Corey Taylor will be the second player from the 2015 draft that we take a look at this week. He was drafted in the 7th round out of Texas Tech. Amazin Avenue has a good write up of his stuff when he was drafted. The basic gist of it is, he’s big (to put his size in perspective, Logan Taylor is 6’4″ and 250 lbs. The Mets official website lists Corey Taylor at 5’11” and 245 lbs), he throws in the “slightly impressive” range for his fastball (as in, not fast enough to be really impressive, not slow enough to have to consistently and constantly paint the corners) and is mainly a sinker pitcher. So a reliever.
However, and stop me if you heard this before for non-roster invites, his numbers have been impressive in the minors and forced the issue that we need to talk about him. In his first season in Brooklyn he tossed 18.0 innings over 18 games with a 1.50 ERA with 16 K’s and a 1.000 WHIP. Pretty good.
Then last year he tossed 53.0 innings over45 games as the closer for St. Lucie recording 20 saves and a 1.87 ERA. He struck out 45, allowed only 1 homer and posted a 1.245 WHIP.
He then followed that up with 14.0 innings of work over 9 games and a 1.93 ERA in the Arizona Fall League, where he allowed only 1 homer, 17 K’s with only one walk. He was then named to the All-Star game.
These are the pieces you need to become a prospect, to get noticed in the 2018 Baseball Prospectus Annual. If he does it again this year, then start sounding the alarms. I’m hoping he has a good spring and makes a large jump in the Mets system.
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