Cubs' bullpen 'revelation': How Merryweather learned to throw 100 mph
Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, California, isn't the kind of place where a ninth-grader is going to walk in and expect to be one of the best athletes in school history.
The list of alums includes Tom Brady and Barry Bonds for starters, and continues with names like Lynn Swann, Jim Fregosi, renowned football coach John Robinson and many more.
"Not a chance," said Serra alum and Cubs reliever Julian Merryweather. "Not even the top 3, probably not in the top 10. If you're lucky, you might crack the Hall of Fame, but that's not easy to do there."
Merryweather was a very unlikely candidate to make the wall of fame at his old high school. He played freshman 'B' basketball and was one of the better pitchers on the baseball team, but drew no college interest.
He went to nearby Skyline College for two years, then got an offer to continue his baseball career at the NAIA level from Oklahoma Baptist. But even that was a close call.
Former OBU assistant Chris Klimas, now head coach at Rogers State, knows firsthand how unlikely this story is. To illustrate his point, he read off Merryweather's sophomore stats at Skyline: 0-7 record, 73 hits in 63 innings and 6.57 ERA.
But Merryweather had a coach at Skyline (Dino Nomicos) who believed in his talent, and OBU had Bay Area connections. In 2011, an OBU pitcher, also a Junipero Serra product, was drafted in the 45th round by the Nationals.
"He (Nomicos) called me and was trying to sell me on Julian," Klimas said. "He said he's every bit as good as the guy who was picked in the 45th round.
"So I pull up Julian's numbers and I'm like, 'There's no way.' He's like, 'Chris, I promise you he is. It was a bad mix, some bad luck. He didn't pitch great, but stuff-wise, he's just as good.'"
Merryweather got the offer from OBU roughly two weeks before school started and it was a package deal with Skyline teammate Matt Page. Two years later, Merryweather was a fifth-round pick by Cleveland and Page went in the 10th round to the Nationals.
Now, Merryweather is one of the most important pieces in the Cubs bullpen. Expectations were low when the Cubs claimed the right-hander off waivers from Toronto in January. But last week Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer called Merryweather's performance this season a "revelation."
Since July 22, Merryweather has posted a 1.47 ERA. In his last five appearances combined, he's allowed just one baserunner. He's one of the few pitchers in Cubs history to hit 100 mph on the radar gun.
So how did this happen to a guy whose baseball career was hanging by a thread until it was saved by an NAIA school?
It's definitely a late-bloomer story. A combination of maturity, strength and mechanical adjustments helped Merryweather increase his velocity. But the actual turning point appears to be a visit to the Texas Baseball Ranch after his junior season at OBU.
"I got really into weighted balls, that was a big thing," Merryweather said. "I went to one of these weighted ball camps, basically taught you how to use your body more than I used to.
"I remember in that camp, I did a pull-down at 100. To me, that was insane, because I'd never thrown 95, let alone 100. Being able to do that, granted with a crow hop, was still cool to see."
On the Baseball Ranch website, there's a photo of a younger Merryweather smiling next to a radar gun reading of 101.1. After throwing between 87-91 mph as a junior, he returned to OBU firing at 96-plus.
Klimas got on the phone to alert some scouts and they asked how he could make such a big jump over one summer. Klimas explained the story and they began to show up.
"Julian always had a good frame," said former OBU head coach Bobby Cox. "He was one of those guys that you talk about being protectable."
Merryweather, 31, might have become a successful MLB reliever a few years ago. But he had Tommy John surgery in 2018, made his debut with the Blue Jays in 2020, then missed portions of the next two seasons with oblique injuries.
When he first got to the majors, Merryweather's specialty was a massive drop in velocity between his fastball and change-up. Now the slider is his most frequently-used pitch.
"I think being able to find a way, not just to have the best stuff, but staying healthy, is part of it," he said. "So I had to figure out that part of the game and am still trying to figure it out each day.
"For me, it's been a good learning process going through a whole year and seeing how the body's going to react to certain workloads."
Twitter: @McGrawDHSports