On Thursday afternoon the Cincinnati Reds optioned reliever Luis Mey and his 100+ MPH fastball back to Triple-A Louisville. Today, before they are set to begin a series in Phoenix against the Arizona Diamondbacks they made the move to call up Zach Maxwell and his 100+ MPH fastball from Triple-A Louisville. To get Maxwell onto the 40-man roster the Reds moved right-handed reliever Ian Gibaut to the 60-day injured list.
It is interesting set of moves. The two players feel like they are very similar. And in some ways they are. But they are also different in some ways, too.
Maxwell, who was the Reds 6th round pick back in 2022 out of Georgia Tech, has worked his way up through the farm system in the last few years. The 24-year-old has spent all of 2025 in Triple-A pitching out of the Bats bullpen.
He has battled some consistency in the minor leagues this season, posting a 4.17 ERA in 51 games. Over his 49.2 innings pitched he’s allowed 42 hits – six of which are home runs – and walked 32 batters while striking out 59 of the 220 hitters he has faced. For those who can’t do the math in their head – that’s a 1.49 WHIP.
As noted earlier, he and Mey are similar in many ways. Both guys are among the hardest throwers in baseball. Maxwell has topped out at 102 MPH this season and is averaging 99.1 MPH with his fastball. But unlike Luis Mey, who throws just as hard and with a ton of sink and horizontal movement, Maxwell throws a 4-seam rising fastball. Neither guy is particularly good at throwing the pitch for strikes, though.
Maxwell will also throw a cutter and a slider, but he leans heavily on his fastball. He’s thrown the #1 71% of the time this season in Triple-A, mixing in the cutter and slider at about 14% each.
The Reds are trying something different because Luis Mey just wasn’t getting the job done anymore. But it feels like they are just replacing him with a guy who is likely to run into the same exact problems – you can’t trust him to not walk a batter every outing and while he’s not extremely hittable, isn’t exactly keeping Triple-A hitters from getting hits, either. Even when Maxwell has had a low ERA in some of his months he’s walked a lot of guys and just been able to sequence the hits and walks a little better to avoid more damage.
But given that it’s also August 22nd, you can’t exactly go out and make a trade unless it’s for a player in the minor leagues from another organization and of a player who is not on their 40-man roster. That typically means you aren’t trading for someone in August who can help you in the big leagues. So you are left with choosing from what you’ve got on your own team and Maxwell might be the best option for you to catch lightning in a bottle for a bit. There’s no doubt he’s got the stuff and while the control issues are and always have been concerning, maybe the advantage of no one seeing him before will help carry him a little bit.
You can see the career stats for Zach Maxwell here.
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