Taijuan Walker has been perhaps the worst of all the terrible free agent signings Philadelphia Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has made. Walker’s inability to pitch at even a mediocre level led to his release earlier this year, and has opened up a gaping hole at the back end of the club’s rotation. Interestingly enough, the man the Phillies passed on to sign Walker, Jameson Taillon, finds himself up for grabs now and could help fix the Phils’ problem.
Harken back to the offseason heading into the 2023 campaign. The Phillies were coming off of a Cinderella pennant run and were looking to bolster what looked like a World Series-caliber squad. Dombrowski signed former batting champion Trea Turner (cringe) to a massive 11-year, $300 million contract to fill the void at shortstop, and brought in former All-Star Taijuan Walker to bolster a rotation that had lost Zach Eflin to free agency.
Walker’s four-year, $72 million pact was nearly identical to the four-year, $68 million deal the Chicago Cubs gave to Jameson Taillon that same winter. The two men had quite similar careers to that point, as Taillon had posted a 3.84 ERA over 787 ⅔ innings with 710 strikeouts to that point, while Walker had worked to a 3.89 career mark and fanned 806 hitters in 898 frames.
Until this season, it looked like Taillon was the clear winner between the two similarly compensated hurlers, as he fired 449 ⅓ innings of 3.93 ERA ball in his first three years on the North Side, while Walker was pummeled for an ugly 4.88 mark over 380 innings of his own. It was a miracle Walker wasn’t released halfway through his deal, considering he had a ghastly 7.10 mark in 19 games during the 2024 season, costing him his rotation spot.
The 2026 season was so bad for Walker that the Phils cut him loose after just five games in light of his 9.13 ERA and eight home runs allowed. The lowly Los Angeles Angels took a flier on him a few months ago, but even they couldn’t justify giving him a roster spot. Unfortunately, Taillon has only been marginally better this year.
The 34-year-old has been rocked for a 5.92 ERA across 15 starts for the Cubs, and has surrendered a National League-leading 25 homers in just 76 innings of work. That tragic performance finally led to Chicago cutting bait, as they designated the veteran for assignment on Monday.
Jameson Taillon could help make up for the Phillies' Taijuan Walker disaster
Just like Walker, there’s a decent chance Taillon is completely washed and has thrown his last pitch in Major League Baseball. His fastball is sitting under 92 miles per hour (more than three ticks lower than average), and his Baseball Savant page is almost entirely blue. In other words, there aren’t many reasons to be optimistic.
And yet, could Taillon be worth taking a flier on for the Phillies? Two of the club’s five rotation spots are scheduled losses, as franchise legend Aaron Nola simply doesn’t have it anymore, and the Walker/Andrew Painter/Alan Rangel hodge podge has failed to yield any results. Quite frankly, it can’t get much worse.
Taillon's skills may be fading, but even at the peak of his powers he wasn’t routinely blowing batters away, focusing more on guile and finesse to navigate games. He’s in the midst of the worst season of his career, and his ERA is still more than three runs lower than Taijuan Walker’s.
It would be lunacy for the Phillies to take on a meaningful amount of salary in order to acquire Taillon, but taking a no-risk flier on a distinguished veteran could help put a band-aid over a gaping hole in the team’s roster.
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