Marlins No. 27 prospect Williams making up for lost time in AFL

After missing the first few months of his first full professional season, Max Williams proved he was back in the most emphatic way possible: by slugging a homer in his first at-bat on July 9.

“You just get that confidence and you start rolling, and then I was playing like five, six games a week,” Williams said. “I was able to get on a pretty good run for pretty much the whole short season that I played.”

Williams, a third-round pick out of Florida State who ranks as the Marlins’ No. 27 prospect, joined fellow 2025 Draft class members Aiva Arquette, Cam Cannarella and Brandon Compton, among others, rehabbing injuries during the early part of 2026.

Since Williams was limited physically, he spent time building strength by lifting and working on the mental side of his game by watching old at-bats. Williams has always been an aggressive hitter (he chased all secondary pitches at least 40 percent of the time in college), so he wanted to clean up his overall approach. One point of focus was honing in on a small area early in counts to attack. 

“Obviously, it's not ideal to start your first season, but just whenever you get that news, it's just kind of always like, 'What positive things can I get from this?'” Williams said. “... Just doing some visualization stuff and whatever I could do to help my swing without actually physically swinging. That's what I took away from it.”

Williams didn’t get many live at-bats when it came time to return to the field, about a week before the All-Star break, and he served exclusively as the designated hitter as he worked through a throwing progression. The Marlins just wanted him to get as many game reps as possible -- no pressure attached.

Rather than try to do too much to make up for lost time, Williams changed his typical mindset. Usually, he is extremely hard on himself -- with high expectations. He had never been hurt in college or high school, so he found himself grateful to be competing again.

The 22-year-old hit .326/.399/.620 with 10 doubles and 15 homers in 48 games between Single-A Jupiter, High-A Beloit and Double-A Pensacola. Though he still struck out quite a bit (35), he did walk 22 times.

According to MLB Pipeline’s scouting report, the left-handed slugger can produce plenty of thump from a crouched stance as he fires his hands with impressive speed. By making more contact than usual and walking at a higher rate, that offensive profile can have a higher ceiling.

“Obviously, [I have] a long way to go,” Williams said. “I’ve got a lot of things I could still work on with my approach, but I was able to walk a little bit more. I think I was punching out a little bit less, but really when I was choosing to swing early in counts, I was getting my best swing off more consistently. So that was huge for me, especially this year. I was able to impact the ball a lot more than I have in the past.”

Williams credited watching what Cannarella and Compton, both of whom are also lefty batters, did at the Double-A level to give him confidence in being able to do the same. Cannarella was named the organization's Player of the Year, while Compton was the Double-A Pensacola MVP.

Over the final two weeks of the season, Williams played some corner-outfield defense. He is now a full-go for the Arizona Fall League, where he is getting additional reps. Entering Saturday, he is 3-for-25 (.120) with one RBI, one steal, two walks and eight strikeouts in parts of six games.

Once the AFL is done, Williams will train at the Marlins’ Jupiter Academy for the remainder of the offseason.

“[I'll be] continuing with shaping myself [into] becoming an overall better hitter, just kind of trying to control the zone a little bit more, being a little bit more patient, just kind of being confident and trusting myself to go deeper in counts because I don't swing and miss often in the zone,” Williams said. “So just being comfortable getting into deeper counts and seeing more pitches, and then really just playing the outfield more.”