Former Mizzou pitcher stays present after breakout season in Astros system
After each good outing, Bryce Mayer got knocked around.
He experienced the flowing peaks and valleys of playing for Missouri baseball in a lopsided SEC. In that lone campaign for the Tigers in 2024, his numbers showed that. The righty sported a 6.58 ERA, surrendering 11 home runs and yielding 33 free passes in his 53 1/3 innings.
“My numbers were not good,” Mayer said. “That season really taught me a lot about myself, and that was the most I’ve ever struggled on a baseball field. … You have to have confidence when you step on the mound.”
But as an MLB Draft prospect, Mayer boasted much more than those numbers. The Washington (Mo.) St. Francis Borgia alum scrapped two pitches from his arsenal through that spring. Those reentered the equation in the summer as a few Major League organizations expressed interest in him as a Day 3 pick.
One of those organizations — the Houston Astros — circled back on him.
While starting his post-prep career at St. Charles Community College, Mayer received interest as a sophomore in 2022 from lower Midwest scout Freddy Perez. The two conducted a Zoom call, but Mayer went unselected and transferred to Missouri for his 2023 season.
Mayer then lost that first year at the Power Four level. He underwent Tommy John surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow. Mayer returned for 2024, and again, Perez liked what he saw, with Houston selecting Mayer in the 16th round that July.
In his cup of coffee at Single-A Fayetteville, Mayer spun 6 1/3 innings. He struck out 10 and walked four, and although his sample size wasn’t much to dissect, the righty entered 2025 with intrigue as a quick mover in the system.
The innings limit
The Astros transferred Mayer to the Development List on Aug. 18, ending his first full-professional season at Double-A Corpus Christi, two stops from The Show. While most Development List candidates usually have a short timetable left in an organization, Mayer just reached his maximum, tallying a career-high 87 2/3 innings across three levels.
“I didn’t really know what the innings limit was at the time, but I did suspect that there would be a cap,” said Mayer, who was two seasons removed from elbow surgery. “It was a good thing, and they were just looking out for my health.”
Mayer, the ninth-ranked Astros prospect by MLB Pipeline, had a 4.11 ERA and 1.17 WHIP in his first full-professional season. The now 24-year-old also tallied 112 strikeouts, which marked the fifth most in Houston’s system last year.
“It was definitely taxing on the body throughout the season,” Mayer said. “It’s just the ups and downs on how the body was feeling, and I had to learn how to deal with that. … Doing all the recovery stuff so I can feel as good as possible into those starts in July and August.”
That became a focus for Mayer this offseason. While in his age-24 season, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound righty altered his preparation for Spring Training. Last spring, Mayer reported to Minor League camp feeling game ready in mid-February. This time around, he’s trusted the spring ramp up to extend his season longer than last year while minimizing fatigue.
“One thing I focused on this year that I didn’t necessarily in years past was the volume of throws early in the offseason,” Mayer said. “Even on my lower days, I was still building volume and hoping to build a foundation for the amount of throws I’m going to make in the season.”
Mayer’s focus at Spring Training
According to MLB Pipeline, Mayer’s lowest-grade pitch has been his changeup, and righty confirmed that. While marked a 40 on the 80-grade scale, Mayer’s changeup got called more throughout the 2025 season. The coaches challenged him to throw the pitch more in games for feedback from opposing hitters.
“They stressed the importance of having that pitch in my arsenal,” said Mayer, who found the Astros a good, analytical fit. “It’s still something that I struggle with a little bit, and something that is a challenge going forward for me. My stuff will play. It’s just more controlling what I control, attacking the strike zone and getting ahead as much as possible.”
After receiving 2025 Astros Minor League Pitcher of the Year honors, Mayer didn’t bank on an invite to big league Spring Training. While the thought still creeped into his mind as a possibility, the third-year professional didn’t let the news of not being selected break his offseason, while still expecting to see innings in the Grapefruit League.
“I can go about Spring Training how I’m comfortable with and how I learned to last year,” Mayer said. “I’m still going to be doing very similar things.”
In similar boats as Mayer, Ethan Pecko (HOU No. 10) and Alonzo Tredwell (HOU No. 25) — who both pitched in Double-A this past season — also missed out on invites to big league camp. Pecko, the 2024 Astros Minor League Pitcher of the Year, followed a similar rise in the system as Mayer and became an outlet for the Missouri product in 2025.
“I just want to be where my feet are and not look too far ahead at what’s next,” Mayer said. “The goal, obviously, is to get to the big league level. … When that time comes, it’ll be great, but stay where I’m at for now.”