Chapter 1: What has Jameson Taillon experienced since being drafted second overall?
It's so good to hear from you, talk to you. By the way, this is, again, top of mind. Did Brazier ever give you the t-shirts? I asked this to Pete Crow Armstrong the other day, the red carpet.
Brazier did give me a t-shirt, yes.
All right. Okay.
You know what? If PCA wasn't sure, it's probably because he gets so much stuff all the time. I remember Brazier handing me that t-shirt.
All right, well, this is the most important thing. He actually, PCA did say, I think that he did say he got one. He actually got one. I gave him, and this is when I was, we had talked about this. The only time I met you really passing first time was in spring training. I was walking. We were getting kicked out of the clubhouse, and I gave you a sticker.
That time, I actually gave him a Japanese baseballs and boring T-shirt. Ah. So I got one for you if you want it. Now that you have your teammate back. Yeah. I put that sticker on my coffee grinder. Oh. It's science. It makes everything better. Well, congratulations on everything. And you were just talking about, it's funny because I remember our previous conversations.
You were walking out where you did it from the bullpen at Wrigley and you were saying how it reeked because of the Post Malone concert.
Yep. There's always something going on.
And so now we were just talking like now you're bobbing and weaving your way between goalposts, right?
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Chapter 2: How did Jameson Taillon reflect on his 2025 season and postseason?
Um, but I do think I will be in the best shape of my older life of my older veteran status. I think this will be the best shape I've been in, in four or five years.
All right. Oh, good. Awesome. You know what the best we, you know, we can have use all those measurements, force plate stuff and everything else. Here's the best measurement. Go to a wedding, wear a cummerbund. And then try to put that cummerbund on later, like in three months, right? So you just went to a bunch of weddings. You went to your brother's wedding. Yep.
I would imagine cummerbunds probably in Costa Rica weren't a thing, right? I mean, like, no.
I was wearing – I wore a double-breasted suit down there, and I was hot. I was sweating. But it was worth it because we just got some of the pictures back, and it looked good. Exactly. I wore a suit shirt, a button-down that I had made four or five years ago, and it still fit perfectly. That's kind of a good status check. We haven't lost any ground.
That's good. Listen, it's a good place to start. You've made it through wedding season. You're going to make it through Thanksgiving. And I feel good about where you're going to land. Like you said, best shape of your adult life? I don't know. Yeah, like veteran life. Veteran life. All right, well.
You know, I could talk forever about workouts and your lot in life and weddings and everything else, but I do want to congratulate you on a really good season. People should understand, especially how well you finished. Like, holy mackerel. Like, you finished really, really well.
Um, and so for you, when you look back and before we get to sort of the Cubs and the clubhouse and the team and accomplishments, I want to focus on you about how you feel. We talk about the evolution of you. Like you said, like you're, I forget what you said, a nerd or whatever it was, but. You develop a kick change.
You are the epitome of what pitchers should strive to be, which is someone who is embracing evolution and then actually implementing it. I'm here to build you up.
Yeah, no, thank you. I was literally thinking about this the other day, just like, When I first broke into the league, I threw 95, 96, 97. I only threw two pitches, two and a half pitches. My changeup was always the work in progress. But I was like, fastball, curveball, that was it. And, you know, just as time goes on, the game changes, your body changes, you know, your velocity changes.
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Chapter 3: What insights does Taillon share about the Cubs and Shota Imanaga?
It's impressive to see everyone come together and put together a plan like that.
That is awesome. I want that.
Yeah, no, it was like, it was impressive. And they're putting, you know, measurable things out there that you can test and compete against yourself with. And yeah, I mean, I just owe a lot of that finish to them. And again, it's crazy to me how much it's all changed.
Well, you said that you wanted to keep pitching. Obviously, you want to keep pitching, but there's different forms of wanting to keep pitching. Yeah, I want to go to the World Series, but you guys might be running on fumes. I don't know, but you weren't. And I always try to learn stuff from the World Series, from the postseason.
And the Dodgers are a tough one because the Dodgers, obviously, they are an embarrassment of riches, but they do things the right way. But what you're talking about sort of speaks to a lot of what we had Joe, our guy Joe Kelly on, and he was saying that. He flat out said, this is what the Dodgers do. They get you ready for the most important part of the season.
And I know that, like, that wasn't initially the plan for you, but still, like, that's the lesson. It was, okay, you have this break, you took advantage of it, and now, holy mackerel, you can pitch until November.
Yeah, and it's interesting because when I first got here in 23, I pulled my groin pretty quickly, and I was like, I want to get back as quick as possible, and I did, and then that put me on a really bad track. I rushed it, and that was on me. I was pounding the table. I need to get back. I need to be back as soon as possible, and I had six or eight starts.
It was the toughest stretch of my career. And now fast forward to 2025, I got hurt. And the conversation was more like, when you come back, like we want you to be absolutely ready to throw six, seven innings. We don't want you to come back and be on a, on a limit. We don't want you to come back and be, you know, not able to cover first base.
So, and a lot of that was with like eyes towards the post season. And who am I? Yeah. Who am I to argue? Good.
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Chapter 4: How has Taillon's perspective on training and injuries evolved?
So I don't know. I just feel really connected to this group. And I also think something's a little different. Like when you sign somewhere in free agency, like I feel just a real attachment to Chicago and the Cubs. Like they made a real commitment in me. I made a commitment in them.
And then just to see the progress here and to make the playoffs with this group, which was always the goal when I signed here, like it's just been really, really fun to be a part of. And, I mean, I could keep going on and on, like showing up and playing at Wrigley every day with this group of guys. Like it's hard to explain until you actually do it.
Chapter 5: What does Taillon mean by being in the best shape of his life?
But I think that that's obviously, you know, front offices will say that they want that, right? And you have to prioritize talent. I get that. But still, like there is that importance of it, right? And I don't know if there's guys like obviously Justin Turner is a great guy, right? He's probably a big part of that. So you get that guy knowing that 50% of his existence is going to be that.
But for you, like, do you look, I mean, you've been around enough. So again, you know how to build teams, the importance of building teams, what you should prioritize. Do you feel like it's something that you can do? And do you think it's something that teams are doing enough of?
Yeah, I just want to say, too, like, an interesting thing about our team is, like, it wasn't all, like, grab-ass hand-holding. Like, it wasn't rah-rah. Like, this is a, it was a real team. Like, yeah, it was fun to show up and play with everyone, but it was also a team in the terms of, like, guys would have honest conversations and, you know, the catchers weren't afraid to challenge you.
And, you know, me and Matt Boyd, yeah, we got really close, but, like,
we talk pitching and we talk sequencing and we'll ask each other what we were thinking in different situations so it's not all just like this happy-go-lucky right so i just played video games in the inside yeah yeah exactly right like i've had teams where it's just like i mean when we were young in pittsburgh like i made some of my best friends in the entire world on on those teams but like we were young and we didn't really know what it looked like i feel like here
Especially this past year, we just had so many great veteran players who have been in the playoffs, been on great teams. That set an example for the younger players. So I think some of it's intentional. I think some of it's the front office definitely being intentional. I think some of it's the culture that's just set here. I look at our position player group. It's hard as a starting pitcher.
I only pitch every fifth day. I can do what I can. But you have Dansby wanting to play every day, playing hard. You have Nico Horner playing as hard as he can every single day, trying to be in the lineup every single day. You have Ian Happ who just absolutely posts up. These guys take pride in their defense and their base running.
When you have those guys setting the example, I think it's a lot easier for everything else to just follow through with.
It is, and I don't want to say 30-somethings because that's not fair. But being around clubhouses, I think there's that importance of having guys like yourself who know how to get through a season, who understand what's important and what's not, who are secure in themselves. And then, like you said, then you introduced the younger players. We talk about PCA.
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Chapter 6: How does Taillon feel about his journey and evolution as a player?
Um, Um, and I mean, it's a one-year deal for a pitcher who's shown some like really good success over here. And I think Shota and the Cubs are a great marriage, like watching him fall, like kind of come over here and get close with our pitching group and our catchers. And, uh, And I think Shota helps the Cubs a lot. I think the Cubs help Shota. I think it's a perfect marriage.
I think they work really well together. And Shota makes us better. Talk about a guy who, like, every day when you show up, you're just excited to hear from Shota, see what he's got today. He's always in a great mood. He's always got something. And over the course of a season, that's important. He's always bringing something to the table, making you laugh.
Yeah, I mean, we have to, like, pretty much fill our whole bullpen, which we did a really cool job of last year. Like, what we thought our bullpen was going to be and where it ended. Talk about a group of guys with some stories, like Drew Pomeranz. Are you kidding?
Oh, what a great story.
Yeah, like Caleb Dielbar. Are you kidding me? Like, he's pitching huge innings for us in October. Brad Keller, NRI, coming in and throwing the eighth and ninth inning in leveraged spots. Like, Daniel Palencia has been up and down for us a lot the last couple years, and for him to come in and just really secure a big spot.
So, yeah, I mean, like, the team we came in to spring with and where we ended, our bullpen was, like, such a cool group of dudes and so low maintenance. Colin Ray, who is coming back, like, Pitching out of the pen, starting games, didn't matter. Like, the most low-maintenance teammate I've ever had. But, yeah, we need to fill the bullpen.
And I know they've been pretty vocal about trying to upgrade the starting rotation a bit. But I think it's really exciting that we return such a good position player group. You look around the field and pretty much every spot's spoken for.
And that's great because we've got some really great offensive players and exciting people and people that fans here in Chicago should feel good about buying their jersey and stuff. So yeah, maybe add a starting pitcher, beef up the bullpen a little bit. And our pitching crew does such a great job of identifying who they want and what traits they want that I trust that'll all come together.
By the way, you mentioned Pomerantz. I don't know if he told you any good John Lovitz stories. You know, he's tight with John Lovitz. No, he didn't. He didn't tell me any stories. I got all good kinds of Drew Pomerantz stories. His grandfather was in the NFL and the MLB. Yeah, so anyway.
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