Marlins lose Meyer for year; where rotation now stands. And Marlins add pitching prospect
Not long after getting one starting pitcher back from injury, the Marlins have lost two more.
Max Meyer, the team’s third overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, will miss the remainder of the season after being diagnosed with a significant hip injury, the team announced late Tuesday night.
Meyer becomes the second Marlins pitcher ruled out for the season, joining Braxton Garrett, who will miss all of 2025 after January elbow surgery.
Meanwhile, another starter — Ryan Weathers — was placed on the 60-day injured list on June 10 with a lat strain and is expected to be sidelined until mid-August.
From the glass-half-full perspective, Sandy Alcantara has been very effective recently (allowing seven earned runs in his last 23 innings) and Eury Perez has regained his velocity during his first three starts back from Tommy John surgery, hitting 100.4 mph on a strikeout in a game last week.
Meyer will undergo left hip labral repair surgery on Friday in Nashville. The Marlins expect the 26-year-old right hander to be ready for 2026 spring training.
“Disappointed to get the news that Max’s season this year is over,” manager Clayton McCullough told MLB. com and a few other reporters in San Francisco before Miami’s 4-2 win against the Giants on Tuesday.
“And then now, just turn the page to him getting right, getting back healthy for next year. Max is — and we all are — bummed out for him that it ended up having to go this direction to get him back.”
Meyer closes 2025 with a 3-5 record and 4.73 ERA in 12 starts, with 72 hits and 20 walks allowed and 68 strikeouts in 64 1/3 innings.
His season started promisingly; in his first three starts, he allowed four earned runs in 18 innings against Pittsburgh, Atlanta and the Mets.
His performance has been uneven since, and he went on the 15-day injured list earlier this month after permitting five runs and 10 hits in a five-inning start against Colorado.
Meyer missed all of 2023 after undergoing Tommy John surgery and went 3-5 with a 5.68 ERA in 11 starts last season before missing September with shoulder bursitis.
His career major-league stats: 6-11 with a 5.29 ERA in 25 starts.
As of last week, “I don’t think we thought it was at the point where [surgery] was on the table,” McCullough said. “It was just some crankiness, having some soreness. It got to the point where it was affecting him more and more, especially his last outing, the one before. And I think, with the time off when we put him on the IL, hoping that just some rest would calm it down some, and then a non-surgical, rest kind of rehab.
“We were hoping [he would have] the chance to come back and pitch this year, but it just never really turned a corner much, even as he had the time off…. Felt at that point now, with the further information, and not really trending in a real great direction, that the best thing for him and us was to look to ‘26 and get it right.”
Meyer’s injury leaves the Marlins with a rotation of Alcantara and Edward Cabrera (who have both been the subject of trade speculation), plus Perez (who has a 6.17 ERA in his first three starts but also 11 strikeouts in 11 ⅔ innings), Quantrill and Janson Junk, who allowed five hits and a run in a win against Atlanta last Friday in his first Marlins start.
Marlins trade
Also Wednesday, the Marlins acquired right-handed pitching prospect Colby Martin from Toronto in exchange for right-handed pitcher Robinson Piña, who recently had been designated for assignment.
Martin, 24, has a 1.54 ERA in 22 innings and in 21 relief appearances this season between Single A Dunedin (20 games) and High A Vancouver (one game), with 30 strikeouts and five saves in five chances.
Toronto drafted him in the 16th round last year out of Southeastern University in Lakeland after he struck out 31 in 16 ⅓ innings in his first college season as a pitcher. He previously played second base at Shenandoah University in Westchester, Virginia.
Piña, 26, appeared in one game this season with the Marlins on June 20 vs. Atlanta and allowed a home run in his lone inning of work. Signed as a minor league free agent last November, Pina had a 3.47 ERA in 13 games (11 starts) at Triple A Jacksonville this season.
