With electric stuff and confidence, Marlins’ Max Meyer impresses in first spring training game
Max Meyer was sitting in the Marlins’ clubhouse finishing his postgame meal as Sandy Alcantara approached him.
“Stuff looks really good, man,” the Miami Marlins’ ace of the present told their top pitching prospect of the not-so-distant future.
A notion of validation after an eye-opening performance.
Meyer, the No. 3 prospect in Marlins organization and No. 35 in all of baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, threw four perfect innings in Miami’s 3-0 win over New York Mets in his first career big-league spring training game at Jupiter’s Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium.
He struck out five of the 12 batters he faced, with all five coming on his slider — the premier pitch in his arsenal. Twenty-eight of his 43 pitches went for strikes, with 16 of those 28 either being called strikes or swings and misses.
This came against a Mets lineup that, while not at full strength, featured five players with considerable MLB experience.
And he got a vote of approval from the starting pitcher everyone in the organization looks up to.
“It’s awesome to hear that,” the 23-year-old Meyer said, a smile appearing from his usually-stoic face. “You need that sometimes.”
‘Good butterflies’
That’s not to say Meyer wasn’t confident he could do it. His confidence never seems to waver.
But there are nerves that come with making that first impression, especially as a highly touted starting pitching prospect in an organization filled with quality starting pitching.
Those jitters finally hit Meyer a few hours before he stepped on the mound.
“Good butterflies,” Meyer said. “I always want to have those when I can. I can never get too comfortable.”
His stuff was pretty good, too.
He threw 19 fastballs, which averaged 96.3 mph and topped out at 97.6 mph. Of his 14 sliders, 10 were called strikes or swings and misses. He threw 10 changeups as well as he continues working a quality third pitch into his arsenal.
“I felt like I was pretty good,” Meyer said. “I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to be, but I felt like I was pounding the zone pretty good. I fell behind in a couple counts but I just wanted to challenge them.”
It didn’t take long to leave an impression on some of his big-league teammates.
“He was unbelievable,” said Brian Anderson, who started in left field Monday. “His stuff was electric. It was fun to watch. ... He brought great energy on the mound. He was throwing hard and throwing strikes, and that’s what you want out of a young guy while he’s up here showing us what he can do.”
“No fear,” added catcher Jacob Stallings, who was behind the plate for three of Meyer’s four innings. “He’s coming right after everybody. All of his pitches played well today. Obviously the slider is kind of his calling card and you could see why today. It was pretty nasty.”
Balancing experience with development
It was a moment the Marlins feel was worth the wait.
Meyer began spring training last year as a non-roster invite but didn’t get into a Grapefruit League game. Marlins manager Don Mattingly said the goal for Meyer that year was “getting comfortable in big-league camp.”
“We don’t want Max coming over to a game and trying to throw 100,” Mattingly said then. “We want him to get ready to pitch this season, continue his development, and we think there’s a real risk with those young guys kind of trying to impress and doing too much too early. It’s a danger in camp and that’s something we’re gonna stay away from.”
That’s far from the case this year, with Meyer having a full season of professional baseball under his belt. Meyer went 6-4 with a 2.27 ERA, 130 strikeouts and 42 walks and a .221 batting average against in 22 starts (20 with Double A Pensacola, two with Triple A Jacksonville) last season.
However, there are other factors putting caution into how much and how often Meyer pitches in live games this spring.
The biggest of those is that Meyer has already ramped up to the point where he is throwing between five and six innings, a benefit of taking part in the Marlins’ minor-league development camp that has been going on in Jupiter since February. The priority is keeping his routine intact so that he’s ready when the minor-league season begins, which for Meyer will most likely be April 5 with the Triple A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
If that means they can get him an inning on a day he was set to throw a bullpen? Great. If not, he’ll continue getting his work in on the back fields.
“We don’t want to back him down to getting an inning every six days, and then his season starts and he’s not ready,” Mattingly said. “The main thing with Max has been keeping him on a schedule. Hopefully it falls with us where you can piggyback with guys. But sometimes it’s going to fall on the other fields.”
The first impression
The scheduled aligned Monday, and the first impression came with it.
He walked onto the mound in the third inning to piggyback off Elieser Hernandez, the projected No. 4 starter in the Marlins’ rotation who threw the first two frames.
The show began immediately.
Meyer threw a nine-pitch third inning, striking out Matt Reynolds on three pitches before Luis Guillorme lined out to Brian Anderson in left field on a 2-1 count and J.D. Davis flew out to right on a 1-0 count. Nine pitches, six strikes, three outs.
He struck out Dominic Smith swinging and Mark Vientos looking in the fourth, with a Daniel Palka comebacker to the mound happening in between.
In the fifth, he struck out Nick Plummer on three pitches, corralled a comebacker from Tomas Nido for a groundout and got Khalil Lee to line out to left.
And he capped his time on the mound with a seven-pitch sixth inning, including a swinging strikeout of Guillorme.
“It was good,” Mattingly said. “I think that’s smart last year what development wanted to do with these guys. Get the into camp, let them experience camp and everything else. ... Now, he’s been down here a while. You see him go four today; he probably could have kept going.”
When or if Meyer will appear in another spring training game is undetermined at this point. Miami only has 12 more before Opening Day on April 8 and Mattingly has to make sure the pitchers who are going to be on the big-league roster have innings available.
But the next time Meyer steps on a mound — either in a spring game, the backfields or in the minor leagues — he has Monday as a building block for the next stage of his career.
“I think the biggest thing to take out of this is the confidence that I should have every single time I go out there,” Meyer said. “Know who I am and know that if I compete out there, it’s going to be just fun.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 4:20 PM.
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