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Alex Meyer certainly looks the part. He towers over the mound at a lanky 6’9” and sports an electric heater that has touched 100 and routinely sits in the mid-90’s. There’s certainly effort in his delivery and his mechanics aren’t exactly tight, but it’s a natural motion with an arm slot that uses his height to get excellent downward leverage and sink on all of his pitches. Meyer complements his anvil of a fastball with a sharp slider that he snaps off to right-handed hitters. He’s developing a changeup to attack lefties, but it still lags behind his top two offerings. It’s an overwhelming arsenal, but one that Meyer doesn’t show an ability to command consistently.

Since coming over to Minnesota in a deal for Denard Span, Meyer has risen rapidly through the Twins farm system, pitching a full season in Triple-A last year after beginning 2013 in rookie ball. It’s great progress, but not completely unexpected given that Meyer began his professional career at 22 years old. The more encouraging fact is that his production didn’t dip much as he rose up the ranks, showing that he wasn’t just overpowering younger hitters at lower levels.

He has a slightly troubling injury history; Meyer missed time in both 2013 and 2014 with shoulder injuries, but reports after his most recent shutdown showed no structural damage. It’s something to keep an eye on, but not a huge concern. These shoulder issues are hopefully the sort of thing that can be avoided as the Twins continue to clean up Meyer’s delivery.

Pundits

Scouts love Meyer’s build and profile as a hard-throwing groundball pitcher. Keith Law ranks him 30th; MLB.com has him one spot higher at 29th. Neither source seems to be overly concerned with his injuries and both are optimistic about the development of his offspeed stuff. In all, the consensus speaks to a player who’s still a bit flawed, but who’s quickly running out of minor league levels to dominate.

From MLB.com:

“Coming from his huge 6-foot-9 frame, Meyer’s upper-90s fastball gets on hitters in a hurry. He throws downhill, with sink, consistently, leading to groundballs when he isn’t missing bats. His sharp slider adds to the strikeout rate, 10.4 per nine innings through 2014, and his changeup has improved, giving him another sinking weapon. Meyer still struggles with his command — his walk rate jumped back up in 2014 — largely because so much can go wrong with a delivery from a pitcher this tall.”

From Keith Law:

“His discomfort with his changeup has long held him back against left-handed hitters. He altered his grip early in 2014, but wasn’t that confident in the pitch until the end of the summer, when the Twins feel like it finally clicked for him (although it’s really not even an average pitch on its own). Anything that keeps left-handed hitters, who see the ball better from his low three-quarters slot, off his fastball is a good thing, and might allow him to jump into Minnesota’s rotation this year, where the major league staff can continue to work with him on hitting the lower end of the zone.”

Production

Aside from a little hiccup as a rookie in High-A, Meyer has been a master-level strikeout artist at every stop. He’s managed to keep his ERA down as well, but that high-ish BABIP isn’t a fluke. His ground-balling tendencies will limit the power production against him, but especially without quality defenders behind him, a fair amount of those grounders are going to find their way through the infield. Meyer’s penchant for missing the strike zone can compound the issue, but his bat-missing ability often bails him out of much of the resulting trouble, as evidenced by his consistently high strand rates.

Projections

It’s pretty clear that Meyer is going to rack up plenty of punchouts, regardless of where he’s pitching. The walks will be there too, but that’s all in line with his minor league track record. The only thing that looks out of whack here is the home run rate, which seems a bit high. Meyer features an exceptionally heavy fastball and has never struggled with the longball in the minors; when he does reach the major leagues, he’ll be pitching in a power suppressing ballpark. I don’t quite understand why his major league tater rate would be so much worse than what he has produced in the minors. It won’t have huge bearing on his fantasy value, but I think Steamer’s being a bit pessimistic there.

Prediction

Despite his relatively advanced age (for a prospect), Meyer lacks a bit of polish. I do think he’ll be up with the Twins this season, but I don’t see much reason to expect more than Steamer does. That’s a solid level of production, but the strikeouts aren’t overwhelming enough to justify a poor ERA and WHIP.

It will be interesting to monitor how the Twins use him in Spring Training. FanGraphs’ Kiley McDaniel sees Meyer as a knockout closer, but the Twins would certainly prefer to have him earn a spot in the rotation. While a role in an MLB bullpen might be great for Meyer’s development, I’m sure there’s some worry that he’ll end up like Aroldis Chapman, a pitcher whose effectiveness as a reliever somewhat forced his team’s hand into pulling the plug on his development as a starter. For that reason, I don’t expect that we’ll see Meyer in Minnesota until at least July or August. He’s an excellent target in deeper AL-only or keeper formats, but not somebody worth drafting in a 12-team mixer.