Central Michigan has produced a lot of great football talent over the last couple of decades, and while they have produced some baseball talent, it hasn’t always been known for baseball. In the 2021 draft, the Astros selected pitcher Andrew Taylor in the second round, the highest player selected from Central Michigan since the 1980s. As a matter of fact, there have only been five players from Central Michigan selected in the top 2 rounds of the MLB draft. Andrew Taylor might have the most potential of any of them.
At this point in his career, Taylor is still growing into his body. The 6’5″ right hander has plenty of room to add to his frame and this has been a process since he first made it to campus.
“Obviously I put on a little bit of weight. I came in, I think I was 6’5” 175 dripping wet. Got in the weight room a little bit, got after it in that aspect. Just getting stronger,” Taylor said. “That’s kind of why the coaches took a chance on me and putting me out there in the field as a freshman very early on. That kind of helped along with developing all the pitches,” Taylor added.
With the added strength came improvement on the mound too. “Obviously, the fastball velocity increased as I got stronger, just followed suit with not being a super tall skinny high school kid,” Taylor said.
Being a “small-town” prospect, the coverage of a player of his caliber wasn’t the same as some of the other top guys going into the draft. That wasn’t due to the lack of success. Taylor was dominant in college posting a 1.81 ERA in 94.1 innings as a 19-year-old sophomore and then striking out 126 in just 84 innings as a junior.
“I talked with Scott (Oberhelman) before, the area scout up there, I knew they had some interest in me but I didn’t know how serious a lot of the interest was because I was just, you know a small town prospect and kind of just enjoy my time as a small town prospect,” Taylor said.
Following the draft, most players go down to the complex in Florida where they work with coaches and trainers before heading to an assignment, typically Fayetteville. Taylor, unfortunately, didn’t get to pitch following the draft. Not for any bad reason, but the Astros wanted to take it slow with him.
“As the competitor in me it was frustrating. I like to get out there, I like to get after hitters, attacking the strike zone is kind of what has been ingrained in me,” Taylor said. “But also I knew that I had to develop.. I was this raw college guy that had really at that time one, maybe two pitches and I knew I needed to work on that. As frustrating as it was, I knew the development aspect the Astros do is second to none,” Taylor added.
He eventually got on the mound this season and has found success. The 21-year-old has a 3.791 ERA with 76 strikeouts in 50.2 innings. He has continued to develop his pitches including working on grips and angles, all while facing live hitters and accumulating season statistics.
“I messed around with a bunch of different grips and bunch of different ways to throw pitches, and a bunch of different techniques and such, really the only two that are the same (from college) are the fastball and the changeup,” Taylor said. “The slider we have completely different grip, the curveball we messed around with finger placement and such, started to work on a cutter a little bit now too,” Taylor added.
While there are many differences between college baseball and professional baseball, one of the main difference is winning vs. development. “Just trusting it because in college it was all about throwing strikes and here it’s about developing and getting better. Its been a good learning process,” Taylor said.
The learning and the adjustment between the two levels has been a good challenge for Taylor, as it is for any player making that transition.
“It’s been a learning curve. You go from college, Central Michigan was pretty on your own. You had to learn about your body but that is on a 7-day rotation,” Taylor said. “You think you figure it all out, you get here and it’s a 6-day rotation occasional 5-day rotation. It’s not all about throwing strikes, as much as that’s the name of the game, but where we’re at it’s about developing and helping you propel your career forward,” Taylor added.
A focus for this year, on top of overall development, is relying on his off-speed pitches more. Taylor said in college he relied on the fastball the majority of the time. Now, he has to work on switching things up to keep hitters guessing.
“Obviously it’s still a work in progress everyday but I feel more confident just in throwing them more. Like we talked about, in college I was 80-85% fastball where I’d throw 2-3 curveballs a game and that was it. Now we are just upping the usage on some of the breaking pitches is only going to help grow,” Taylor said.
Given his frame and size, one could imagine he would add some velocity to his fastball. Fortunately, he has added to it this year, though it hasn’t been a seamless process.
“I’ve been growing through some… like I said learning about my body a little bit and some backside, having to strengthen that back up,” Taylor said. “But at the beginning of the year, yes, then I kind of went down to what I was in college and now I’m going back up there and keeping the same kind of metrics and stuff. Just getting stronger,” Taylor added.
While he is only about 50 innings into his professional career, he has shown the potential to be one of the top pitching prospects in the system. The day after we spoke, Taylor struck out 9 over 4 scoreless innings showing off that potential. The highs this year and really high and if he continues to develop and improve, he will be on his way up the ladder to Houston.
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