Brayden Taylor had a disappointing season. Ranked seventh when our Tampa Bay Rays High 56 Prospects listing was printed final February, the 23-year-old infielder went on to slash .173/.289/.286 with eight residence runs and a 77 wRC+ over 437 plate appearances with Double-A Montgomery. It was a precipitous fall from the earlier summer season, when Taylor homered 20 instances with a 143 wRC+ between Excessive-A Bowling Inexperienced and the Double-A Biscuits.
I requested Taylor, a 2023 first-round select of Texas Christian College, about his lackluster efficiency within the early weeks of the Arizona Fall League season, the place he was suiting up with the Mesa Photo voltaic Sox.
“Generally in baseball you simply get a bit of bit out of sync,” stated Taylor, who rallied to the tune of a .264/.400/.472 line within the hitter-friendly AFL. “Your sequence doesn’t really feel good. Your physique doesn’t really feel good. Your mentality isn’t the best. I simply didn’t have my greatest yr on the plate.”
His balls-in-play luck going within the mistaken course performed an element in that. The West Jordan, Utah native noticed his BABIP plummet from a wholesome .322 in 2024 to a completely irritating .229 in 2025. No certified hitter at or above his degree of the minors had a decrease mark. Whereas high quality of contact was undeniably an element — not squaring up the baseball has its penalties — such a precipitous slide is nonetheless each unusual and merciless.
It’s also price noting that Taylor didn’t turn into more and more whiff-prone or lose his grasp of the strike zone. His 14.0% stroll price and 27.7% strikeout price have been almost similar to what they have been a yr prior.
Taylor didn’t bemoan his poor fortune once I talked about the BABIP-decline that accompanied his principally unchanged stroll and strikeout charges. As a substitute, he elaborated on having been out of sync.
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“At the start of the yr, I truly felt fairly good,” Taylor instructed me. “I used to be making outs, however I used to be in the precise ballpark. Then I sort of began looking for issues that I didn’t have to seek for. That’s once I began getting out of whack, out of sequence. I used to be attempting to seek for outcomes when what I ought to have been doing was trusting the method. However I did begin to make some bodily changes within the field towards the top. We noticed some progress. I began taking part in some higher baseball.”
The tweaks, which have been prompted by his coaches and coordinators, centered on how he rotated out of his load.
“The most important factor we centered on was my hip line,” defined the lefty-hitting Taylor. “My hips have been staying too far uphill with my leg carry. As a substitute of bringing my leg straight up and down, we labored on bringing it to my midsection to maintain the hips on-line in order that I could be in a greater place at launch.
“Doing that modified my bat path,” he added. “As a substitute of my physique being so uphill, and the bat simply arising and out of the zone, the adjustment allowed me to remain within the zone so much longer. The bat being within the zone so much longer is what I need. I need to have the ability to hit via seven baseballs, not come up and hit solely one among them. Proper? I need to have that adjustability to have the ability to keep via it and hit as many balls as I can.”
And once more, squaring them up for onerous contact on a extra constant foundation is a should. Taylor clearly has the instruments to try this — he was a first-round decide for a motive — so it’s a matter of his mechanical changes bearing fruit. Ditto his means to clear the psychological hurdles that each participant faces on this sport of failure. To Taylor’s credit score, he acknowledges that improvement isn’t linear, and that generally it is advisable to go backward with a view to go ahead.
“It is rather obvious that I didn’t have the yr I wished to,” stated Taylor. “However I’m additionally grateful to have had it, as a result of I might reasonably undergo some modifications and learn to cope with the failure. That’s a giant a part of this sport, persevering with to make changes and with the ability to cope with adversity. I’m excited to proceed working — that’s why I’m out right here [in the AFL] — and take the work into subsequent season.”
Rely Erik Neander amongst those that stay bullish the teen’s potential.
“He was a participant that everything of our main league employees cherished him when he came visiting,” Tampa Bay’s president of baseball operations instructed me. “Nicely-rounded, the low heartbeat, the offensive potential. It simply didn’t occur for him this previous yr. He acquired off monitor and couldn’t actually get well, however he hung in there. It’s a part of the event course of, a part of rising up as a participant. Brayden wanted to make some changes, and we’ll see the place these take him. [The 2026 season] will likely be massive for him.”