Pirates' Taillon says elbow 'feels great' eight months after Tommy John surgery

Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Jameson Taillon provided an encouraging update on his reconstructed right elbow Friday, roughly eight months after the 23-year-old underwent Tommy John surgery.

"My elbow feels great," Taillon told Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Body feels great. It's a year just to work out and get stronger. My legs have gotten a lot stronger. Really, my whole body has gotten a lot stronger."

Once regarded as one of the game's most promising pitching prospects, Taillon's development was derailed when he was forced to miss the entire 2014 campaign after undergoing surgery in early April. Taillon admitted the rehabilitation was "grueling at first," and said he was tentative when he picked up a baseball on Aug. 1 to throw for the first time since his procedure.

"I was a little nervous," he said. "The ligament's either going to hold up or it's not. That thought in my head was kind of a morbid thought. I had to trust it [the ligament]. After the first couple throws, I started feeling better, more confident in it. Every day, my reps would increase or my distance would increase and that started building confidence and made me feel a lot better."

Taillon expects to throw off a mound for the first time since the procedure in January, and the former second overall pick will likely return to Triple-A Indianapolis when he's ready to pitch competitively again. A late-season promotion to the majors remains a possibility, but it's more likely that his debut with the Pirates will be pushed back to 2016.