CLEVELAND – There’s an old rumor that before he needed Tommy John surgery ahead of his 2023 season with LSU, Grant Taylor was going to be the team’s Friday night starter–the college baseball version of the staff ace–rather than his famous Tigers teammate Paul Skenes.
“After I blew out, they told me I was going to be Saturday,” Taylor told the Sun-Times. “I’ve heard some different things from different guys.”
The story made the rounds when Taylor was a prospect, as a way to say even though he was a second-round pick who hadn’t pitched above Low-A prior to last year, he was a premiere talent.
After two heroic playoff relief appearances, Taylor fielded congratulatory messages from his old buddy Skenes on Saturday, and old stories are unnecessary for gettting a rave review of the right-hander.
“Just unbelievable,” said catcher Kyle Teel. “Some of the best pitching I’ve ever seen. Hitting his spots left and right, and attacking hitters.”
With the Sox two wins from reaching the American League Championship Series, their current fixation is keeping their usage of Taylor sustainable, while also maximizing the 24-year-old who is clearly the most effective arm on their roster.
“If Grant is going to pitch four innings every game, I think we will like, kill him, right?,” said manager Will Venable.
Assuming Taylor survives, he’s inching closer to a starter workload. Initially targeting 85-100 innings this season, Taylor has reached 90 ⅓ overall with the regular season and playoffs combined, and should breeze into triple-digits if the Sox make the ALCS. His longer outings are challenging him to face hitters a second time, even if Taylor’s stuff is such that he usually doesn’t have to show the opposition a different look to get outs.
“My stuff was really good [Saturday], so I was able to rely on some stuff multiple times in a row and double up,” Taylor said.
A typical Taylor outing looks like a closer with triple-digit velocity overpowering the opposition, and his pitch selection versus a lefty-heavy team like the Guardians will be predominately four-seamers and curveballs, but he’s added nuance to his game. His slider is a bigger factor this season, and he developed a sinker this spring that has bedeviled right-handed hitters.
“[His arsenal is] just stuff moving away from the righties, so they can know ‘I’m just gonna set my sights [outer half] and get on the heater, curveball, slider,” said pitching coach Zach Bove. “That sinker [moving inside] throws a wrench in it.”
Taylor wasn’t moved to relief because he lacks the skill to start. Senior advisor to pitching Brian Bannister said Taylor experienced soreness after starts last year at Double-A Birmingham before he was shifted to the pen, and suspects the same unique delivery that allows the six-foot-three Taylor to release the ball over seven feet out from the pitching rubber, puts unique strain on his body.
After Taylor didn’t pitch in 2023 while rehabbing from TJ, and missed most of 2024 with a lat strain, a quick move to the major-league bullpen was an alternative to slowly building up his workload as a prospect starter. But now that the Sox playoff run has become a quest to use Taylor as much as possible, is returning to starting the best way to accomplish that in future seasons?
He’s due a conversation on it.
“After the season ends, I’ll talk to [Chris Getz] and the front office about it,” Taylor said. “We’ve had some pretty good back-and-forth about it over this past offseason on what [returning to starting] might look like and the path for that. Up until this point, everything’s gone to plan with trying to get to a certain amount of innings.”
But Taylor isn’t pining for that conversation. His buddy Skenes congratulated him while on vacation in the Bahamas, and for now, Taylor is happier being in a bullpen in Cleveland.
“We’ll hopefully have that conversation in a month,” Taylor said. “Rather than in a week.”
