Hunter Brown's finishing touches and Max Meyer's evolution

Hunter Brown On the Edge of Cy Young Contention

Hunter Brown through April 2024 had an 11.84 ERA, and looked far from living up to any promise he showed as a hard throwing top pitching prospect. He leveled up from there, adding a sinker, which dramatically helped him limit slug (41.6% in April, league-leading 20.2% ROS among qualified pitchers) and lower his ERA to 2.51 from May 2024 onwards. 

While he made a good chunk of progress in 2024, he has leveled up again in 2025, raising his K% roughly 6 points to 30.6% and dropping his BB% roughly 2% to 6.9%, with an ERA of 2.04 and xERA of 2.94. We are looking at a potential Cy Young contender at this point, both skill and performance wise, and we want to dig into how he has gotten to this level.

Brown works with a 6 pitch arsenal, with the star being a 96 MPH four-seam fastball with a cut-ride profile that he peppers at the top of the zone to both RHHs and LHHs. Here is a clip to visualize that fastball:

Brown FB Up

From there, Brown, like a lot of pitchers in 2025, divides his arsenal by handedness. Against RHHs, he is fastball-heavy, with his sinker/four-seam used roughly equally for about 68% of his offerings followed by his slider and knuckle-curve in the low 10s and his cutter/changeup adding up to roughly 8%. To LHHs he becomes roughly a 3 pitch pitcher, with his four-seam/changeup/knuckle-curve accounting for roughly 85% of his offerings, his sinker roughly 10% and cutter/slider a combined 5%. With a very high arm angle, as you can see from the clip, Brown has run reverse platoon splits, which was the point of the sinker introduction in 2024. 

With the baseline established, it is now time to dig into what has changed in 2025. One thing that has not changed much is his pitch usage, as he is still roughly in line with his post-April post-sinker introduction usage in 2024. That is usually one of the first things we look for, but in this case it's not the story. Instead, Brown has improvement in pitch quality and execution to thank for his jump forward.

The two biggest changes for Brown have been relatively simple but meaningful: he is throwing harder and locating better. These changes blanketed across pitchers have similar impacts to those of improving diet and exercise habits on your health: they will always lead to improvement, but the magnitude of improvement will vary from pitcher to pitcher (or eater to eater). 

For the velocity portion, we have seen Brown tick up from averaging 96 MPH on his four-seam in 2024 to roughly 97 MPH in 2025, and his sinker has also gone up half a tick (96 MPH in 2025). All his off-speed, apart from his changeup, have seen significant jumps in velocity as well. Even with this deep repertoire, the biggest improvements in results for Brown can mostly be isolated to his four-seam fastball, with hitters hitting only .093 against his four-seam with 0 XBH (compared to .244 BA and .412 SLG in 2024). 

Like we illustrated before, the Brown plan with his four-seam is simple: go up in the zone. Even in elevating heaters, however, there is nuance, and Brown appears to have taken a leap with executing that high fastball. Here are 4 plots, showing Brown’s four-seam locations in 2024 and 2025:

Brown FB Locations 2024

v RHH (top) and v LHH (bottom)

 

Brown Fastball Locations 2025

v RHH (top) and v LHH (bottom)

In 2024 Brown appeared to have an idea of locating up and away to LHHs, but was not fine-tuned with the execution, while to RHHs he was up and middle, with his misses drifting middle-middle. In 2025, Brown is now executing a clear plan to both RHHs and LHHs with his four-seamer, locating consistently up-and-away to both LHHs and RHHs. Statistically we can see this as well, as he has gone from roughly 42% of his four-seams being on the edge of the plate to 51% (changeup Edge% is similarly up roughly 10%).

This new and improved four-seam execution has a few impacts, particularly when it comes to effectiveness against RHHs: 1) his misses are now less harmful, as they are farther from the middle of the plate and 2) he is now more diverse in location to RHHs, as they now have to worry about four-seam away and sinkers in, and it is very hard to cover both. 

Outlook

The big leap from Brown already took place from May on in 2024, as that is when he established himself as a potential front of the rotation starter. Instead of taking a step back from that in 2025, he has only built upon the foundation, with improvements in velocity and location. He is a good bet to come in below his projected 3.22 ROS ERA. 

 

Meyer Taking Small Steps

Max Meyer’s MLB career prior to 2025 had been one of starts and stops, as after 2 starts in his MLB debut season of 2022 he underwent Tommy John Surgery, and then he was managed carefully in 2024. Despite making the Opening Day rotation in 2024, he was sent down after 3 starts and a 2.12 ERA to manage his innings, and then after 115 IP (a career-high) between MLB and MiLB total, he was shut down in September with shoulder discomfort. 

After a tumultuous start to his career, Meyer is set for his first full MLB season, having made the Opening Day roster and (likely) no longer subject to load management shenanigans. He has responded to this opportunity with improved process, if not results, to start 2025, upping his K% nearly 8% compared to 2024, while reducing his HR/9 from a horrible 2.21 in 2024 to a better 1.44 rate in 2025. Meyer is not a finished product, but there are real process changes to dig into here.

In 2024, Meyer was essentially a 3 pitch pitcher, with a 94 MPH four-seam fastball with well below-average movement and a hard above-average slider at 88 MPH with hard downward movement as his two primaries (40% each), and a changeup for lefties at 87 MPH with sub-optimal vertical separation from his fastball. He was going to have trouble having success unless hitters chased his slider, as his fastball and changeup were very hittable.

To counteract this in 2025, Meyer has made several adjustments to his arsenal, some of which are reversions to where he was pre-TJ and some with a few wrinkles. One of these reversions is obvious when you watch his delivery from 2022, 2024, and 2025:

Meyer 2022

Meyer 2024

Meyer 2025

One of these deliveries is not like the other, as while Meyer had an average arm angle of 37 degrees in 2022 and 2025, he raised his arm angle significantly in 2024, up to 46 degrees, to the point of being considered over-the-top. Pitchers coming off Tommy John Surgery (like his teammate Sandy Alcantara so far in 2025) often struggle to find their arm slot right away, and it appears that it took Meyer a year to get back to where he was. This arm slot change in 2024 appeared to mess with his slider, as it was previously plus in our brief looks at it in 2022, and has gotten even better in 2025.

Meyer is throwing his slider on average 90 MPH in 2025, which is up a tick from 2022 and two ticks from where it was post-TJ in 2024. His fastball velocity has followed suit, back to averaging 95 MPH, where it was in 2022. 

In addition to the increased velocity, Meyer has re-gained the vertical finish on his slider, with induced vertical movement of roughly -1.5 inches in 2025, which is in line with 2022, but an inch more than 2024. An inch of movement may not seem like a massive deal, but it can be the difference between a swing and miss and a base hit. It has allowed him to increase his slider whiff rate from 34% in 2024 to 45% in 2025, 7^th among qualified sliders in 2025.

Along with looking more like his pre-TJ self, Meyer has added two new wrinkles to his repertoire: a sinker and a sweeper, both of which he is using roughly 12% of the time and primarily as weapons to RHHs. The sinker, which he primarily tries to work to the middle inner edge to RHHs, has had mixed results so far: hitters are hitting .394 against it so far, but it is generating 22% whiffs, which is around average overall for all pitches but is above-average for a sinker, which is typically a pitch-to-contact offering. This is what Meyer wants his sinker to be:

Meyer Good Sinker 

 

 

Location is crucial for Meyer with his sinker, as it does not possess great sinking action, and he needs it to be in on the hands to be effective.

The second new addition for Meyer has been a sweeper, which is slightly softer (roughly 87 MPH on average) with bigger movement, particularly horizontally (roughly 7 inches more run) than his gyro slider. The sweeper has not been particularly good so far, as hitters have hit .353 against it with only a 17% Whiff%. The pitch may improve over time, and theoretically being able to go east-west off of his bread and butter north-south combo with his four-seam/slider would be helpful, but for now it is a work in progress. 

Outlook

Meyer has taken steps forward in 2025, but is still very much a work in progress. His gyro slider is a legit out pitch now, and he appears to be all the way back from his 2022 Tommy John Surgery after hiccups in 2024. 

Meyer’s arsenal around his slider, along with his command of those offerings, need to improve to reach his true mid-rotation upside. It is good that he is adding to his repertoire, which needed variety, but he is still early in the process of rounding out his arsenal. He is likely a volatile back-of-the-rotation type for the rest of 2025, with strikeout upside and a good amount of hard contact allowed.

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