Mets' Tylor Megill working on curveball after advice from Max Scherzer
Tylor Megill, left, received some wise pitching advice last year from Mets teammate Max Scherzer. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Tylor Megill has been focusing on his curveball, an offseason project turned spring training point of emphasis that — if it becomes the weapon he thinks it will — can help him transform into a more complete pitcher, the kind that won’t have to jockey for position on the deep portion of the Mets’ depth chart.
Sound familiar? Yep, Megill expressed a similar sentiment early last season, when he wanted to incorporate his inconsistent, occasional curve more often. He had been dabbling with it in games but paused that effort at the recommendation of one of his pitching idols who had just become his teammate: Max Scherzer.
“You better have all your slider and changeup dialed to where you can throw it for a strike every time before you start working on a new pitch,” Megill said Scherzer told him. “I’m at the point where I can throw a slider or a changeup whenever. I feel good. So this whole offseason I spent trying to throw curveballs.”
Scherzer said: “That’s exactly my philosophy. Don’t start pitch four until you have pitch three.”
Scherzer’s speech was rapid and repetitive, his eyes wide. He leaned in. Put this on the long list of things he is passionate about.
It applies to all pitchers, he said, not just Megill.
“You can’t go to a fourth pitch unless you have three really good pitches,” said Scherzer, noting that he didn’t introduce a curve as his fourth pitch until 2012, his fifth season. “You have to be comfortable with all three, have confidence in all three — especially the slider.”
That is important because sliders and curveballs are both breaking balls. They should be separate pitches with distinct shapes. If they start to blur together, there’s no point.
“What’s your No. 1 breaking ball pitch? That’s a slider. OK. That’s gotta be good, consistent, reliable,” Scherzer continued. “You can’t add another pitch until that is solidified. You’re a young guy. Are you sure you have that solidified? You sure? You can throw 2-and-0 sliders?
“You gotta have that pitch. You have to have great feel for the slider before you can start trying to add another pitch. If you do, you can. I’m never going to say don’t. I’m just saying, in order to level up, that’s how you have to do it. Then your work really becomes hard to keep those two pitches separate.”
Megill indeed has been able to keep the slider and curve separate, he said.
He actually has two versions of a slider: one that is bigger and slower with more break away from righthanded batters (in toward lefties), plus one that is faster and tighter, more like a cutter.
The curve is yet different, with a steeper, vertical, 12-6 drop. He has thrown it only to teammates so far — he’ll make his Grapefruit League debut Wednesday against the Marlins — but has gotten encouraging feedback via their swings (whiffs and weak contact) and their words (positive).
Megill likes the idea of adding a reliable curveball because it complements the rest of his repertoire, which includes a fastball that averaged 96 mph last year and a changeup.
He imagines two-strike situations in which he’d normally default to his go-to: a fastball up. With a curve, he can go lower and slower instead, keeping the batter guessing. Being predictable is bad.
“So if I can get my curveball going, like a real legit threat of a pitch, it’s going to open up a lot of windows for me to mess with timing of batters,” he said. “It’s going to open more holes for me as a pitcher and I can get away with a lot more.”
He’s working on that now, later than he initially intended.
“It makes all the sense in the world,” Megill said. “If you can’t master two pitches or master three, what makes you think you can just pick up another pitch?”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
