In his first full season as part of the big league rotation, Mize threw 150.1 innings in 30 starts and posted a 3.71 ERA. He still fell shy of striking out a hitter per inning with his 7.1 K/9, but he was a positive WAR player at 1.2 fWAR. Where he was able to make a tangible improvement was with his command, cutting the BB/9 down from 4.13 in 2020 to 2.45 in 2021.
This was also the season in which he posted his lowest opponents’ hard-hit percentage at 40%, limiting barrels to 10%. He also cut his overall splitter usage down and almost completely ditched the sinker. Mize began to rely far more on his four-seamer, and it was working.
Courtesy of Baseball Savant
The career-high in innings came at a price, however. After only 10 innings in 2022, Mize would undergo Tommy John surgery that June and be shut down for the remainder of 2022, as well as all of the 2023 season. It wasn’t until 2024 that we would be able to see if the changes Mize made would amount to more.
In his return to the mound, Mize would appear in 22 games, starting 20, posting a 4.49 ERA across 102.1 innings. Though it was nice to see him back on the mound, he would continue to deal with injuries starting as soon as spring training, when he dealt with a right adductor strain, and then again when he was sidelined until late August after being placed on the 60-day IL in July with a left hamstring strain.
In 2025, we began to see the upward trend again for Mize, who would make his first career All-Star Game as an injury replacement for Red Sox lefty Garrett Crochet. Injury replacement designation aside, Mize was more than deserving. We finally began to see the Auburn Tigers’ version of the right-hander.
The walk percentage had fallen to 5.7% by the end of the year, which should have been a true indicator of the continued success he has shown us so far in 2026. His contact rate was a new career low at 78.1% in the 149 innings in which he pitched to a 3.87 ERA.
Yet, even through that success, the roller coaster part of this story was still there. Just when you thought he was becoming a front-of-the-line starter, he would be sidelined with another injury.
So, would 2026 continue the trend?
