Very few players throw a baseball harder than Luis Mey. Last year he topped out at 103.0 MPH with the pitch while in the minor leagues. This spring he’s topped out at 101.3 MPH. And this morning the Cincinnati Reds made the decision to option the right-handed reliever to minor league camp. The move leaves the club at 52 players in big league camp in Goodyear, Arizona. While there have been other cuts in camp, this is the first one involving a player on the 40-man roster.
Luis Mey is an enigma. He throws harder than just about anyone. And when gets do make contact it’s usually not good contact and it’s usually on the ground. In 2024 while throwing 55.0 innings between High-A Dayton and Double-A Chattanooga he didn’t allow a single home run and held hitters to a .197 average and a .228 slugging percentage.
All of those are the good sides of what he can do when he’s on the mound. But he’s had a long history of struggling to throw strikes. He had 43 walks last season in 55.0 innings and he also hit five other batters. That’s nearly one free trip to first base per inning. In his time with Cincinnati this spring he pitched in five games, gave up four hits, walked five batters, hit another batter, allowed a home run, and had eight strikeouts. All of that added up to a 3.86 ERA, but a 1.93 WHIP.
There is a lot of upside with Luis Mey. You can dream on a guy coming out of the bullpen and being a groundball machine who also misses plenty of bats with a triple-digit fastball and a strong slider. But his control issues also leave you with the downside of a pitcher who can not be counted on to face big league hitters with any sort of regularity, too. For now he’s head to the minor leagues where he will look to improve on his consistency with throwing strikes and try to force his way up the ladder and get to the big leagues.
You can see the career stats for Luis Mey right here.
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