Raising Aces: Jameson Taillon
Posted by Doug Thorburn on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 7:48 pm
The Washington Nationals stole the headlines for the second year in a row at the MLB amateur player draft, selecting 17-year old Bryce Harper with the #1 overall pick, a year after tabbing that Strasburg guy in the same slot. LeBryce has been scouted since before he could drive, and the young catcher-turned-outfielder is so good that he graduated high school early just to get a jump on his pro baseball career.
Harper was a lock to go numero uno, but there was some debate as to what the Pirates would do with the 2nd pick. In the end they went with the ceiling and the price tag, selecting high school pitcher Jameson Taillon, an elite-level talent in the Josh Beckett mold of big Texas right-handers. Like Beckett, Taillon is armed with a deadly combo of smoke and benders, an arsenal that helped put him in the top 2 or 3 on many analysts’ mock draft boards.
Check out the draft coverage at MLB.com, which gives every fan the tools to scout draftees with the click of a mouse (see links for “enhanced scouting report”). We can analyze the draft from a couch, thanks to the short video clips that MLB.com posts each season. The footage provides little more than a snapshot, tracking a single game in a pitcher’s amateur career, but it’s priceless for evaluation of baseline pitching mechanics. Taillon’s scouting video can be found here.
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Jameson Taillon, RHP
6’6”, 225 lbs, The Woodlands HS (TX)
Round 1, Pick #2, Pittsburgh Pirates
The raw components of Taillon’s delivery are solid, especially for a teenager, but he has some mechanical work to do before he is ready to exhibit his talents on the big stage.
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First Movement to Foot Strike
Taillon’s balance is shaky as he gets into max leg lift, with his head behind the center of mass. Looking at the video, the imbalance is more pronounced on the 2nd-pitch fastball than the 1st-pitch curve, with a lean back toward first base when his knee reaches maximum height. Such instability is indicative of a player that needs to improve his functional strength, which is extremely common among tall high school pitchers.
The big righty’s use of a “drop-n-drive” delivery hurts that balance further as he gets into foot strike. The upshot is that Taillon drives with some authority, creating decent momentum after peak leg lift to bring his long-winged release point closer to the plate. He accomplishes this despite poor linear momentum at the start of the delivery.
The benefits are counteracted, however, by a lift leg that hits the ground early, limiting his stride length and release point distance. Taillon’s momentum and stride are inconsistent for the pitches in the video, hurting his overall mechanics GPA. The bright side is that the kid has a lot more in the tank, and the problem can be corrected with relatively minor adjustments.
One potential knock on Taillon is that he follows the Strasburg-Santana-Prior model of “inverted W,” though the jury’s still out on the mechanical impact of hyperabduction. The #2 pick has a more pronounced “inverted W” than any of the pitchers mentioned, which can be seen using a savvy trigger finger on the pause button at 15 ½ seconds into the video.
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Foot Strike to Release Point
Taillon utilizes a big hip turn combined with some scapular load to create excellent hip-shoulder separation, which helps to explain the high 90’s gas that the kid pumps on a regular basis. A large scap load often accompanies the “inverted W,” though in Taillon’s case the torque is more a result of his delayed rotation of the trunk and shoulders as the hips continue to fire.
Maximum hip-shoulder separation is difficult to see with just a handful of pitches on standard video. It takes a perfectly timed pause-click on just the right pitch to catch a glimpse, and the best spot to freeze Taillon’s delivery occurs on the 3rd pitch, just before the video reaches 24 seconds.
The angle on the scouting video is less than ideal to see Taillon’s hip-shoulder separation. When evaluating the torque of MLB pitchers, I prefer to use well-timed photos taken from the 3rd base dugout (for right-handers), so that I can see the relative contributions of hips and shoulders. The best angle is actually a bird’s eye view, but those shots are hard to come by without using motion capture.
Poor balance typically has a ripple effect on posture, but Taillon defies the odds and regains much of his balance between foot strike and release point. He finishes with surprisingly good posture, considering the lack of balance earlier in the delivery, as well as the underlying issues of age, size, and functional strength.
Players with strong posture and an upright spine typically have lower arm slots than head-tilting over-the-top types, but again Taillon proves to be an exception. He displays a high arm slot in addition to minimal spine tilt, a combination that pleases coaches and scouts alike. Research at ASMI casts a shadow of doubt, however, based on recent revelations with respect to Brandon Webb.
A weak link in Taillon’s delivery is glove position, which varies from pitch to pitch on the video. He employs a pretty extreme tuck of the mitt into the body, a strategy advocated by some coaches, and the glove-hand flails wildly after release point. It will be interesting to see if the Pirates address the issue.
Taillon invokes images of K-Rod on his follow-through, falling off to the left side of the mound after release point. This is due in part to balance, which starts to drift to the glove-side just prior to release, but is also the result of kinetic energy generated in the delivery.
Many point to a pitcher falling off to one side as a major red flag, and people have been waiting for K-Rod to break down for years, citing his violent follow-through as evidence. However, we lack solid proof that a pitcher’s follow-through has any significant impact on injury risk, and K-Rod’s mechanical efficiency is actually rather solid up to release point. The bigger risk is probably a line-drive comebacker, from which he is in a bad position to protect himself.
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Grades
Balance: 40
Stride: 45
Momentum: 45
Hip-Shoulder Separation: 70
Posture: 60
Glove Position: 35
Repetition: 45
GPA: 48.6
(For an explanation on mechanics grades, click here.)
An accurate assessment of timing consistency requires more than a 5-pitch sample from a single outing, but the early indications are that Taillon has room for improvement in repeating his delivery. This is something that should come naturally during the course of development, yet many pitchers that reach the majors continue to struggle with mechanical repetition.
The average MLB pitcher is not nearly as consistent as one might think, and several have timing problems when pitching from the stretch, which helps to explain why Taillon grades out as high as a 45 on our scale. Improvement in timing and repetition will provide a boost to other mechanical grades across the board, in the same way that command will boost the scores for a pitcher’s stuff. As such, the Pirates would be wise to focus their efforts on timing consistency throughout Taillon’s development.
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The draft is a gamble, the payoffs of which cannot be determined until years into the future. Selecting a pitcher in the first round compounds the risk, given the injury rates among developing arms and the cost of losing a 1st rounder due to physical breakdown before they ever hit the majors. On the other hand, the high attrition rate of pitchers makes it necessary for a team to stockpile arms in their system, and team-wide philosophies on pitching mechanics and coaching methods can have a huge impact on the overall success of player development.
A pitcher with the raw talent of a Jameson Taillon can have a tremendous impact at the MLB level, but first he must survive the rough journey through the minors while building strength, stamina, and mechanical efficiency. Taillon is still growing into his delivery, and his explosive stuff will be drastically more effective if he can shore up the mechanical weak links. More importantly, the hard work will pay off by keeping him on the mound and off of the trainer’s table.
