Max Meyer Is Finally Capitalizing on His Potential

It is so cliché at this point, but patience is truly a virtue. It doesn’t matter if it’s in life or baseball. This article is obviously going to bring precedence to the latter. 

Miami Marlins right-handed starter Max Meyer had shown flashes throughout his short three-year career entering the 2026 season. Though there wasn’t much good to hold on to, there was still hope that he would be stripped of the “high-leverage bullpen” label and live up to the expectations set upon him as soon as he was taken third overall by the Marlins in the 2020 MLB Draft. 

The 2025 Marlins season was full of surprises. Starting early with the low expectations set on the team as a whole, and first-year manager Clayton McCullough being a total question mark, it was expected that it would be a year ending in 100-plus losses. 

Nonetheless, starting during spring training, there were position battles that needed to be won. The starting rotation was surely one needing bodies.  

Entering spring, the only true lock was Sandy Alcantara, who was making his return to the mound after missing the previous season due to elbow surgery. 

Eury Pérez was also coming off Tommy John surgery and would not be available at the start of the year. Edward Cabrera and Ryan Weathers were also going to begin the year on the injured list with their own ailments. The Marlins were grasping at straws. 

So, after Sandy, it was a crapshoot.  

Cal Quantril was signed to take one of the rotation spots as the Fish were searching for innings eaters during the year. That was really it.  

This just meant that it was truly Max Meyer’s job to lose. Injuries aside, the expectations heading in were that he would take one of the final two spots in the rotation, barring full health from the other arms. But, with all of the injuries, Meyer slid into the number three spot in the rotation. 

The start to the year was strong for Meyer. Through April, six starts into the season, the righty had a 3.18 ERA in 34 innings, with a 2.47 xFIP, a 12.4% K/9, and he was looking to, finally, live up to those expectations I referenced earlier. Unfortunately for the righty, the next month would be a tough stretch of baseball.  

In his next six starts, he posted a 6.46 ERA in 30.2 innings before eventually being shut down for the remainder of the season with a torn left hip labrum. Many thought that the injury had been lingering for some time and was the reason behind the sudden struggles.  

2026 provided Meyer with yet another opportunity to shed former labels and earn a big league  rotation role for good. He came into spring with a purpose, and it showed.  

In his three spring outings, two of them being starts, Meyer posted a 0.00 ERA in seven innings pitched, striking out 15 hitters per nine. It wasn’t a question of if he would make the rotation, but where he would slot in. That answer became much clearer once the Marlins moved on from Edward Cabrera and Ryan Weathers right before the year.  

Max Meyer was going to take the number three spot in the rotation for the second season in a row. This time, he was going to make sure nothing jeopardized his spot on the team.  

Max Meyer’s 2026 Surge

Entering his start on May 23, Max Meyer has been one of the better pitchers in the National League. He has been pitching a lot like he was pre-injury in 2025.

In 53.2 innings pitched, he has a 2.85 ERA and is striking out 10.1 hitters per nine. The .202 opponents’ batting average would also be the best mark of his career to this point. Honestly, it’s like he’s a completely different pitcher.  

He has only had one start this year in which he failed to finish five innings. That one start was against the Yankees, his second start of the season, and he finished 4.2. Aside from that one, he has provided the Marlins with solid start after solid start.  

Meyer is coming off one of the best starts of the year, facing the best team in the National League, the Atlanta Braves. In six innings pitched, he shut out the Braves’ lineup, striking out six. He became the sixth pitcher in Marlins history to not be charged with a loss in his first 10 starts of the season.

Say what you want about what wins and losses mean, but it is still impressive that he has been able to consistently go deep into games at this high a level. 

Now comes the fun stuff.  

Show Me the Numbers

Look, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Meyer. The Marlins starter has had some command issues at times. In his 53.2 innings, he has already walked 19 hitters. For context, in the 64.2 innings he pitched last year, he walked 20. His 3.2 BB/9 right now would be the highest mark of his career to this point.  

Now that the bad is out of the way, let’s move on to the good! 

The first thing that stands out ot me is how he has been able to improve on limiting the hard contact. After allowing hard contact on nearly 50% of batted balls last season, he has been able to lower that mark to 42%. While that is still a bit over the major league average of 37%, it is the lowest percentage in his four MLB seasons. 

Hard-hit balls are something he has tended to struggle with throughout his entire professional career. A large part of that has to do with the fact that he has a tendency to lose the shape of his slider; it turns a little more into a slurve and ends up hanging over the middle of the plate. That and his fastball becomes much more hittable when he finds himself behind the count.  

Nonetheless, Meyer is still generating whiffs at a 31.3% clip, ranking in the 88th percentile in baseball. Then, aside from the -1 in the Fastball Run Value department, he is at a positive in the other two spots: