Notice of the offer came through a third party. At the time, reliever Luke Taggart had no agent, no experienced hand to provide professional guidance. The 2021 First-Year Player Draft had just been completed. Over the course of three days last July, 612 college and high school players were selected during 20 rounds.
Taggart wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t that surprised. Right after the final selection, Skip Johnson called Taggart. Johnson is the pitching coach and head coach at Oklahoma where Taggart pitched last year, following four years at the University of Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Johnson had good news.
“Skip called me and said, ‘Hey, the Rockies are going to call you and offer you a deal for 20 grand,’ ” Johnson said. “ ‘Are you good with that?’ ”
“Absolutely, just have them call me,” Taggart said.
Several hours went by. Johnson sent intermittent texts, asking Taggart if the Rockies had called. The answer was always the same. They hadn’t. Johnson was getting exasperated. Finally, Rockies Director of Player Development Chris Forbes called Taggart. Forbes had completed work after the draft, had left the team’s Salt River Fields facility in Scottsdale and was in the Phoenix airport awaiting a flight to Denver.
The $20,000 deal was quickly agreed upon. The formality of signing a contract would come days later when Taggart reported to the Rockies team in the Arizona Complex League.
Because he had last pitched for Oklahoma on May 27, Taggart was not thrown into the ACL fray any time soon. The Rockies allowed him and the other pitchers they drafted to build up arm strength, to essentially go through a Spring Training scenario in mid-summer. Taggart made two ACL appearances on Sept. 9 and 14, working a combined three hitless innings with no walks and six strikeouts. Interesting. Hardly conclusive. But definitely interesting.
Four days after the ACL season concluded, the Rockies began their instructional league program at Salt River. Taggart made a distinct impression.
“He came to the Instructional League throwing 94–95 (MPH) with command,” Rockies Pitching Coordinator Doug Linton said. “We were all shocked that he didn’t get drafted.”
Taggart will turn 25 in October. So at the time of the draft, he was 23. Rockies scout Jesse Retzlaff, who covers Arkansas, Oklahoma and north Texas, said Taggart “was a guy on day three (of the draft) that I kind of wanted and targeted.” But with the draft shortened to 20 rounds last year, Taggart’s age worked against him.
Nonetheless, Forbes said Taggart’s impressive performance in the Instructional League made it apparent he could begin this season at High-A Spokane and bypass their Single-A Fresno affiliate. The decision was quickly justified.
The Rockies named Taggart their Minor League Pitcher of the Month for April. He accumulated, by far, the most points for the award, points being tabulated for various performance criteria that go well beyond the surface statistics. In Taggart’s case, the latter were gaudy. In six April games, he went 1–0 with two saves while pitching 11.1 scoreless innings. He allowed three hits and three walks with 14 strikeouts. Opponents batted .083 (3-for-36) against him.
(James Snook/Spokane Indians)
At 6-foot-3, 227 pounds and with a heavy black beard, Taggart has a confident, coming-at-you gaze and beneath it, the belief that whatever prowess the hitter might have it won’t be enough.
Assistant Director of Player Development Jesse Stender said, “He fills up the strike zone and he goes right after you.”
Director of Player Development Forbes said, “It’s good tempo, it’s intense, it’s maturity. His mound presence is fantastic.”
So is his overall presence. Spokane Pitching Coach Ryan Kibler said, “Off the mound, it doesn’t get any better than Luke. He is about as good a person as you can be. Intelligent, mature, focused. All the character attributes you’re looking for. Great teammate. Same happy guy, same mood every single day. Knows what he needs to do. Gets his work done.”
Taggart credits his father, Nathan, for his work ethic. The elder Taggart put in many hours working out with his son. Not with an eye toward playing professionally or even in college. Taggart went to high school in Portland, Texas, a Corpus Christi suburb. He “never thought I would play college baseball out of high school.” Getting good was the simple aim of the father-son workouts, not to reach some lofty collegiate perch. And indeed, Taggart’s only college offer came from Incarnate Word.
“My dad always said, ‘Baseball is fun. But it’s more fun when you’re good at it.’ ”
Kibler had a chance to meet Nathan Taggart in Spring Training, spotting him behind a fence on a back field at an exhibition game.
“I went up to him, and I said, ‘Hey, I don’t have any kids,’ ” Kibler said. “If I do, I hope you don’t mind if I call you, because I’d love for mine to turn out like yours have.’ ”
Taggart has proven to be a versatile reliever. He has thrown one inning once and five times, pitched two or more innings, topping out at 2.1. In seven games, he is 1–0 with three saves, working 13 scoreless innings with three walks and 17 strikeouts while limiting opponents to a .095 (4-for-42) average.
(James Snook/Spokane Indians)
Taggart sits at 93–94 mph with his fastball and has reached 96 mph a handful of times. He can command the pitch to both sides of the plate as well as up and down.
“When he does miss, he doesn’t miss by much,” Kibler said. “He never misses on the wrong side of the plate. It’s a smooth, free-and-easy delivery, and the ball just jumps out of his hand and it gets on hitters in a hurry. There’s a little bit of run to it. Sometimes it’ll sink for him on his arm side. And then when he makes that huge down-and-away pitch to a right-handed hitter, it’s a high-execution percentage. He nails that pitch anytime he wants to.”
Taggart’s slider is 82–84 mph and a pitch he commands. Kibler said, “The slider gets deep in the zone, and it disappears late. And hitters swing through it, swing over the top of it. He’ll get hitters to roll over it as well.”
“The slider plays really well to left-handed hitters,” Kibler added. “And when he keeps the ball on the correct side of the plate, that slider down and in to lefties is a weapon. And when he runs that fastball firm with some spin on it up and away to lefties, they’re not getting that either. He manipulates the left-handers’ bat angle is how I see it.”
Near the end of Spring Training, Taggart approached Kibler, telling him he didn’t have a good feel for his changeup, which was too hard. Recalling his professional pitching past, Kibler said his “breaking ball was so bad I had to have three different changeups.” So he had three different grip options for Taggart, who found one to his liking where the ball is deeper in his hand. It’s a pitch that will move away from left-handed hitters and one he’ll need as he rises through the farm system and faces better hitters.
“It kind of took me a while to get the feel for it,” Taggart said. “But I feel pretty comfortable with the grip I have. It’s consistently getting good movement to it, and I can locate it for the most part. Now I would like it to be a little bit softer.”
The pitch is now 87–89 mph. Taggart might throw his changeup no more than once, if that, when trying to preserve a slim lead. But entering a game at Eugene with a five-run lead in the sixth inning last month, Taggart had the luxury of throwing his changeup and did so six times.
“The ball moved like he wanted to,” Kibler said. “I think he lost a few of them off the plate but that’s going to turn into a swing-and-miss pitch for him when it shows the strike zone for a long time and then leaves the strike zone late. The more he throws it and the more he gets a feel for it, I think it can turn into an average Major League pitch.”
Not surprisingly, Forbes said Taggart’s changeup is “a big part of his development plan.” Ideally, Taggart’s development path will reach Double-A Hartford this season. At that point, there will be no talk of his age, because he’ll be lined up chronologically.
After his junior year at Incarnate Word (when he went 7–5 with a 3.68 ERA in 19 games, eight starts, and averaged 7.8 strikeouts and 1.7 walks per nine innings), Taggart told scouts he was going to play that summer in the California College League and return to Incarnate Word for his senior year.
“I’m not sure what would’ve happened if I would’ve done anything different,” Taggart said. “But I’m playing pro ball now, so that’s all that matters.”
Any hopes of getting drafted as a senior vanished early that season. He made four starts for Incarnate Word and went 2–2 record with a 3.08 ERA before the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the rest of the season. The regular 40-round draft became history. A five-round draft was held in June, not nearly enough rounds for Taggart to get taken.
“Going into my senior year, I figured I had a pretty decent chance to get picked up with a 40-round draft,” Taggart said. “But obviously, 40 rounds did not happen.”
After Incarnate Word, he wanted to spend a final collegiate season where he could get more exposure. He talked to Oregon and Houston but felt much better about his conversation with Skip Johnson, the Oklahoma head coach and pitching coach, and one of his assistants.
“It just seemed like OU was the right path for me,” Taggart said.
He went 1–6 with a 4.34 ERA and two saves in 21 games, two starts, for the Sooners. He averaged 3.4 walks and 12.8 strikeouts. After the season, Taggart thought he might not even get signed as a free agent.
“I didn’t get a lot of attention from scouts,” he said. “I didn’t talk to a whole lot (of them). I talked to three or four before the year started and two or three after the year ended. I didn’t have an advisor, so I had no inside information.”
Taggart now has an experienced agent. And the Rockies have a definite prospect.
The game has become Taggart’s job. Hard to believe. Show up at the ballpark day after day? For work?
“I’m done with school, so I don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to be doing anything else right now. Guys on the team are great. Some people don’t like to shag (fly balls) in (batting practice) or do (pitchers fielding practice). I love every bit of it. I look forward to it. There’s nothing that’s a drag, ever.”
Taggart graduated from Incarnate Word with a finance degree. At Oklahoma, he started his Master’s in Organizational Leadership and passed the exam needed for that degree in February. Graduation at Oklahoma is Friday night. Far from the ceremony, Taggart will be in the Spokane bullpen in Hillsboro, Ore.
“I didn’t get to walk the stage at UIW for Covid reasons,” he said. “And I’m going to miss this graduation, too. But that’s fine by me.”
Full article can be found at: https://rockies.mlblogs.com/luke-taggart-undrafted-to-pitcher-of-the-month-5229afd66785