Luis Mey is being called up to join the Cincinnati Reds according to a report from Hector Gomez of z101 Digital in the Dominican Republic. The reliever has spent the first month of the season pitching with Triple-A Louisville.
Mey, who was rated as the organization’s 24th best prospect entering the season, has had an inconsistent season with the Bats. Overall he’s posted a 4.00 ERA in 9.0 innings for Louisville. He’s given up seven hits, walked seven batters, hit another batter, and he’s struck out 10. One of those seven walks was an intentional walk. Four of the other walks came in one game.
When Luis Mey is throwing strikes, he’s going to get batters to hit the ball into the ground and he’s going to keep the baseball in the ballpark. Since going from a 4-seamer to a 2-seamer, Mey has gone from a guy who was about average when it comes to getting grounders to a guy who has gotten himself into the 55% ground ball range in Double-A and Triple-A (the MLB average ground ball rate is 42%). He hasn’t allowed a home run since 2023.
Since the start of the 2024 season, opposing hitters have hit just .199/.354/.230 in 286 plate appearances against Luis Mey. They’ve only had seven doubles. They hit no home runs and had no triples. And it’s not as if hitters have been “unlucky” when it comes to their batting average on balls in play in that time. During that time they’ve had a BABIP of .290. Mey simply hasn’t allowed guys to hit for power, he’s struck out a good number of batters, and when guys have made contact they’ve put the ball on the ground.
The big issue for Mey has been his walks. During his career in the minor leagues his walk rate has been 16.4%. There really hasn’t been much fluctuation from that number at any stop along the way. That rate is twice that of the 2024 major league average walk rate.
With Mey, it’s not that he always struggles to throw strikes, it’s that he’s just inconsistent with it for periods of time. Nothing illustrates that more than his stint playing in fall and winter ball after the 2024 season. The Reds sent the right-handed reliever to the Arizona Fall League and he dominated, allowing just one hit and walking just two batters in 8.2 innings without allowing a run.
Then after taking a few weeks off he joined Estrellas in the Dominican Winter League. He only pitched in six games, and threw just 5.0 innings. And in that time he walked nine of the 24 hitters he faced.
Luis Mey has some of the best raw stuff in baseball. His fastball tops out at 103 MPH. His slider grades out just as well as his fastball does. That’s what’s helped him reach the big leagues. For him to stick around he’s going to need to find a bit more consistency with throwing strikes. If he can do that, the stuff is there for him to find all kinds of success against big league hitters.
You can see Luis Mey’s career stats here.