Because the Cubs were ambling their way toward a just-never-quite-gonna-get-there playoff run, and because ShÅta Imanaga and Justin Steele understandably get the hype, AND because the Kyle Hendricks Farewell Tour was sucking up a lot of the attention, I keep thinking I haven’t said enough about Jameson Taillon’s 2024 season.
He sent out a clip yesterday about already having that itch to throw and start gearing up for 2025, and it put the topic back on my radar:
If the Cubs can get in 2025 what they got out of Taillon in 2024, I’m sure they will be thrilled.
With a 3.27 ERA over 28 starts and 165.1 innings pitched, 2024 was arguably Jameson Taillon’s best season since he was a 26-year-old Pirate back in 2018. That year, the up-and-comer who’d battled through arm injuries, surgeries, and cancer was just as good by the results (an almost identical ERA-, actually, at 81, compared with 82 this past season), and did it across 25 more innings and four more starts. The peripherals were better, too, so I suppose I won’t fully compare the two seasons, but still, the context is nice. Taillon was very, very good in 2024. He was just about as good as he was at the peak of his story with the Pirates.
How Taillon got there in 2024 was certainly interesting, as we saw that he’d evolved into much more of a contact-manager type at age 32, even as he was never necessarily a super elite strikeout artist. At just 18.5%, Taillon’s strikeout rate was actually 8th lowest in baseball among all pitchers who topped the 150-inning threshold. But he walked just about no one (his 4.9% walk rate was 8th best), he got a near-average groundball rate (rare for him), he had a very good barrel rate (7.2%, 21st in baseball), and his 1.14 HR/9 was his lowest in five years. I think it’s fair to say there was probably some good batted ball fortune there, and it appears he benefited from a down year for power at Wrigley Field. But, in total, it’s pretty hard not to be pleased with the season Taillon gave the Cubs, particularly when he’s not expected to be a front-two arm.
Moreover, I want to note just how good Taillon was down the stretch, as the Cubs were clinging to the barest thread of hope: 0.84 ERA over five starts and 32.0 IP, with a 3.01 FIP, and all five starts were Quality Starts. Just one pitcher managed more than 25.0 innings in September with a better ERA, and even he – Nick Martinez – managed to beat Taillon by just 0.01 earned runs. Taillon was very close to being, by ERA at least, the best pitcher in baseball in September.
Heading into 2025, the Cubs have Taillon for two more seasons at $17 million per year after electing not to trade him at the deadline. I think it’ll always be fair to debate that decision as it stood in the moment, but now that we’re quite far on the other side of it, I think it’s also fair to simply focus on how good it is to have Taillon in place in the rotation right now. That’s a very reasonable deal for a guy who projects at least to be a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter for the Cubs. If they can make good on their hopes to add another front-half arm, you might be looking at a guy who nominally slots in as one of the better fourth starters in baseball. And obviously he still has it in him to put up a year that you would never describe as “fourth starter” level.