The Woodlands have carried on just fine without Pittsburgh Pirates draftee Jameson Taillon, who was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft. The big contributor to that? Why, it's Taillon's friend Bryan Brickhouse, who has just twiddled his thumbs to the tune of a 1.20 ERA and 96 strikeouts this season. The Houston Chronicle's Didier Morales posted a nice profile of Brickhouse, who now has pro scouts knocking on his door:
↵↵↵So Taillon invited Brickhouse to join him at the Texas Sports Medicine Center in Tomball for his offseason workouts. Before long, they were inseparable.
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They worked on their conditioning together. They kept each other accountable with their diets. They critiqued one another's bullpen sessions. They even played Xbox 360 together before games to loosen up.
"He's never been a lazy kid," said Taillon, who made his pro debut a week ago for the West Virginia Power, the Pittsburgh Pirates' Class A affiliate.
"I just think seeing the routine I go through - whether it's sleep, diet, lifting - he saw how much goes into being a really good pitcher and how it makes you better than talent alone."
Brickhouse was No. 86 on MLB Bonus Baby's Top 150 midseason prospects list. If he were drafted on that number alone, he'd be a second round pick in this year's draft. However, his stock could still rise depending on how The Woodlands does in the state playoffs. It's not completely out of the question that Brickhouse could follow Taillon's lead in another way: being a first round MLB draft pick.
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