When Salt Lake Bees pitcher Alex Meyer throws his first pitch on Opening Day in Albuquerque on Thursday, it will be just his second start in the Pacific Coast League, but one he is relishing.
Meyer was named the 2007-2008 Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year in Indiana. Following his high school performance, Meyer signed a National Letter of Intent to play for and attend school at Kentucky. While pitching for the Wildcats, Meyer’s best season came during his junior year when he posted a 2.94 ERA and ranked ninth in the NCAA with 110 strikeouts. Meyer entered the 2011 MLB draft after that season and was drafted by the Washington Nationals with the 23rd overall pick.
Since then, the 27-year-old has bounced around the minor leagues, having played for eight teams during his five years of professional baseball. In the 2012 offseason, Meyer was traded to the Minnesota Twins for Denard Span. On June 26, 2015, the 6-foot-9, 225-pound right-hander debuted in his first major league game, pitching 1.2 innings in a 10-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.
After his MLB debut, Meyer pitched in three more games for the Twins, but a fatigued shoulder caused him to miss a good chunk of the 2016 season. Minnesota traded Meyer to the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 1, where he started five late-season games for the Halos, finishing with a record of 1-2, an ERA of 4.57, and a WHIP of 1.39 over 21.2 innings pitched.
Despite Meyer’s age and injury history, he is considered a valuable prospect in the Angels’ struggling farm system, which was ranked 29th in Baseball America’s 2017 minor league rankings. Meyer is slotted as the Angels’ eighth-best player in the farm system, behind pitchers Nate Smith, Keynan Middleton and Grayson Long.
Bees manager Keith Johnson, back for his sixth season with the club, says the thing that stands out of the most about Meyer is his “big arm.”
“Right now, the one word that would describe Alex is ‘potential,’” Johnson said. “So now, it’s just a matter of him meeting that potential. The only way he’s going to do that is by going out there and putting the stuff that he’s worked on for this whole winter and the last couple years since we’ve had it, so that way he can tighten things up and find himself in a major league uniform for a bunch of years.”
Since his stint with the Angels late in the 2016 season, Meyer has been trying to improve his pitching.
“We made some adjustments in regard to mechanics, just some different things, trying to be proactive,” Meyer said. “Obviously, working on command and things of that nature.”
Meyer thinks the work he’s put in will pay off.
“I think we’re moving in a good direction. Camp was good, learned a lot there, picked up on some stuff, so it was pretty good,” Meyer said.
Meyer pitched 10 innings in spring training, earning a 7.20 ERA, and will start the 2017 season playing for Salt Lake.
Meyer has played at all levels of the minor leagues and says the batters he faced in Triple-A are smarter.
“The hitters up here (in Triple-A) obviously have been playing the game for a little bit longer, for the most part. I look at every hitter as the same at each level. Up here you’ve got guys that are going to be a little bit more patient, look for a certain pitch,” Meyer said. “Lower levels are going to be more aggressive and swinging, but everyone’s got a bat in their hands and they’re dangerous.”
Meyer said while he’s enjoyed his experience in the minor leagues, the ultimate goal is to get back to the majors.
His journey to The Show resumes Thursday.
Email: jcoles@deseretnews.com
Twitter: @JoeAColes