Pirates right-hander Jameson Taillon experienced renewed pain in his right forearm and is no longer throwing, the Pirates revealed to reporters on Wednesday (Twitter link via Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). The discomfort sounds particularly ominous, as Pirates medical director Todd Tomczyk suggested that the injury has “run its course of conservative care,” Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic tweets. Taillon will meet with a doctor next week.
Taillon, 27, has been sidelined by a forearm strain since early May, and his absence has played a significant role in the team’s underwhelming season. The former No. 2 overall draft pick and longtime top prospect delivered on that hype in a big way last season when he tossed 191 innings of 3.20 ERA ball, emerging as the Buccos’ staff leader. Taillon averaged 8.4 strikeouts, 2.2 walks and under one home run per nine innings pitched, drawing favorable reviews from fielding-independent metrics as well.
Unfortunately for the club, he’s been limited to 37 1/3 innings this season, which has contributed to the Pirates cycling through a dozen different starters. Chris Archer, Trevor Williams and Jordan Lyles have all struggled but at least been able to give the club some innings, and Joe Musgrove has been solid (if unspectacular) in leading the club with 20 starts. Pittsburgh has also looked to Steven Brault, the since-designated Nick Kingham, rookie Dario Agrazal and top prospect Mitch Keller for starts, and they’ve even experimented with using Montana DuRapau as an opener in bullpen games.
Suffice it to say, a Taillon return in the near future would’ve been a welcome sight but now appears decidedly unlikely. Back in June, it was reported that surgery could eventually emerge as an option if Taillon didn’t improve, and while Tomczyk didn’t directly mention surgery today, the juxtaposition of that June writing and his quote today are troubling for the Bucs.
Bad news.
Kill me now. Why am I still a Pirates fan…..
They need to SELLLLL.
Anything not signed through 2021, gotta move.
See what the young guys have. Call up Hayes, call up Tucker… move Kang, Dickerson, Melky for bags of balls…
Time to actually rebuild again.
most all the regulars are through 2021… and whats not isnt worth much in trade besides marte.
Agree.
Should trade Marte, too tho.
He’s already going to be 31 in three months (not sure why folks continue to think he’s some young guy) that maybe they can get a decent haul for him and restock the farm that they blew up last year.
@ howmydoing. Lol! All I can hear is Randolph Duke—“where is Wilson?? He needs to Seelll seelllllll seeeeeelllll !!!!”
Huh!!??
Jorge-gozurman and Mystery team are talking in tongues that we do not understand.
They are like horse whisperers.
Please just let them alone.
@gozurman1 Bacon yes bacon that you might find in a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich. Great movie.
The look Billy Ray Valentine, Capricorn, gives that camera after that line is priceless!
Throwing away for a bag of balls the likes of Dickerson & Cabrera shows how much of a baseball understanding fan you are. You have Bell, Reynolds, & Newman & maybe Stallings ( limited sample size) to build around. The jury is still out on Tucker; I don’t care how good you field, you gotta hit .250 or you’re not major league material. The pitching staff is in shambles; the Kang experiment should be over, & I personally am ready for new blood at manager. The farm was not blown up last year in spite of some ill informed opinions.
Feel bad for Taillon he has been through so much. With that being said this Pirates org is a complete joke. Archer deal. Gerrit Cole deal. Keone Kela. They’re willingness to think they are a winning team and not sell/rebuild. If i was a Pirates fan i would be calling for the GM to be fired. Who knows maybe he will be fired after he trades Bell/Vazquez for a bucket of balls in a few years.
I am a Bucs fan and have repeatedly called for GM and Hurdle to be fired! It will never happen.
Well actually it WILL happen but not nearly soon enough for a lot of Buc fans.
Bellinger-Just because NH won’t give you Vasquez for nothing doesn’t mean that you have to dump on the Pirates.
He may not be as much in love with your minor leaguers as you are.
Keep on throwing money at it.Eventually you will win a WS.
Hey hows contending going for you guys? 2nd Worst team in the NL lmfao. Also the Dodgers have the most home grown roster in all of baseball with the Rockies being 2nd. We have 50 million dollars coming off the payroll next year (because of previous president). Oh yeah and we have 3 of the top 12 overall prospects in baseball. Pirates Gm should be on his hands and knees begging to trade Vazquez to the Dodgers.
fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-in-season-p…
Wow. Another profound statement. You are on a streak!
Don’t get upset with me because your GM gets trade rape’d more than a rookie fantasy baseball player.
Bellinger-Pride goeth before the fall
Only Pirate fans are allowed to dump on the Pirates.
When the Dodgers lose the WS this year will they be known as the Buffalo Bills of baseball?
With that much money spent on ML Players and your farm system you should be in the WS every year and winning half of them.
Go home and drink your Chardonnay if you are old enough to do so.
Oneill Cruz for 2 months of Tony Watson has worked out OK, just to pick one random example.
How’s that World Series ring feel on your finger?
Oh, forgot, you don’t have one! EPIC FAIL…..
Badda Bing!
The Dodgers have won the World Series six times – so not quite an accurate comparison.
However if you are looking for a team to compare to the Bills, the Atlanta Braves won their division 14 times in 15 seasons and one a single championship. Kinda thought Pirates fans might remember them tbh.
Oneil Cruz is going to take you to the promise land! A High A player at 20 years old lmao. I have to say I am shocked about the defensiveness from fans over the Pirates. You guys have the Steelers and Penguins two great winning organizations. How in the world do you clowns find the Pirates acceptable?
“Kinda thought Pirates fans might remember them tbh.”
This is how you do a dig.
(1)many of us are older and remember the good times
(2)baseball is in our blood the same that it is in yours
(3)we stay knowledgeable enough to have opinions on teams and enjoy (generally) the arguement
(4)when the Dodgers become mediocre again are you just going to forget them?I didn’t think so
(5)the Steelers were awful until the 1970’s-the Penguins had two super great players who led them to championships-but it is not baseball
(6)I may look like a clown but I do not consider myself to be one.The others will have to honestly answer for themselves
(7)I think that most of us agree that Hurdle and NH are doing about the best that they can.Many teams would change just to make a change at this point,and that may happen.But with the gross unbalance in revenue,the small market teams really have no room for error
(8)as Pirate fans we can see the details of trades etc while fans of other teams cannot spend that amount of time on the Pirates and still see the accurate details of how their team is being run
Josh-It was a subtle one and a fairly classy post.
And the Bills won four league championships in a row.
But I think that the Dodgers are good enough to win the NL next year also after they probably win it this year.
Congratulations for uneducated, stupid comment of the day.
Next time get ALL the facts.
The Gerrit Cole trade has been good for the Pirates through. The only horrendous trade was Archer. I give him a pass on Kela because you always take a chance on a talented youngster hoping you can get him to grow up, hasn’t worked but it was worth the risk.
The GC trade has been good for the Pirates? You guys got a back of the rotation arm and a platoon 3rd baseman for the second fastest player to ever record 200 k’s in a season. Then the Buccos went and traded away twice as much to get a pitcher who’s half as good! Dang, where can I get a pair of those rose colored glasses, Hannibal?
They got good value for a guy who hated being there. He was never going to do what he did for the Stros for the Pirates. They got a starting 3rd baseman, a middle of the rotation pitcher, a decent prospect in Martin, and Feliz who’s been up and down. Which is way better than what NYY was offering. Meanwhile Cole is hitting FA this winter and will likely leave the Stros. I don’t have rose tinted glasses, I have reasonable fan glasses.
Hannibal,you are a knowledgeable observer and are talking logic and reason.
Too many knuckleheads just cannot understand that.
Everyone makes the Cole deal to be worse than it actually is. Now I’m not saying that the players they got back are amazing or anything, but Moran and Musgrove are solid MLB players.
Not everyone,only the negative posters.
I think that NH got as much as he could.You can nitpick,and say he should have waited,but what would have happened if he needed TJ surgery like half the pitchers do.
You can tell the real experienced fans who are posting because they give reasoned thoughtful comments.
Just ignore the others if you want.
Speaking of TJ surgery, not saying Glasgow will need it but he had a setback in his rehab as well. Who knows if he will ever be the same as he was the beginning of this season because he never pitched that well before. Meadows had a career April and May and has been back to what he was in the minors in June and July. Who knows haw that trade will ultimately be viewed but way too soon to proclaim a winner in that trade.
Two years at least to grade a major trade.
The holes in my initial argument for accepting the trade are though that I think that NH really was taken advantage of in giving the Minor leaguer up also and the fact that it really is evident that Archer is not a #1 or even a #2 pitcher.The Rays knew that and NH should have known it.It went against his grain to make such a trade,and will probably turn out negatively,but no GM wins on every trade.He thought that the team needed an injection,but it did not work out that way.
It is way too soon to put Meadows and Glasnow in the HOF though.
god speed jameson, get well!
As Buford T Justice often said……”sumbitch!”
Who!!??
Jackie Gleason in Smoky and the Bandit
Why are they still even trying? Polanco and Taillon need to be shut down for the rest of the year.
The Pirates medical staff sucks!
Tru dat!
Take my dagbern trash out Jorge
Another wasted top pick
Another wasted first comment.
Well not really. What top draft pick has done anything for the organization other than Cutch, Cole and maybe Walker over the last 20 years?
Could’ve picked Machado, Sale, Yelich, Syndergaard. I get its hindsight, but again these mistakes have happened in a lot of drafts.
Please stop. Your logic is terrible. And it started with your decision to make the first stupid comment.
12 teams could have drafted Sale instead of who they did, 22 teams passed on Yelich Syndergaard lasted until the 1st comp round. Several players who never panned out in the 1st half of that round.. Your hindsight argument is never a good argument in trying to blast a team in a drafts.
You cant fix stupid, Go. Just call out, and move on.
Ouch!!!!!
This news does not surprise me.
Many of these ML pitchers just do not have the bodies to be able to last.
The Pirates have been without their ace all year basically.So have other teams.This epidemic really knows no one team.It does not mean that you give up and trade the whole team.
It makes you appreciate the real workhorses even more as they are becoming rarer and rarer.
Typical overreaction.They will have to make do with what they have like other teams have done.
Maybe NH realizes now that he needs depth on a major league team as things do not always go exactly as planned.
Finally a reasoned comment…..
Time for surgery…..
My “just go get Tommy John as soon as your UCL hurts” theory is still undefeated, except for Tanaka…the rubber armed contrarian.
I didn’t realize it was Lyles turn again already. Why on Earth didn’t they scratch him after his halfway decent last start?
They could have shined him up and sold him for something. Now, they just have to have him towed away.
It really depends on how he pitches as he is on a short string.
I think that he was given the fifth starter position,and pitched well for a month,but may fit better as a long man reliever,
Brault has been pitching much better as a starter,albeit a five inning one.Some guys are not made to be relievers.Agrazal has been a find and hopefully it continues.They can always bring Keller back up near the end of the year if he is ready.
I never really counted on Taillon after he stayed out a long time.
Baseball is broken in many ways. Young people don’t like to watch the game, small market teams can’t compete,etc. if you owned Tampa, KC , PGH, CIN, MIL Colorado, you simply can never win a WS even if you paid 75 mil more in payroll. The Cards are the only exception because they are ran by great people. The ATL tear down and build was brilliant but that’s a 7 mil market.
Hopefully there is a work stoppage to balance out the playing field, Yanks, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers will win forever going forward.
St Louis is more of a middle market team that has generally been well run for a long time.
They have been generally good enough to keep their fan base strong.
They have played well under pressure the years that they were in solid contention.
The Cardinals have not had to get really bad to have a chance to be really good.
The PIrates have not had to be really bad to be mediocre.
Pittsburgh has money. Bob nutting is cheap. They make 250 million a year. Bob is pocketing the money.
Pirates organization is a joke. Their actions don’t support an organization that is truly committed to a competitive Team that can compete for a World Championship. Owner has the right to pocket his money and fans have their right to not support an inferior MLB product. This team continues to spew rhetoric year after year to the fan that have supported the Pirates over the last 30 years. The owner has no shame.
I wish Taillon a steady recovery. He’s on of the toughest players in the majors.
I also think that the Pirates should consider extending at a somewhat team friendly deal. I say somewhat because his agent is Scott Boras; the Pirates front office has had a rough history negotiating with Boras and we know he will demand Jameson be paid at Market Price. His arbitration years will be coming up and if he has a breakout season in 2020, his price will go through the roof. I know the main focus will be extending JoshBell soon, but I think Taillon should be as well because this pitching staff is dismal without him.
I do not think that that would be smart,businessman.He has publicly stated that he would not be amenable to that as he is fairly vocal and the union representative.You also could be talking losing all of next year.I do not know his salary but if it is say $8M and he would get that next year for not playing I would not be surprised to see the Pirates move on from him.
Mostly due to injuries,he has not lived up to the hopes that they had for him when they drafted him very highly.
It is what it is.
Pirates need more qualified starters than just Taillon. They need a new owner and upper level management. Bell is not as hot as he was prior to all star game. At least they will have a good draft pick.
Thanks Johnny GM. Tell us more! Please?
Back to the lackluster days of Dave Littlefield!! Remember when he traded for a washed up Matt Morris and AGREED to pay all of the $7 million left on his contract? THE PROCESS
It seems that the Pirates lacked any sort of direction in those days.I really believe that many of us could have done as good of a job.
THE PROCESS worked for the 76ers to some extent,but they misfired on 2/3 of their first round picks,and that was in basketball where you should hit 80% of the time.
I think calling them lackluster is overhyping them.
I feel bad for Pirates players, coaches, other employees, and us fans, but this is just pure unadulterated pain for JT. He has been burdened with virtual non stop injury and disease his entire professional career.
Praying for him today. Hope you are, too.
I always feel bad when good athletes cannot perform for extended periods because of injury.They have worked their whole lives and dreamed of reaching the majors and it can be shut off in an instant.Let’s hope that JT can recover as quickly as possible.