Parker Meadows: Leveraging Crowd Insights for an In-Depth Analysis

Parker Meadows recently was our 4th ranked prospect for the second time in a row. He had a .354 wOBA, .256/.337/.474 slash line for Toledo before getting called up to the big league team for his final 37 games. His brief time with the big league has generated some excitement, seeing most of his stats remain the same pace. As players report to Spring Training, let’s take a look at what some fans think he could be.

The results

I ran some polls on Twitter/X as well as on the TMLR Discord (join here!)channel recently to see if I could get an idea of what sort of season the fan base could be expecting from Meadows compared to my thoughts. I set and over/under for singles, doubles, triples, home runs, walks, and stolen based on 600 PA as well as an OAA total assuming 1260 innings played. The assumption here is that he gets in 150 games and all are in CF and all stats are based on what he did in MLB PAs rounded to the half. For example, he hit 3 HRs in 145 PA, which comes out to 12.4 HRs in 600 PA and so on.

Let’s see the results:

Guessing the numbers

The question becomes how much of an over or under will each stat be? That’s hard to say. I had written previously about how his swing seemed to have changed slightly, and he was much more effective. Let’s use that 6/5/22 date to see what some minor league rates were for Parker and try to determine what we might see. Here are his minor league rates and MLB rates:

So let’s have some fun with it.

Singles

A majority went with the over here. Which I found interesting considering the majority voted for the over on doubles and home runs as well. Regardless of the rest of the voting, this tells me that fans think Parker Meadows will be better than the .232 hitter he was last year. Which is awesome! What’s intriguing is he was roughly on the same pace based on the chart above. I think 100 is getting too high. Nine players had between 575-625 PA and 100+ singles — only two had an average below .270. 90 might even be pushing it. Let’s put the estimate at 87.

Doubles

These results were the most interesting to me. No other poll had a larger gap. And it was overwhelmingly for over. Personally, I thought his speed would turn more of these doubles into triples. Or I’d think he would turn more of the singles into doubles. Regardless — 16.5 seems to be far too low to what the crowd things. Since the gap was so large, I wonder if it would have been closer to 50/50 if I set the over under at 20.5. One thing that concerns me is that his double rate wasn’t that much worse at MLB level in the chart above for me to go that much further over. Let’s put the estimate at 20 doubles.

Triples

This one might have been the toughest for me. 8-9 just seems right, and I don’t know which one it would be. Combining his ability to hit hard with his plus speed (29.0 MPH sprint speed) and you can almost picture the first Tigers hitter with double-digit triples since Nick Castellanos in 2017. And this was relatively close in the voting. The crowd went with the under, but not by much. Let’s put the estimate at 7 triples.

Home runs

An overwhelming number of folks think he would hit more than 12.5 HRs if given 600 PA despite his below average 34.8% Hard-Hit%. I, too, had the same thoughts. His HR rate was nearly doubled in his brief time with the Tigers based on the chart above, but also he had a very strong finish to the season from a batted ball standpoint. That 34.8% Hard-Hit% was raised thanks to his more average 38.1% from 9/15 until the end of the season and his 11.9% Barrel% was 21st best out of 70 players who saw at least 250 pitches in that time. So let’s put the estimate at 17 HRs.

Walks

I think I disagreed with the majority here to most out of all the categories. An estimated 70.5 walks would translate to an 11.8% walk rate (BB%), aligning precisely with his performance last year with the Tigers. Interestingly, this particular statistic sparked significant discussion among analysts and fans alike. It was wondered if Parker could keep up with the high walk rate. My defense was this: his BB% has gone up each step of the way, not down. And to kick — his K% doesn’t move much either.  Let’s look at this where he got a minimum of 100 PA.

2019: 504 PA in A ball, 9.3% BB%, 22.4% K%

2021: 408 PA in A+ ball, 9.1% BB%, 24.3% K%

2022: 489 PA in AA ball, 10.6% BB%, 18.4% K%

2023: 517 PA in AAA ball, 11.0% BB%, 23.8% K%

2023: 145 PA in MLB, 11.7% BB%, 25.5% K%

Would I be shocked if he was in the under? No, I wouldn’t. Major league pitching is hard. But I certainly think he has the chance to at least keep it at this rate.

However! I’m in the minority on this. And it was by a fairly significant amount. Let’s put the estimate at 60 walks.

Stolen bases

32.5 steals seemed pretty steep to me, and most agreed. He’s got quickness, for sure. Almost had a 20/20 season in AA and in AAA, so I think he will get a good amount of steals. However, he stole 27 bases last year between AAA/MLB. So it could be closer than we think. I’m going to say he sticks right with that. Let’s put the estimate at 27.

OAA

Given enough time in CF, I fully believe he would be among the best defenders out there. +4 OAA in 37 games is super impressive. He was so good that for defenders who had a minimum of 50 attempts in CF, he ranked 28th out of 63 OF, only Jake Marisnick had a higher success rate than Parker’s 98%, and he ranked 6th with a 4% success rate added. Add to that his arm strength — which was in the 80th percentile, and above average jump metrics, it’s easy to see why fans thought he will get the over on 17.5 OAA. I don’t want to get too wild with this, but my head said he would reach +20 OAA in a full season. The results of the poll say it’s probably not quite that high. Let’s put the estimate at +18.

Recap and calculations

This has been a lengthy post so far, but this is what we have for Parker Meadows:

600 PA

87 singles

20 doubles

7 triples

17 home runs

60 walks

27 steals

+18 OAA

We can calculate out some slash lines now was well as a few advanced metrics to try to get a prediction here. First up the slash line:

With a slash line of .248/.325/.409, I’ve taken the liberty of making a few assumptions. Annually, he seems to consistently achieve similar numbers in hit-by-pitches (HBP) and sacrifice flies (SF), so I’ve incorporated those figures. Considering we’re discussing 600 plate appearances, a slight deviation by one or two won’t significantly impact the overall analysis. Consequently, he’s projected to have a .734 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS), which is satisfactory to me. Although I initially anticipated a .750 OPS, a .734 outcome is still acceptable.

Leveraging the same data, he’s estimated to have a weighted on-base average (wOBA) of approximately .319, aligning with league average, and a weighted runs created plus (wRC+) of 103. It’s reasonable to believe that such performance would meet or exceed the expectations of many. Further analysis, incorporating Outs Above Average (OAA) and assuming three caught stealings (CS)—based on his near 90% success rate over the past two years—suggests a 4.8 wins above replacement (fWAR). Notably, only Justin Upton in 2017 and Jeimer Candelario in 2021 have approached a 4.0 fWAR among Detroit Tigers hitters since 2017. Moreover, a 4.8 fWAR in 2023 would rank him among the top five center fielders, a significantly positive development.

Conclusion

What we have are some lofty expectations for Parker Meadows in 2024. It’s going to take some improvements and some luck to reach it — but his pace last year says it’s possible. Will be fun to see if he trades in some of his walk rate to get more base hits and how that affects his stolen base total. Regardless, I think we will be happy with what Parker supplies the team going forward.

It was also really fun to do. And I appreciate everyone’s input on this! I’d love to hear any feedback you have on this. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter/X @OPSenheimer!