Write this down: How journaling helped a Rays prospect dominate

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- During a bullpen session early in last year’s Spring Training, pitching coach R.C. Lichtenstein offered Rays prospect Taj Bradley some advice about throwing his cutter. It was a fairly advanced tip about how to throw the breaking ball and how to use it best against left-handed hitters. A few weeks later, after Bradley’s first start with Low-A Charleston, the right-hander pulled out a notebook and repeated the words back to Lichtenstein.

“And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty impressive,’” Lichtenstein said. “He understood the value of what I said, and he created a way to [have it] make sense for him, how it played into what he needed and kind of wrote notes on something that was a definite ‘tomorrow’ aspect.”

Bradley kept similar notes in a journal throughout his breakout 2021 season, when he was arguably the best pitcher in the Minors. The 20-year-old’s attention to detail and enthusiasm for learning, both evident in the pages of the notebooks tucked in a satchel he wears across his body throughout the day, helped propel him from the middle of the pack in the Rays’ deep system to a likely Top 100 Prospect in the coming year.

Those observations and annotations, combined with his physical evolution on and off the mound, also helped speed along the development of Tampa Bay's No. 6 prospect at the end of 2021, per MLB Pipeline. Lichtenstein said the Rays emphasize the idea that a coach’s answer should always lead to another question from a player. Their interaction after Bradley’s first start made Lichtenstein realize the two were bound for some interesting give and take throughout the season.

“When I saw how he was kind of grasping what I was saying, and how he was taking it and what he was making out of it, it kind of made me feel like I want to push more and see how much I can give this kid,” Lichtenstein said. “From then on, our conversations, our back-and-forths, were just really, really invigorating and cool and fun -- because we never had the same conversation twice.

“He would always make sense of stuff, and he would put it into play. And then he would come back with more questions about how we discussed it. 'Well, this is what I noticed in the game last, so where do we go from here?' … And so he kind of made that play out really well last year, and that was a joy to see.”

So was Bradley’s performance. The 6-foot-2 starter went 12-3 with a 1.83 ERA, a 0.93 WHIP, 123 strikeouts and 31 walks in 103 1/3 innings in 23 outings between Charleston and High-A Bowling Green. Throughout the year, he kept returning to the pages of his journal.

At first, Bradley said, he was treating it like a diary. But he found it “wrong or difficult” to write about his day, joking that he felt he should’ve been lying on his bed with his feet kicked up as he wrote. Eventually, he started using those pages to track his bullpen sessions and starts. He’d write what he did well each time out and what he could learn from the next time he took the mound.

“Never think too much on the past, just where I feel like I need to improve going forward,” Bradley said. “I just start off with a quick, like, 'You had a great game. You had a good outing. This is what you did well. You've been working on this. You did it. You succeeded.’ And maybe with, like, 0-2 pitches or put-away pitches or my cutter, just the development of it -- not a ‘con’ so much as improvements need to be made.”

He also writes down phrases that stick with him -- like Lichtenstein’s “athletic arrogance,” which changed his entire start-day demeanor -- or quotes he hears during podcasts, motivational talks and interviews with baseball players and celebrities (he cited Jim Carrey and Denzel Washington as two examples). Specifically, he likes hearing about the lessons people learned throughout their careers, believing he can benefit by, hopefully, avoiding the mistakes they said they made.

And yes, Bradley does this all by hand by putting pen to paper. His mother bought him three journals for Christmas, and he proudly noted that he purchased a $13 pen off Amazon for the assignment: “I feel like if I’m going to do it, do it big, right?”

“I'm kind of old school,” he added, smiling.

Beyond journaling, Bradley used the same two words -- “old school” -- to describe his approach on the mound. He intends to dive deeper into analytics this season, but he evaluates his arsenal in a more simple manner: “If I feel it’s good, it is good.” So Bradley will continue to lean on his mid-90s fastball, cutter and changeup while reintroducing the curveball he threw at the beginning of his professional career, then shelved in 2019.

Bradley was only 17 years old, with little pitching experience, when the Rays picked him in the fifth round of the 2018 Draft out of Redan High School in Stone Mountain, Ga. When Tampa Bay’s player development staff asked him about his routines in high school, Bradley said, “I don’t have anything. Just give me what you’ve got.”

Virtually a blank slate at the start of his professional career, Bradley has quickly developed into one of the most intriguing pitching prospects in baseball. And he’s still not a finished product.

“Like I always say, we're here to learn stuff and not be an instant big leaguer right away,” he added. “I learn from every pitching coach along my way. I mean, every single one -- something specific. It's pretty much one of those Power Ranger things, like those Zords or whatever: You put it together.”

Bradley admits he’s still figuring out what kind of pitcher he’ll be when it all comes together, but the Rays know what he is right now.

“Taj Bradley is a stud,” field coordinator Michael Johns said. “Just a tremendous, tremendous kid.”