. I do feel really confident. I’m really in no rush. I want to make sure I’m as ready as possible when I go up there. We’ve got a really competitive ball club up there in a competitive division. When guys do go up, you have to be ready to go. You have to be ready to actually contribute. You can’t develop more up there, you have to be ready to go.”

I don’t want to make it seem like Taillon is mature and other pitchers aren’t. There are other pitchers who work hard during their rehab, and other pitchers who work hard during their development throughout the minors. Taillon just seems to take things to the next level in the way that he understands what he needs to do, both in his development, and when he’s on the mound. You can see that now with his composure in the majors, which stays the same regardless of the situation.

I especially thought this comment Taillon made exclusively to Alan Saunders today was very interesting in that it gave a closer view of his approach during the development process:

“I’ve been preached the whole time [with the Pirates] that I needed a changeup,” he said. “I took their word for it and I threw it, but at the end of the day, I could get guys out with my fastball and my curveball. Up here, if you don’t show them that third pitch and become a two-pitch pitcher, guys can eliminate pitches. They can eliminate my curveball and sit fastball. A third pitch is huge. There’s a reason they have you working on stuff in the lower levels and there’s a reason they preach what they preach.”

When I was reading that, I couldn’t help but think that it’s the perfect summary of why Taillon is ready right now, and why Tyler Glasnow isn’t ready. In fact, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think this comment was for Glasnow specifically (it’s not, but it definitely fits if you read it with that mindset).

I saw Indianapolis in May, and made a lot of the same arguments that Taillon points out above. At that point, Taillon looked ready, because he had all three pitches working for him. Granted, if he came up then, he might not be as good as he is right now, because it wasn’t until a few starts later that he embraced the two-seam fastball as his primary pitch. But the secondary stuff looked good, giving opposing hitters three pitches to worry about, and giving Taillon a backup plan when one of the secondary pitches didn’t work.

That’s not the case with Glasnow. He doesn’t have a changeup. He can get guys out with the fastball and curveball in the minors, even when one of those pitches isn’t on. And so he does, and that leads to strong numbers that in turn lead to calls for his promotion. But then he reaches the majors without a changeup, and when his curveball is off, things can go really poorly.

He’s only made two starts in the majors, threw a total of three changeups, had poor command of his curveball, and wasn’t always spotting his fastball around the edges. He actually got away with a lot of it, giving up a few hard hit balls on hanging curveballs, without seeing his stats blow up. If he continues like this, he will see a lot of blowups and a lot worse damage in his future. And I’m not even using Taillon’s high bar to evaluate Glasnow’s future and jump to the majors here.

Whenever I bring up that Glasnow doesn’t have a changeup, arguments are made that pitchers like A.J. Burnett did so well without much of a changeup, and mostly relying on two pitches. But Burnett actually used his changeup a bit early in his career, throwing it around 5-10% of the time. He averaged 6.2% from 2002 through the end of his career.

Meanwhile, Glasnow threw his changeup just 3% of the time in his first two starts in the majors. You could call that a small sample size, but he uses it sparingly in the minors, outside of when the organization absolutely forces him to use it more. And even in those cases, he often reverts back to a two-pitch approach, and ignores the changeup.

The two-pitch approach would only work if he had consistent command of his curveball, which he doesn’t right now. That’s the key difference between him and Burnett (if you ignore that Burnett used his changeup twice as much as Glasnow). Burnett also had fastball command issues, leading to high walk rates. But his curveball was unstoppable. Glasnow could get there, but isn’t there yet. So right now you’ve got a pitcher with fastball command issues, a curveball that is inconsistent, and no third pitch. That’s not a good recipe for success in the majors, no matter how good he could be in the future.

And that’s the thing about Glasnow — he could be better than Taillon or Cole. I don’t think his curveball will always be inconsistent. I think if he actually worked on the changeup, he could get it to the point where it could be a show-me pitch, giving hitters a third pitch to look at, so they’re not just sitting on the fastball. And the fastball might always be a bit wild, but that becomes less of a problem and he could become effectively wild if his secondary stuff is in a good place.

It’s almost like someone in the Pirates’ system should show Taillon’s comments to Glasnow, and show Taillon’s results so far (which include Taillon throwing the changeup 9.3% of the time). Because those comments perfectly sum up why Glasnow isn’t a fixture in the majors right now, and why he’s not close to his upside, despite the great numbers in Triple-A.

Glasnow has so much upside in the future, but until he actually works on the changeup and develops that third pitch, he’s going to be stuck putting up strong numbers in Triple-A, and most likely disappointing in the majors. And that will be the case up until his curveball becomes more consistent, or until he finally starts throwing the changeup.

**We’ve been absolutely hammering the lower level coverage this week, and I might be a bit biased, but it has been some of the best content we’ve had on the site all year, especially in terms of finding out new information that no one else has. There was once a time when the lower levels were the big story, and now that’s kind of a back burner issue. I could post an article that just says “Liriano” right now, and it would get 500 comments, but an article revealing new information about a 2016 draft pick will get very little discussion or looks. Still, we think that’s incredibly important, as it not only achieves our goal of evaluating the entire system, but also sets the foundation for future coverage when these guys are closer to the majors, or at a level where most people start to take notice (Example: A year ago, I was writing about Brandon Waddell for the first time).

We had a lot of great lower level content today, with a lot of top prospects involved. Check out the links below, and subscribe for all of our articles if you haven’t already.

**Prospect Watch: MacGregor and Kranick Combine for Eight Shutout Innings. I had a very detailed report on Gage Hinsz, and Abigail Miskowiec had the game report tonight from West Virginia. Sean McCool covered a crazy game in Altoona. And John Dreker talked with Travis MacGregor and Max Kranick about their combined eight shutout innings today.

**Jameson Taillon Pitches an Eight Inning Gem in Pirates 4-0 Win. Alan Saunders with a live report on today’s outing, and he stuck around a little later to talk one-on-one with Taillon on some things that have helped him this year (including that quote above).

**Pirates Have an Extremely Raw Pitcher in Over-Slot Prep RHP Austin Shields. Shields made his debut yesterday, and walked a lot of people. I wrote about his back story and history as a pitcher, which only spans about two years.

**Pirates Are Trying to Get More Velocity Out of Sixth Round LHP Cam Vieaux. The Pirates have had some success recently with finesse lefties who have a bit of velocity, and Cam Vieaux might be the next guy to watch.

**David Todd Podcast: Bell’s Defense, Kuhl vs Brault, Tito Polo! My weekly radio segment with David Todd, with a lot of good prospect talk this week.

**Morning Report: Overall Improvements Helped Christian Kelley Get Promoted to Bradenton. John Dreker broke down yesterday’s promotion of Christian Kelley from West Virginia to Bradenton, with a look at how his defense has developed this year.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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