Taillon debuts 'sweeper,' new swing-and-miss weapon

MESA, Ariz. -- Jameson Taillon did not want to wait until Spring Training to begin his new pitch project with the Cubs. Over a video call after he signed in the offseason, he picked up a baseball and went over a revised slider grip with the team's staff.

From there, Taillon began testing out his new "sweeper" slider in bullpen sessions, sending Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and assistant pitching coach Daniel Moskos video and data for feedback. By the time they all convened in Arizona this spring, the group was deep into the process.

"He's hungry, eager to work, willing to be coachable, always receptive to information," Moskos said. "He's kind of the perfect type of guy in that regard when you talk about someone to work with. I mean, he's so open minded, you almost have to, like, guide him away from information sometimes."

On Friday morning, Taillon stepped onto the mound on Field 1 at the Cubs' complex and faced hitters in live batting practice for the first time this spring. Hottovy looked on from behind a nearby screen, Yan Gomes did the catching and Nico Hoerner and Patrick Wisdom stepped into the box.

It was a brief session, but it was the first chance for Taillon to test out his deep and evolving arsenal against batters. There were a handful of sweepers mixed in -- with members of Chicago's analytics group tracking metrics behind the backstop -- and the general feedback was it was a good first audition for the new pitch.

"It seemed like his slider had a little more break to it today," Hoerner said. "I mean, he's a guy that can go pretty much every direction with baseball, with a four-seam with life, two-seam in on you, short cutter, bigger slider, changeup down. Like, you're covering all ends of the spectrum."

That wide-ranging arsenal, combined with elite command, helped convince the Cubs to hand Taillon a four-year, $68 million deal in free agency. Director of pitching Craig Breslow met with the pitcher in New York during the courting process, and they talked pitching for a couple of hours. Taillon felt an immediate level of comfort and got to work with the Cubs' pitching infrastructure as the ink was still drying on his contract.

Taillon had mulled adding the new slider -- one with sharper horizontal movement to evade the swings of righty hitters -- for a couple of years. But the disjointed nature of the last few seasons, in which the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockout messed with baseball's calendar, made it challenging to tackle that type of project.

With a normal offseason, and a team that brought the same concept to him after he signed, Taillon felt this was the spring to see if the new weapon was a realistic fit for his pitch mix. So far, he likes the early returns.

"I'm encouraged by both … the eye test and how it feels personally, and then also the numbers and the metrics behind it," Taillon said. "I kind of know what I want it to look like and feel like, so now it's just kind of chasing that and nailing it down."

Last season, the 31-year-old Taillon turned in a 3.91 ERA with 151 strikeouts and 32 walks in 177 1/3 innings with the Yankees, his second with New York after four with Pittsburgh. The big righty led the way with his four-seamer (35.7 percent), followed by his slider (18.8 percent), curve (14.8 percent), cutter (11.1 percent), sinker (11.1 percent) and changeup (8.5 percent).

The idea with the sweeper is to give Taillon a better swing-and-miss pitch against right-handed batters. The pitcher explained the perfect-world scenario as having the sweeper replace his old slider, which would be in his back pocket if needed. And that, in turn, could help Taillon utilize his cutter in a variety of ways.

"I can manipulate my cutter a little bit," Taillon said. "Make it bigger, make it shorter, add velo, subtract velo. My cutter grip is similar to my previous slider grip, so I feel like I'll have some wiggle room there with what I want the cutter to look like."

This project has moved beyond the conceptual phase and into experimentation with hitters. Over the next six weeks, Taillon and the Cubs will continue to test things out, gather data and adjust as the clock ticks down to Opening Day.

"I think there's still more in there," Hottovy said. "I think there's still more that we can continue to unlock as Spring Training goes on."