Back in 2023 Zach Maxwell put together a solid, but unspectacular first full season. He spent time in both Single-A Daytona and High-A Dayton where he threw 61.1 innings with a 4.11 ERA, walked 38, and struck out 96 hitters.
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When the 2024 season started the Cincinnati Reds had Zach Maxwell head off to Double-A Chattanooga where he joined the Lookouts bullpen. His first three outings of the season saw him pick up three strikeouts in each game and not allow a hit or a run. That dominance continued for the first month of the season as he tossed 11.2 innings of 4-hit, 5-walk, and 23-strikeout baseball without giving up an earned run. He then gave up an earned run in back-to-back outings in mid-May while walking two batters in each outing that lasted just one inning. That was followed up by a perfect inning on May 19th against Birmingham.
Through the first six weeks of the season he had a 1.23 ERA in 14.2 innings for Chattanooga. That was enough for the Reds to see and he was promoted up to join the Triple-A Louisville Bats for the final week of May. His first two outings with the Bats came against Toledo and he threw a perfect inning with two strikeouts in each game.
On May 28th he would walk three batters and give up a run in 0.1 innings. That started a 2-week stretched where he walked multiple batters in five of his six games and handed out 12 free passes in just 4.2 innings while giving up five earned runs.
For as bad as his control had been during that stretch, for the next month it was the exact opposite. From June 14th through July 18th he pitched in nine games and threw 10.0 innings with just one walk and he racked up 15 strikeouts. During that time he allowed just two earned runs. In the two weeks that followed he would walk seven batters in four games while throwing just 3.2 innings.
The back-and-forth battled with control continued as he didn’t walk a batter in his next seven outings. But on August 22nd he walked three batters in an inning against Gwinnett and for a three week stretch had nine walks in 9.2 innings. Maxwell followed that up by throwing 2.1 shutout innings without a walk in the final series of the year against Omaha.
For all 2024 Season Reviews and Scouting Reports – click here (these will come out during the week throughout the offseason).
Zach Maxwell Scouting Report
Position: Right-handed pitcher | B/T: R/R
Height: 6′ 6″ | Weight: 275 lbs. | Acquired: 6th Round (2022 Draft) | Born: January 26, 2002
Fastball | Some of the best velocity in minor league baseball, he averaged 99 MPH in his time in Triple-A and touched 103 MPH during the season. But the pitch has more than just velocity, it also has some of the best induced vertical break in the minors.
Slider | A plus offering that works in the upper 80’s to lower 90’s.
When it comes to pure stuff, it’s hard to find someone who can match up with Zach Maxwell’s two pitches. Both grade out as plus offerings with the fastball perhaps being plus-plus. That’s the good part of the scouting report.
But there’s a flip side to that. Maxwell’s control is near the bottom of the scale. In his career he’s walked 84 batters in 122.2 innings. His control has gotten slightly worse as he’s climbed the ladder in the minor leagues, too.
With Zach Maxwell it seems pretty simple – if he’s going to stick around in the big leagues he’s going to have to cut back on the amount of walks he hands out. While he’s got some of the best stuff around, his inability to find the strikezone with any consistency is going to really limit both when he can be used in the big leagues and what role he can serve in.
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Interesting Stat on Zach Maxwell
He threw 15.0 innings on Friday during the 2024 season. The next closest day in terms of innings was Wednesday when he threw 8.2 innings. What’s so interesting with that is that in games that fell on a Friday he only walked two batters and he had 23 strikeouts. In his 39.0 non-Friday innings he walked 36 batters.