Chicago White Sox Move Prospect Grant Taylor To Bullpen For Multiple Reasons

After starting six games for Double-A Birmingham this season, Grant Taylor pitched out of the bullpen on Wednesday. The move is a product of managing his workload due to previous injuries and believing he could begin his MLB career in 2025 as a reliever, assistant general manager Josh Barfield said.

Chicago White Sox pitcher Grant Taylor (81) poses for a photo on media day at the team’s spring training facility in Glendale, AZ. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

CINCINNATI – White Sox assistant general manager Josh Barfield spoke before Tuesday's game against the Reds about a variety of topics around the organization.

That included the bevy of pitchers the White Sox have acquired in recent seasons who've turned into some of organization's top prospects. The team's top three pitching prospects are left-handers Noah Schultz (No. 13 in MLB Pipeline rankings) and Hagen Smith (No. 30) and right-hander Grant Taylor.

The White Sox selected Taylor with the No. 51 overall pick in the second round of the 2023 MLB Draft out of LSU. Since being promoted to Double-A Birmingham before the regular season, he's had immediate success. In 18.1 innings, he's allowed just three earned runs while striking out 21 batters and walking 10. That's good for a 1.47 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP.

But the White Sox are exercising caution from a workload standpoint with Taylor for a few reasons. Shortly before the 2023 season, he suffered an elbow injury that required him to
undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the entire season . He was limited to 16 innings with Single-A Kannapolis last season due to a lat injury.

Since 2022, he hasn't pitched more than 31 innings in any season. Across seven appearances this season, he's thrown between 17 and 59 pitches in each outing and no more than three innings. He began the season as a starting pitcher, but he pitched out of the bullpen for the first time all year on Wednesday.

Barfield explained that Taylor moved to the bullpen not only to manage his innings, but also because he might be able to impact the major league club this season.

"I think it's both, right? I think there is a definite possibility that at some point he comes up here and especially early on, that could be as a reliever," Taylor said. "You see a lot of guys, as they break in, that role is as a reliever, and then it can grow into more, grow to a starter."

"But it's that and it's managing the work load. He's a guy between the injuries, in college and last year, he's missed a lot of time. So knowing that he's not going to be able to go out there and throw 130, 140 innings this year. So we want to make sure we manage those innings and save enough so if the opportunity comes up, maybe later on in the year for him to come up, he still has he has some work in him left."

The White Sox used a similar strategy when Garrett Crochet broke into the big leagues. After selecting him with the 11th overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, Crochet pitched six innings out of the bullpen for the White Sox during the 2020 season. He eventually turned into an All-Star starting pitcher for the White Sox in 2024, before being traded to the Boston Red Sox for prospects Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth and Wikelman Gonzalez.

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