The Jameson Taillon scare

Tim Williams of Pirates Prospects was my first Twitter follower. That was back in the day when his site was called B.U.C.C.O FANS and nobody knew why Bucco was made into an acronym. If I remember correctly he had a few hundred followers and was just starting out. Now he runs what is probably the #1 Pirates site on the web and has made it his full time job. It's been pretty cool to see the insane amount of success that he's had. Now he's the main source for Pirates prospects news and analysis, and he broke a pretty terrifying story this morning concerning top pitching prospect Jameson Taillon.

Apparently Jameson Taillon is being shut down for two weeks with elbow discomfort, which is about as scary a headline as you could read. The good news is that it's just a little bit of discomfort and they're just shutting him down for precautionary reasons. He isn't expected to miss a significant amount of time. However, you never want to hear about any level of elbow pain from your pitchers, because those issues can tend to linger and then turn into something serious. It seems like every major league pitchers and their mother have had Tommy John surgery, so it's not something that teams really try to avoid. You'd hate to see that happen to a high profile pitcher like Taillon, because it basically knocks you out for a calendar year. That's big time speculation, and there's no signs that Taillon is anywhere near needing such a procedure, but those are the thoughts that pop into your head when you read a story like this.

It's not like Taillon was expected to be a huge part of the Pirates 2014 season anyway, he was a midseason arrival at best. You know how slow the Pirates can be with promotions, so Taillon was probably going to have to really impress to even get that June-July promotion. Now he probably won't be making any starts til May, which probably pushes his Pittsburgh arrival time back to August, unless they're really short on starters and competitive, like they were last year when Gerrit Cole was seemingly forced to the major leagues before the Pirates may have liked him to be. Taillon isn't quite at the pedigree of Cole either, and there are still a lot of improvements the Pirates are looking for him to make before he gets the nod, so this news just makes everything more complicated.

I wouldn't count on seeing Taillon until late this season, and there's a chance we don't see him at all. Any injury set back or poor performance could really push that date back. The guy is just too good to really struggle at the AAA level for an extended period of time, so you'd think if he just stays healthy he'll be in the rotation when those August-September months roll around.

For now the Pirates are going with Francisco Liriano, Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, Wandy Rodriguez, and Edinson Volquez. As we talked about yesterday, Volquez is certainly far from a sure thing to be with the Pirates the entire season, so the Pirates may very well need some starts from guys that will be starting the year in AAA or the bullpen. Here are the most likely names that you'll see on the mound if (when) something bad happens to the rotation:


1. Jeff Locke

Locke had a pretty solid year in 2013, but that was mainly due to a freakish first half of the season. Locke had a 2.06 ERA when the calendar turned from June to July. From July on he posted a 5.53 ERA, but he was allegedly dealing with some lingering injuries that may have been partly to blame for that performance. He pitched way over his head the first half, nobody will doubt that, but he probably wasn't as bad as he showed in the second half either. He's only thrown two innings this spring while dealing with an oblique injury that there hasn't been an update on since early this month. He wouldn't be ready to step in right away if the Pirates needed him, but it's unlikely that that would happen anyway. If Volquez can't hang in the majors and the Pirates needed someone to take his spot, you're most likely going to see Locke back in the rotation, which isn't too bad of an option considering what he showed last year.

2. Stolmy Pimentel

Pimentel was one of the big stories of last year with the ridiculous start to his season in the minors that he had. He too returned to earth and ended with an underwhelming but solid 3.35 ERA in for the year spread between Altoona and Indianapolis, but it earned him a promotion late int he season where he posted 9.1 innings in five games from the Pirates bullpen, striking out nine batters and only walking two. Those numbers and his stellar stuff earned him a spot in the Pirates bullpen this year, but he's still a guy that can make some starts for you. If it's a situation where the Pirates just need one or two starts around May, Pimentel could be the guy you see, but he's not going to be completely stretched out to just jump right into the rotation for any significant amount of time. His ceiling is much higher than Locke's, but 2014 probably isn't his year to establish himself as a starter in Pittsburgh.

3. Brandon Cumpton

Cumpton has never been looked at a big time prospect or someone you'd expect to be in the Pirates future plans, but all he's done with them the last year is put up solid numbers. Last year he pitched in six games with the Pirates, five of them as the game's starter. He posted a 2.05 ERA in 30.2 innings, striking out 22 batters and walking just five. He surrendered just one home run and helped the Pirates three of his five starts. He's looking pretty good this spring as well with a 2.93 ERA in 15.1 innings pitched down in Florida. He's not a power pitcher, he has pretty average stuff, but the guy knows how to get batters out and he's shown that. I'm sure if it gets to this point, the Pirates would be just fine giving the ball to Cumpton every five days.


The Pirates rotation looks pretty solid this season, but there are a lot of question marks. You have a still developing Gerrit Cole, a Liriano that faces the challenge of putting up numbers even when other teams saw him last year and won't be surprised by his success, a big time injury question mark with Rodriguez, who hasn't pitched in a major league game since June 5th of last year, and an Edinson Volquez who could very well be job hunting by the time summer rolls around. All five Pirates pitchers can be reasonably expected to perform well, but there's not a lot of sure things in that rotation.

That will more than likely determine how this season goes for the Bucs. They had one of the best rotations in the league last year which helped boost them into the playoffs, but it's not going to be easy to repeat that, especially with A.J. Burnett gone now. Like any other season, the Pirates are going to need some good fortune to have a chance to get back into the postseason.