2015 Prospect List - #30 – RHSP Logan Taylor

My rankings is solely subjective and based on nothing more than what is in my head at time I’m writing this. I’ve followed the Mets minor league players for many years and I feel I can recognize talent at various levels of their development. What I have failed at is how to determine when this talent seems to diminish. It’s amazing how many first round picks never make it in this game. 

I’m old school, so you won’t seem much SABR-discussion here, I do research and, when I find a good quote or two, I’ll add them to my analysis, but, like I said in the beginning of this post, most of this us subjective.

Let’s get started.

# 30  –

RHSP Logan Taylor -  23-years old – R/R – 11^th round draft pick in 2012

                                    Sophomore – Eastern Oklahoma State College – 6-5, 230

                                    2012 – Brooklyn – 13-G, 0.93, 0.67, 19.1-IP, 19-K

                                    2013 – Savannah – 7-ST, 2.67, 1.22, 30.1-IP, 35-K

                                    2014 – GCL – 3-ST, 1.13, 1.00, 16-IP, 16-K

                                                Savannah – 8-ST, 2.77, 1.13, 48.2-IP, 39-K

Taylor was ranked by Baseball America as the 312^th player overall eligible for the draft, which translated as a 10^th round pick. He had an incredible stat line in his last year of college ball: 83-IP, 120-K, 43-BB, 1.84, 1.07.

He came out of high school with an 88-90 fastball, with a good downward angle. He’s now self-reports that he throws a low-to-mid 90s fastball, upper 70s-low 80s curve, and changeup in the low 80s. He also relies heavily on his cutter.

Was ranked 3^rd in the nation for strikeouts for a JUCO pitcher.

Taylor was a quick sign with the Mets and went immediately to the Brooklyn 2012 pen due to the excess amount of starters on the team (Gabriel Ynoa, Luis Mateo, Hansel Robles, Luis Cessa, Rainy Lara, Julian Hilario). He absolutely dominated there though he only pitched in 13 games.

Taylor got back to being a starter in 2013 with Savannah, but finished the season on injured reserve with a serious nagging injuries. Scouts had warned team early on that his stress filled delivery would get the best of him some day.

Same thing is 2014… great results but only 11 starts in the season.

Projection – Taylor will pitch 2015 as a 24-year old so there really isn’t much time left for him to develop. He has a 3-year minor league ERA/WHIP of 2.21/1.06, but he’s only pitched in 31-games, 18-starts.

The Mets need to push him (at least) to St. Lucie, where he would be if he didn’t have any DL stints last season. I actually would go further and start him with Binghamton, where guys like Cessa and Mateo are on paper to pitch.

The Mets have a glut of talented mid-range pitching prospects and they need to separate the good ones from the great ones.  

Like many of the Mets mid-ranged pitching prospects in this age range, he may find quickly that hos baseball future will be on another team.