Recently, Taylor Williams has bounced around from team to team and has also been plagued by injuries, minimizing his innings the past 3 years. In his second year in the league in 2018, Williams threw 53.0 innings over 56 games. However, the next 3 years, Williams has only thrown a total of 41 innings. Last year, Williams suffered a knee injury that put him out from April until September and was also dealing with a shoulder injury in early March. While we haven’t got to see Williams pitch for an extended period of time recently, his numbers are still something to admire.
Williams comes in with the 9th lowest release height of 2021 with a height of 4.6 feet. Williams is a 3 pitch pitcher, throwing a slider 45% of the time, a fastball 31% of the time and a sinker 24% of the time. Williams has an above-average slider coming in with about 2500 RPM and 38 inches of drop. However, Williams’ best pitch by profile is his sinker. This pitch drops 29 inches and runs 16 inches away from a lefty.
Williams has been a slightly below-average pitcher in terms of ERA+. The only times he has been over 100 is when he has pitched 5 games a year so obviously a small sample size. 2021 did show his second-highest ERA+ since his breakout season in 2018 posting a 93. Taylor has the metrics to make him a successful pitcher moving forward, as long as he can stay on the field.
Williams is currently a free agent and hopefully can fix his injury woes in order to return to a bullpen as soon as the lockout is over. Williams has played for 3 teams the past three years and if he can stay healthy, he has proved that he can be a solid bullpen piece for a team moving forward.
