Mariners call up RHP Troy Taylor to add aggression to bullpen

An UCI Anteater (terrifying!) joins the ‘pen

Looking for a spark in their bullpen, the Mariners announced today they’ve called up 2022 12th-rounder Troy Taylor. The Mariners actually drafted Taylor twice: first in the 20th round in 2021 out of JUCO Cypress College, and then in the 12th round in 2022 out of UC-Irvine, where Taylor finished up his college career.

“I was thankful for the opportunity to get drafted that first year...and they were kind enough to pick me again. I’m really blessed they gave me that opportunity twice,” said Taylor, speaking to a crowd of media at T-Mobile Park, where he got in at 2 AM this morning, running on a “couple hours” of sleep and a big dose of adrenaline.

After working around 93-95 mph on his fastball in college, as a pro Taylor has added a few ticks to his velocity and now sits more in the 94-96 range, occasionally flirting with triple digits. He credits the change to both a pro conditioning regimen and the Mariners encouraging him to be more aggressive to the plate.

Working from a lower arm slot, his fastball has similar ride to Paul Seawald’s, albeit with significantly more velocity. Taylor’s fastball also has some late armside run where it darts away from lefty batters/cuts in on righties, and he’ll throw it to both sides of the plate as well as working it up in the zone. It’s a swing-and-miss pitch, as is his slider, which has sharp downward movement and some late sweep. When batters do make contact with the pitch, they very often put it on the ground, tapping after it weakly, but usually you’ll see them flailing after a pitch that’s in on their ankles (for lefties) or in the opposite batters’ box (for righties). The downward movement is so pronounced as to almost make the pitch a slurve, but there’s an extra wrinkle with the late horizontal movement. Taylor completes his arsenal with a lesser-developed changeup that he’ll also use as a ground ball weapon, but his primary offerings are the big fastball that he can spot all over the zone, and the deadly slurve-y slider.

With this movement profile on both of his primary offerings, occasionally getting into the zone could be a challenge, dating back to his college games. However, Taylor has improved his command of the zone during his time with the Mariners, simply through being more aggressive and thinking about working to the middle of the plate, letting the natural movement of his pitches take care of the rest. Taylor comes right at hitters straight down the mound with an attack mentality that’s helped him cut his number of free passes down.

“The pitching department does an incredible job allowing us to be ourselves, allowing us to have the pitches that we have and just attack the heart of the plate and not be scared up there,” said Taylor. “They allow us to throw the ball as hard as we can right down the middle. They encourage us to. So I think just the freeness of that has helped me gain velocity and gain confidence on the mound.”

Another thing that helped Taylor gain confidence: this past fall the team sent him to the Arizona Fall League, where he faced off against some of the game’s top prospects, finding success—striking out 12 in 10 innings over nine games—and earning a nod to the AFL All-Star game.

“The Fall League was good. It was fun. You’re facing top prospects from every organization, and you’re pitching, and you’re like, oh, maybe I can do this. There’s not that ‘what if’ factor, I think that was a big thing,” said Taylor. “And I think that gave me a lot of confidence to go out this year and just use my stuff the way I know how to, and the majority of the time it’ll work out.”

As a fun bonus, Taylor, a former shortstop until he converted to pitching in college, can make some thrilling plays off the mound.

It’s a remarkably rapid ascent for the 22-year-old Taylor, who has fewer than 100 professional innings under his belt, but he already made an impression on his manager starting back in spring training.

“What he brought, the stuff was really good,” said Scott Servais. “And it’s like, oh, this could be a dude to help us out maybe a year or two from now. And then he goes out and has a fantastic season. . .you kind of jump the line, so to speak, and become a piece of the depth chart. And he’s continued to produce.”

Taylor has been a big producer since being moved up to Double-A Arkansas in mid-May. He took over the closer role and has collected 16 saves in just 30 innings. Once again, Taylor credits his aggressive mindset towards helping him develop into the closer role.

“I think the thing that helped me was to just go in and be as aggressive as I can and not be scared of the opportunity. So I think that was something that helped me, leaning more on the side of aggression than the side of fear,” said Taylor.

But don’t expect him to start off in high-leverage situations here in Seattle, let alone in the ninth inning.

“I think with young pitchers, you always have to be very patient,” said Servais. “So he’ll get chances, and we’ll see where it goes from there. . .There will be chances for him to impact our season.”