Austin Meadows might just be the spark the Rays needed to get the offense going again. In his 2020 debut, he went 1 for 4 with a RBI triple to score Perez from first. He almost went 2 for 4, but Jackie Bradley Jr. made a pretty amazing catch to rob him of a base hit.
Meadows joined the team today after being placed on the COVID IL. Thankfully he is feeling better and able to play this season.
What makes Meadows so special?
He hits the ball far, hard, and consistently. Meadows was an all-star last year for a reason!
Meadows hit 33 home runs last season. He’s in the top 13 percent of the league for barrel percentage. Barrel percentage describes the amount of times a ball is hit in a certain range and combination of launch angle and exit velocity to maximize results. If you hit the ball with the right combination of the two, the batting average on that ball in play will most likely be above .500, and the slugging above 1.500. So if your barrel percentage is high, chances are so are your batting stats.
And that holds true for Meadows. His slash line last season was .291/.364/.558 (AVG/OBP/SLG).
If we just look at the balls in play that contributed to Meadows’ barrel percentage last year, we see that they were all hit far, and a lot of them resulted in a home run. See the spray chart below from Baseball Savant.
Barrel percentage relies on exit velocity. In 2019, Meadows’ hard hit percentage (balls hit with a exit velocity greater than 95 mph) was about 42%. League average is 35%. The higher the better, the harder the ball is hit, the harder it is for the opposing defense to make a play on it.
Glad to Have Him Back
The start to this season has been pretty weird for everyone, but particularly tough on the Rays offense. The Rays definitely have it in them, and hopefully having Meadows back will be the push they needed to get the offense going again.