Taylor Teagarden

[Brandon Glick]

Taylor Hill Teagarden is a former professional baseball catcher who played in parts of eight MLB seasons, including eight games with the Chicago Cubs in 2015.

Teagarden was a high school star before plying his trade at the University of Texas, where he won the 2005 National Championship as the Longhorns' starting catcher. He was subsequently drafted in the third round of the 2005 MLB Draft by the Texas Rangers, keeping him local after growing up in nearby Carrollton, Texas.

By WAR, Teagarden's best season was his 47-at-bat cup of coffee with the Rangers in 2008, when he produced 1.0 WAR. His first major league hit was a home run off Scott Baker (then of the Minnesota Twins), and he set a major league record with 10 extra-base hits in his first 40 plate appearances (a record which has since been tied by Rowdy Tellez in 2018). The rest of the backstop's tenure in Texas was rather underwhelming, save for a 2008 cameo with the 2008 USA Summer Olympics Baseball Team and a bizarre situation in 2010 when he finished fourth among catchers in AL All-Star voting despite spending nearly the entire season (to that point) in the minor leagues.

Following the 2011 season, Teagarden was traded to the Baltimore Orioles, and that would begin the nomadic second chapter of his MLB journey. He played in 45 games across two seasons with the Orioles before being DFA'ed, then drew 30 plate appearances for the New York Mets in 2014 after signing a minor league deal in the previous offseason. Finally, Teagarden signed a minor league deal with the Chicago Cubs on January 10, 2015, in what would prove to be the final stop of his career.

The Cubs recalled Teagarden in early July of that season with a sudden need for catching depth behind starter Miguel Montero. His time with the team was relatively unremarkable, as he slashed a hilarious .200/.200/.200 in 15 at-bats with the team, which was good a -0.2 WAR and 11 OPS+ (2 wRC+). Notably, at a game yours truly was in attendance for, Teagarden — who was pinch-hitting for the pitcher's spot after a double-switch swapped out Chris Denorfia earlier in the game — hit a game-winning single off of prime Aroldis Chapman on July 22, 2015. Chapman hadn't allowed a run since June 8 and had 13 scoreless outings since then, and beyond that, no Cubs team had scored a run off Chapman in more than two years, since May 3, 2013 (and they lost that game anyway despite scoring three runs off Chapman). That had been a run of 15 consecutive scoreless outings for Chapman against the Cubs, until Teagarden's hit.

That's where the good vibes ended for the catcher, though. After lasting just one month with the team, Teagarden was DFA'ed by the Cubs on August 2, 2015.

Teagarden's playing days came to an end following that brief stint with the Cubs, though only after he was cited in the infamous Al Jazeera report that linked him directly to repeated PED usage. Teagarden was suspended for 80 games for violating the MLB's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, which would unceremoniously end his career. The catcher officially retired after the conclusion of the 2017 season.

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