Austin Meadows' arrow pointed up for rest of year
Colin Henderson believes the recent success of Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Austin Meadows is a positive sign for the rest of his 2021 campaign.
Video Transcript
COLIN HENDERSON: Rays outfielder Austin Meadows has been on a tear of late. He has three homers in his last four games, along with eight RBIs and five runs scored, which has raised his season slash line to 239, 349, 876, with 12 homers, 37 RBIs, and 30 runs scored entering Tuesday.
While Meadows will probably not be much help in the batting average category, as he's only hit over .250 once in a Rays uniform, and strikes out more than one would like, he's showing this year that he can be a fantastic contributor in most counting stats, excluding stolen bases.
He currently sits in the top third of the league in barrel percentage, expected slugging, chase rate, and expected weighted on base average. This is helped by his elite eye at the plate, where he's in the 80th percentile in chase rate and the 98th percentile in walk rate. In fact, he is currently walking in 13 and 1/2% of his plate appearances, a career high. Locked into the middle of the Tampa Bay lineup that has been putting up runs in bunches, Meadows' arrow is pointing firmly up.
Those who drafted the 26-year-old in the hopes that he could recreate his breakout 2019 season, when he hit 33 homers and drove in 89 runs, should be rewarded handsomely for the rest of the year.
