Oh the mysteries of spring training. A guy can look absolutely terrible and then go out and have a career year, giving us another example that games in March just do no matter. Then, you have situations where pitchers get crushed and you want be positive because they either have a solid track record or sometimes other factors lead to poor numbers pitching in Arizona. Veteran starter Jameson Taillon has been destroyed in spring training and although I initially waved off any concerns it’s now time that the Chicago Cubs should be worried about Taillon.
Again, we want to be optimistic and it’s not like Taillon was trending down in 2025, he was actually pitching some of the best ball of his career. After returning from the injured list in August, Taillon posted a 1.57 ERA in 34.1 innings and then had two important starts in the postseason that resulted in a pair of wins for the Cubs. Dating back to July 2023, Taillon’s first year with the Cubs, the right-hander has a 3.43 ERA in nearly 400 innings on this team.
So, should a handful of bad spring training starts really be alarming? Well, yeah, and this quote from Taillon in The Athletic is what’s most worrying.
“As you get older, sometimes you manipulate some things and adjust some things,” Taillon said. “We’ve seen a trend of some of my stuff ticking down. We were trying to tick it back up. There’s some clear things I can get better at — backside connection, using my lower half a lot better.
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“That being said, it’s also on me to make sure when you’re in a game, you go out and compete. It is hard to be thinking about a million things, but I’ve always been good at that in my career, tinkering and adjusting and going out when it’s time to compete. Right now, I’m not doing that. I’m kind of all over the place.” -Jameson Taillon
The 34-year-old briefly left Cubs camp to join Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic. Taillon had a decent showing in his start for Canada, as he tossed 3.2 innings and allowed one run on two hits, while striking out three and walking two. In four spring training starts with the Cubs Taillon has given up 23 earned runs. The numbers are beyond ugly as opponents have 21 hits off Taillon, including eight home runs. The veteran has only struck out six batters, while walking seven in 9.1 innings.
“We’ve seen a trend of some of my stuff ticking down.” That’s the scary part for Taillon. It’s not like he’s an overpowering pitcher nowadays anyway so he needs his stuff to be as crisp as possible to get to positive results. He’s going to pound the strike zone and that makes Taillon’s susceptible to getting hit around from time to time, but the steadiness also contributes to consistent performances out of the veteran pitcher.
However, if Taillon is losing the quality of his pitch mix, then the chances of him getting crushed will continue to increase. These bad spring training starts seem to point to that.
The good news is that it is only March. Taillon and the Cubs have time to figure things out, adjust and hopefully find a fix. Yet, that time will go away eventually and if Taillon can’t overcome his troubles, then the Cubs will have to look elsewhere in the rotation because they can’t afford to watch Taillon drain the pitching staff with non-competitive starts in the regular season.
