The Houston Astros traded outfielder George Springer’s best friend on the team the first week of December. It’ll be up to southpaw reliever Blake Taylor and teenage outfielder Kenedy Corona to help soften the psyche blow of losing fan fave outfielder Jake Marisnick to the New York Mets. But, it’ll take a while.

The 6’2″, 220-pound Taylor is still pounding out his career path while still molding just what kind of pitcher he’ll be. If his boyhood idol is any indication, the kind of pitcher he’d like to be is former Astro, five-time Cy Young award winner, and Hall-of-Famer Randy Johnson.

Taylor was a high school draftee, but now, at 24, the Astros may be counting on him to be a key left-handed, high-leverage bullpen cog by mid-season 2020.

From previous trades to sudden premature emergency promotions, Taylor has seen his share of challenges already and has built a history of work ethic and grit to meet them.

Defying the Numbers

Blake Michael Taylor was born in Orange, California and was raised in the tony, conservative, surfing mecca of Dana Point, home to the annual spring Festival of Whales, in waters he spent many summers scuba diving.

With dreams of becoming a Navy SEAL, he attended Dana Hills High School, where he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2013 at a surprisingly high 51st overall pick. Surprising because Taylor was not even on MaxPreps’ preseason top 100, but he was #47 on Perfect Game’s rankings at the time. Player projection, to the surprise of no one, is an inexact science.

Highlights for Taylor his senior year included leading the Dolphins to two particular victories. In a game in April, he logged nine strikeouts in five innings, allowing three runs on three hits. It was matched in an outing striking out nine en route to a 6-2 victory in March where he gave up six hits and one run over six innings of work.

The Bucs’ Draft Horse Dealt

Taylor spent just a year on Pittsburgh’s rookie league affiliate (GCL Pirates) as a 17-year-old before being shipped to the Mets, who were grooming him as a rotation piece. He started 37 of 55 games over four years through 2018.

Tommy John surgery in 2015 may have urged the Mets to alter their plans for Taylor, but he remained largely in the rotation until 2019 to mixed results. In 2018, he made a quality start for New York’s Advanced-A Florida State League St. Lucie Mets in May of that year; pitching with a big lead, he allowed just four hits and two runs in six innings, earning his first win for St. Lucie.

Double-Take: The Two-Rung Jump Up the Ladder

Taylor was with those same High-A Mets in Daytona Beach, Florida in late May 2018 when his phone rang on a Sunday morning. He was needed in Nevada for an immediate spot start for the Mets’ Triple-A Las Vegas 51s the next day. The parent Mets had promoted a pitcher for a doubleheader start, which created the emergency express trip for Taylor to the top minor league team, allowing him to avoid Double-A altogether (at least until his 18 games in 2019).

The next day, several family and friends were able to come up from southern California to watch Taylor pitch the 51s to a 10-2 stomping of the Tacoma Rainiers, AAA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. Taylor hurled six innings and gave up just one unearned run in front of his loved ones. He allowed three hits and struck out six.

“This is probably my best start of the year, so I’m really happy that it was here,” Taylor told the Las Vegas Review-Journal at the time. With a perfect understanding of the situation and the process, Taylor explained, “(I was) just trusting what my catcher was putting down. I know he’s got a lot of time in The Show, so I was really just trusting him and trusting myself.”

“…Very Impressed”

Taylor revealed to the paper that he had gotten more scouting reports on hitters at Las Vegas than at St. Lucie, which made him more comfortable with his game plan.

While he ran into some trouble in the fifth inning, he was able to limit the scoring in that inning to just a run, on catcher’s interference. Impressing many, he proceeded to strike out former MLB All-Star Jayson Werth to leave the bases loaded. Werth retired just three weeks later.

“It’s not easy,” 51s manager Tony DeFrancesco said of his new star. “These guys are coming up two levels and this is a very difficult field [Vegas’ Cashman Field] to pitch at, and they both threw strikes early. They made some pitches; very impressed with both of them.”

Taylor just finished a nine-inning, seven-game layover at the Arizona Fall League, where he walked two but struck out 11. He gave up only two runs on five hits.

“We Really Like His Stuff”

Taylor can touch 97 mph on the gun, with short-burst shots at the mid-90s. His velocity from a three-quarters arm slot increased as he moved from the rotation to a more full-time bullpen role just this past season across three levels of the Mets’ system, topping out at AAA (for just a third of an inning). He posted a solid 2.16 ERA in 66.2 combined innings, with 10 saves at A+ and AA in 2019.

After moving to a full-time bullpen gig, Taylor struck out 10 batters per nine. The control issues which hounded him as a starter disappeared as he reduced his walk rate to 3.2 BB/9.

Metsdaddy.com recently reported that Taylor has “platoon neutral splits.” With MLB instituting a rule in 2020 mandating that relievers face at least three batters, “LOOGYs [left-handed, one-out guys] are being effectively eliminated. That makes pitchers like Taylor all the more valuable.” Metsdaddy concluded, “Certainly, the Astros seem to know that by making this move.”

The Astros were also shrewdly attracted to Taylor’s reportedly high curveball spin rate, which will be a natural focus for exploitation and honing by Houston’s pitching coach, Brent Strom.

The combo of an effective sinking fastball and baffling curve from a lefty could prove to be a valuable weapon out of the Houston ‘pen, with a current dearth of southpaws currently housed there. The lion’s share of his time in the Mets organization was spent zeroing in on mastering his changeup.

“We’re interested in taking a look at [Taylor],” Houston GM Jeff Luhnow said the day of the trade. “We really like his stuff. He’s certainly going to be evaluated thoroughly during Spring Training.

“Whether or not he makes our club this year remains to be seen, but he’s a guy we expect to be pitching in the big leagues the next couple of years.”

Gathering all the facts from his rise to this point, Blake Taylor appears to be more than willing, eager, and able to bite off whatever challenge the Astros place before him. To that end, seeing him in a AAA Round Rock Express uniform after spring camp seems to be his next logical stop.

As far as making his MLB debut with the Astros, Taylor will be looking for 2020 to be the year his reach exceeds his grasp.