Ernest Dove - New York Mets Prospect Watch: RP Corey Taylor

                                    Corey Taylor pitching in a game 04/16 for St. Lucie Mets


  Well what do you know, last weeks prospect watch pitcher Alberto Baldonado was just promoted after my post.  Maybe this next reliever will have the same luck.

  Today I wanted to write a post to single out 2015 7th round pick Corey Taylor.  Corey will play out the season as a 23 year old and currently still toes the rubber for the High A St. Lucie Mets. Always hard to judge guys with such a short time span starting out in the minors since being drafted.  Coming into this week Corey had just passed 37 innings in his career, all as a reliever within the system.

  Corey, as a college arm, was sent straight to Brooklyn the year he was drafted into the organization, and is/was listed as being 6" 1" and 250LBS out of Texas Tech. In 18 innings of work Corey had an obviously very solid 1.50 ERA for the short season club.  This year, again you have to consider age, Corey was jumped over Low A and sent directly to St. Lucie, where he has continued his solid start and efforts.   Corey has started off the year again with a sub 1.00 ERA, and as I stated in my previous LIVE from Lucie post last month, we need to please keep in mind that there were runs charged to Corey in that game that should not have been if not for a poor call by the home plate umpire who had to make a judgement call on a line drive down the first base line.  The ball, in my humble opinion (along with everyone else sitting in plain view down the line) was foul, but in the minors there's only two umpires and the other umpire was stationed back behind second base area and not down the line to call it.

  Anyway, my observations from my brief eye ball test on Corey was a guy with a solid makeup.  The radar gun had him consistently at 92 MPH on his fastball. He does have weight on him and a strong build, so especially as a reliever he looks the part of a man who can hold up during the grind of a long major league season. Again, just my opinion but I believe Mr. Taylor is a young man that all of us minor league ball player followers should keep an eye on.

  As a reliever, one thing to always keep an eye on is his newly ongoing status as the St Lucie Mets closer and how he continues to close out games. His walk rate appears pretty solid, with the K rate currently below 9/9inn. And, in a short sample size, right now the right hander has one of those weird reverse splits going.  Right handers are actually hitting over .300 against him so far this year, with more hits than innings he's pitched collectively against them. Meanwhile, opposing lefty hitters on hitting under .200 against him right now. Also, (extreme small sample size alert), when behind in the count opposing hitters are batting just under .400 against Corey, and his WHIP is sitting at/around 2.50 in those situations. So even though his walk rate is solid he obviously needs to apparently improve on how to pitch back at hitters when he falls behind the count and not just simply pitch to contact to avoid a walk.

  All in all the jury is out on a young man who is technically a 23 year old college arm who is still only at the A ball level, so I would like to see him jump to AA ball after the all star break and see what happens for remainder of the 2016 season.  And again, as always, we as Mets fans have become very spoiled watching our major league starters and relievers all hurling 95+ every night, so it will interesting to see long term how Corey fits into the organization should that radar gun have been accurate and if he will continue sit in the low 90s as a righty bullpen arm.

  So here's to hoping the young man continues to put up more zeros on the board during outings like he just did last night, lowers the hit to innings pitched ratio a bit (come on umpires) and get looksy back at him later in the year, hopefully playing for Bingo.