PITTSBURGH – This past week, I was in Indianapolis, getting a look at the Pirates’ Triple-A squad, with a big focus on the three guys who are currently heating up the rotation — Tyler Glasnow, Jameson Taillon, and Chad Kuhl. Taillon and Kuhl look like they’re ready for the big leagues now, and if not now, then very soon. Glasnow looks like he’s got some work to do before he’s ready, but I wouldn’t rule out him being ready by the end of the season.
Earlier today, Neal Huntington met with reporters at PNC Park for his weekly media session, with our own Ed Giles in attendance. Huntington was asked a lot of questions about the prospects, with one question being about the potential to use a prospect in the bullpen.
“I know organizations in the past have broken guys in as long men, and I know some organizations in the past have brought guys up late in the season and put them in the bullpen for a postseason run,” Huntington said. “In our situation, we’re not opposed to it, but on a case-by-case basis. There are some things we’re still accomplishing with our young minor-league starters. We’ve done it with [Wilfredo] Boscan, very successful minor league starter, with a lot more stuff than I think most people think he has. We’ve done it with him, but he’s been able to do that relatively easily. With our young starters at Triple-A, we’ve still got some work to do to finish them off as starters before we start trying to shuffle them to the bullpen.”
So if you’re hoping that Glasnow could come up as a reliever instead of a starter, it doesn’t sound like that will be the case. Nor should it be, in my opinion. For more on how Huntington plans to address the bullpen this year, check out Ed’s article from earlier on the big league topics Huntington discussed. Here are the rest of the comments on Taillon, Glasnow, and Kuhl.
Jameson Taillon
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone on this site that Jameson Taillon returned a much improved pitcher after missing two years. I feel like my entire summer last year was spent following Taillon around at every stage in his rehab process, reporting constantly about how his mechanics looked much better, and how he looked big league ready. Unfortunately, he went down with the hernia injury, which prevented him from being called up at the end of last season.
Huntington was asked how Taillon returned so well, and praised his ability to “get in the best shape of his life, physically”, while also praising his mechanics.
“Mechanically, he’s as sound as he’s been since even before we drafted him, and he’s been able to repeat his pitches fairly well. Again, the consistency and the command, it’s as good as they’ve been. There’s still some work to do, some refining some of the little things, but this young man took advantage of those two years, and I know he bristles when someone mentions he lost two years. He didn’t lose two years, he just wasn’t pitching for a year and a half, and was ready to go last year when the hernia cropped up.”
Huntington also confirmed that Taillon was in their plans last year for the second half, and that the hernia not only hurt that, but pushed him back this year.
“It’s a shame because in our minds he was going to help us in the second half, and now we’re just getting him upper-level experience. It’s hard to remember sometimes that he has less than 100 Triple-A innings, and I think he had only 70 or something Double-A innings. We’re still talking about a young, experience wise, upper-level pitcher. It’s just frustrating, I’m sure, for many of you who write about it and talk about it because we did not have him gaining those two years of experience, and I’m sure he’d be in the middle of a very successful major-league career right now if he hadn’t been injured. But he is, and now how do we put him in a position to be the most successful and the best pitcher he can be for the longest period of time? We believe we’re on course to do that.”
As for the improvements, I didn’t see much that Taillon needed to work on while I was in Indianapolis. He could afford to get his pitches a bit more sharp on a consistent basis, but that’s an issue every starter has at some point. If there’s anyone who is being held back by Super Two in that rotation, it looks like it could be Taillon. Huntington did talk about some things that they want him working on, while praising his maturity and his ability to maintain his emotions.
“Still working on the command and consistency of the breaking ball, consistent quality of the changeup, still learning on pitch sequences. Again, upper level hitters teach you different things than lower level hitters teach you. They may buckle against a curveball, then sit on it, and now they’re gonna go get it. Recognizing when a guy is out in front of a fastball, now’s the time to probably go with a changeup so that he doesn’t have to rely completely on the catcher. Everyone talks about catcher game calling, and Cervelli and Stewart do a tremendous job at it. It’s still the pitcher on the mound with the baseball in his hand, and he has to throw that pitch with conviction. We’re trying to help him learn sequencing, learning how to set up a hitter, learning how to recognize swings, learning how to recognize game situations, and unfortunately that does take some time.”
My guess in this case is that it will take about three more weeks. Taillon, himself, said that he could afford to sharpen his game a bit until he eventually gets a call to the big leagues, and his maturity and ability to maintain his emotions were definitely on display when I talked to him about being ready for the big leagues last week. In this case, if there was no Super Two, or if it had passed already, I think we’d see Taillon in the big leagues.
Tyler Glasnow
On the other hand, Tyler Glasnow doesn’t look like he’s ready right now, with a big issue being his changeup. There have been so many comments about how Glasnow could be the next A.J. Burnett, only having two pitches that work in the big leagues. Some of that also stems from the continued ZiPS comps to Burnett for Glasnow. Huntington mentioned that Burnett was an exception, and that this isn’t an approach they want to take for Glasnow.
“He’s going to have to be able to use three pitches up here. A.J. Burnett is the exception to the rule. He’s a guy that got away with, until he was 37, with basically two pitches, and started to throw the changeup more last year than he had in the past. I think if you even ask A.J. now, I think A.J. would love to have the changeup at 24, because it would’ve been a lot more efficient outings. But he also had that power sinker that he could go to.”
A big reason for Glasnow developing the changeup is that his command can be spotty, putting him behind in the count often. Huntington discussed how the changeup will help him here.
“It will make that fastball that rides in the top of the zone and sinks in the bottom of the zone that much better, and it will give him another pitch that hitters won’t recognize out of the hand. The breaking ball is a power breaking ball, but it’s big, and they’re gonna see it early. The changeup off the fastball can be devastating.”
As for time spent in Triple-A, Huntington mentioned that they’d love to get a lot more Triple-A innings for their guys, saying that “in a perfect world”, each starter would have a full year at the level.
“It’s probably not going to be a perfect world. Again, I feel like I say it every May, sometimes April, and certainly every June, that we’d love to give our guys more experience at Triple-A than we have in the past. I think the results when we’re able to give guys a significant amount of experience in Triple-A shows that it’s an easier transition, and they tend to be able to adjust quicker at the Major League level than guys that come through the system that perform really well in Triple-A and then they get pushed in a hurry because they’re on that front edge of the readiness curve. Gerrit Cole is really the only one that was on the front edge of the readiness curve in our mind that stepped in and has never looked back, and even that hasn’t been a completely smooth ride along the way.”
I’ll have more on Glasnow tomorrow.
Chad Kuhl
I wrote a lot about Chad Kuhl this week, including an article suggesting you shouldn’t overlook him as a rotation option this year. I’ve mentioned many times on the site that the Pirates have gotten a lot of interest in Kuhl at the trade deadline, and turned down a few teams that I knew about last year. Huntington confirmed that they’ve turned down a lot of offers for Kuhl, while talking about how much they like him.
“Chad’s a guy that we’ve turned down I can’t even think of the number of trade requests for over the years. We’re not one to hype our own guys, we’ll let you guys do that, and others do that. Chad’s very quietly been a guy that we’ve put our arms around and felt like he could help us at the major league level as a starter, certainly out of the bullpen. We really like what he’s doing, the man that he is. The breaking ball is getting more consistent. Again, it feels like a broken record here with the changeup, but it is becoming a very usable pitch for him. We see Chad as being able to help us at some point this summer.”
As noted above, I could see Kuhl being ready before Glasnow, although that doesn’t mean he has a higher long-term upside than Glasnow. It just means that he could be the better option right now.
