'Sky's the limit' as Meyer's nasty slider sets up for future success?

ATLANTA -- Marlins right-hander Max Meyer was one of the most talked-about players at big league camp this spring, and he is backing it up early in the 2025 season.

Meyer struck out a career-high eight batters in Friday night’s 10-0 loss to the Braves at Truist Park. He became the first Marlin to record a quality start this season, giving up three runs – all in the third – over six innings.

Through two starts, Meyer has an 11.57 K/9 rate compared to 7.3 in 2024. His strikeout rate is 28.8%. In small-sample theater, he would rank 10th and 16th, respectively, among MLB pitchers with 10-plus innings.

“I think the sky's the limit,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “... The big steps for Max are like tonight. You give up a few early [runs] like that, but to be able to minimize that damage to go back out again, go deep into a game, keep us right there, is a great sign for him and us as he continues to -- we believe -- evolve into a top-flight starting pitcher.

So why has Meyer unlocked another level?

For one, the slider is nastier than ever.

The 26-year-old Meyer threw his signature pitch 32% of the time and recorded five strikeouts. The average velocity is up from 88.2 mph in 2024 to 90.2 mph in ‘25. More importantly, he hasn’t sacrificed depth with the added velo.

Entering Friday, of all the hard sliders in the Majors (Statcast’s David Adler arbitrarily defining them as those averaging 89-plus mph), Meyer’s slider drops the most: ~35 inches on average, over 4 inches more than comparable MLB sliders.

It’s no wonder Meyer has a 47.4% whiff rate on his slider compared to 34.3% last year.

“I just think it plays better now that I have more pitches, having a couple more pitches, two different angles, at the sweeper and the slider,” Meyer said. “I just think that they have to respect it more. And if I see you going out over, I'm going to throw a fastball by you like I did. Started picking them up late, getting a lot of swings and misses on that.”

Over the offseason, Meyer incorporated a sinker and a sweeper to complement his slider, four-seamer and changeup. These new pitches make him a more complete pitcher.

Here were the sequences for his strikeouts:

First inning

Marcell Ozuna: Sinker, sweeper, slider, slider (swinging)
Matt Olson: Sweeper, slider, four-seamer, changeup (swinging)

Second inning

Austin Riley: Sweeper, slider, four-seamer, slider, four-seamer (swinging)
Drake Baldwin: Changeup, slider, slider, changeup, slider, slider (swinging)

Fourth inning

Jarred Kelenic: Slider, changeup, four-seamer, slider, four-seamer (swinging)

Fifth inning

Ozuna: Sinker, four-seamer, slider, slider (looking)
Nick Allen: Sweeper, four-seamer, slider, slider (swinging)

“Max presents as someone who can do some really cool things with the baseball, and we just identified that maybe he wasn't taking advantage of that within the scope of his arsenal,” pitching coach Daniel Moskos told MLB.com during Spring Training. “Pretty predominantly a two-pitch mix guy, which can lead to maybe some more predictability. So we just wanted to build out the arsenal a little bit.

“For righties, we identified that maybe something that can move to the arm side, keep them honest, knowing that where we want to really get them out is spinning the ball away from them. You can play that back-and-forth game a little bit, and then just adding a different breaking ball with a little bit bigger shape, something that maybe projects to play a little bit better against right-handed hitters, knowing that his hard slider is an absolute weapon.”

Having multiple putaway options comes in handy, especially when situations call for punchouts. It also helps that Meyer is averaging 95 mph on fastballs, one mph faster than in 2024.

When Michael Harris II wound up at third with one out in the first, Meyer escaped with the aforementioned strikeouts of Ozuna and Olson. In turn, all four hits allowed in the third came on breaking pitches.

“I'm just happy that skip has confidence in me, sending me back out and making me throw through the jams,” Meyer said. “Hopefully, I can keep gaining trust from him. I want it as long as I can. And I want to go to the seventh, the eighth. I want to throw 130 pitches. I just always feel like I have juice, and I'll be able to recover throughout the week.”