On the end of the phone line was a 23-year-old man who understands how big-league baseball works.
You do not lust for a promotion, not publicly. You stay in your lane — even if a northbound lane of Interstate 75, the most direct pathway from Toledo to Detroit, is where your personal GPS is set.
Parker Meadows is ready for the Tigers — when they’re ready for him. It could be soon. He batted .318 in 24 games in June for the Triple-A Mud Hens, with a big .350 on-base average and — thanks to nine doubles, two triples, and four home runs — a plump .545 slugging percentage.
That equates to a .895 OPS. Muscular stuff, which would seem irresistible to a Tigers team 60 miles away that in 2023 is looking at hitters the way a wolf eyes sirloin.
“Obviously, my goal is to get there,” Meadows said, speaking of Detroit and Comerica Park. “But right now, I’m focused on the now — helping the team win now in Toledo. This is a really fun squad, and I’ve got a good support system here.
“That’s where most guys get into trouble: looking far ahead.”
In reality, Meadows suiting up for the Tigers isn’t that “far ahead.” It could happen yet this summer if the Tigers continue to run a shuttle to the orthopedist. Another injury, to an outfielder anyway, and Meadows would be a logical choice when he is a left-handed hitter, batting .261 on the season with 10 homers and a .777 OPS, runs as if a grizzly is chasing him, and snares batted balls galore in center field.
More likely, the Tigers will let Meadows add a bit more crust at Toledo through the season’s second half, then bring him to camp next spring with a chance to make the club out of Florida.
The thinking these days in Tigers headquarters is: the longer at a particular farm stop, the better. A player is allowed ample time to forestall tortures the big-league game invariably delivers. He can fine-tune everything — bat, glove, basepath sprints, the works.
He also can learn how to become part of a true team. It is big, the team ethos, in a development curriculum favored by Tigers front-office head Scott Harris.
Meadows is on board. He also is on pitches. It has been a fine 2023 season at Triple A as his skills have matured, particularly at the plate.
Two seasons ago, there wasn’t great confidence that the 44th overall player drafted in 2018 — the first player grabbed in the MLB Draft’s second round — had the bat to swat big-league pitching.
An offseason spent attacking batting-cage fastballs led to a 2022 surge as Meadows moved to Double A and to .275/.354/.476/.820 season.
Next, Toledo. And to 2023 semesters loaded with lessons on hitting the junk and off-speed stuff Triple-A pitchers, many of whom have already had a taste of the big leagues, invariably bring to the mound along with professional-grade velocity.
“Yeah, 100%,” Meadows said. “These guys, when they miss, they just miss. Their location is just better.
“I think I definitely saw more fastballs last year at Erie. Here, there’s more off-speed. I’m still trying to adjust to that.”
A measure of how far Meadows has come in two years can be seen, also, in his rather amazing work against left-handed pitching.
In fact, his numbers are better against lefties: .284 batting average, .326 on-base, .561 slugging, .881 OPS vs. (against righties) .257/.333/.420/.754.
As with his obsession the previous offseason with handling fastballs, Meadows last winter dueled with a serious demon: hitting left-side pitches that had all but kneecapped him in 2022 (.196 batting average, .562 OPS).
He worked, back home in Georgia, with his old Team Elite (15- and 16-year-olds) coach, Shane Hopper.
“I wanted to do better,” Meadows said, “and he (Hopper) knows me.”
Their drill was side-toss: Hoffer standing 10-15 feet away, to the side rather than straight ahead, feeding Meadows sweeping pitches that would veer across and away from him.
“It was just a thought one day,” Meadows said of their side-toss strategy. “I just said, let’s roll with it.”
Meadows today, as his 2023 Triple-A seminar continues, has a numerical edge against same-siders.
Defense is a different, even stronger story. Meadows is so fleet and covers so much ground it is thought he eventually will play center field at Comerica Park as Riley Greene moves to left.
That move is down the path, for sure. But the speed owned by a man 6-foot-5, 205 pounds, is a two-way asset that helps turn infield grounders into singles, singles into doubles, doubles into triples — and, when he’s on defense, drives up the alley or against the fence into outs.
It also leads to the occasional stolen base: He had 17 in 2022, and sits at 11 halfway through Toledo’s 2023 schedule. That number, he and the Tigers agree, can and must rise.
A statistical chore remains for Meadows: cutting down on strikeouts: 84 through 75 games, compared with 32 walks. A whiff rate of 27.5% isn’t necessarily a killer. But particularly with Meadows’ speed, more contact — or a walk-rate higher than 9% — means more weaponry.
“One hundred percent,” he said, repeating a favorite line. “I’ve noticed I’m striking out a little too much this year. I think that’s part of the game, but recognizing pitches is something I’m still working on against this Triple A pitching.”
So, he’ll continue with the apprenticeship, which he now shares alongside last year’s Erie teammate, and this year’s Tigers farm star, Colt Keith.
Keith, incidentally, hit a home run in his first Mud Hens at-bat Wednesday, then followed with another monster clout (473 feet) Friday.
Meadows had told his Mud Hens mates Wednesday to expect as much.
“I actually called his home run,” Meadows said of Keith’s first-inning bomb (435 feet) to right. “I said, ‘Watch, he’ll hit a home run right here.’
“And then he hit it.”
The Tigers are counting on a bit more of this banter, and a bit more of this hitting, when both Meadows and Keith arrive in Detroit.
Next season, most likely, for those interested in target-dates. Sooner, for those who fantasize that their favorite prospects will arrive ASAP.
Short hops
▶ Luke Gold, the Tigers’ fifth-round pick in 2022 from Boston College and a right-handed-hitting infielder, is heating up at Single-A Lakeland and probably is on the docket for a West Michigan ticket: His last 28 days: .356/.429/.542/.971.
▶ Keider Montero, the truly talented right-handed starter at Erie, finally is calming down and dealing with Double-A ball after his May move from West Michigan. Montero’s last three starts: 12 innings, 11 strikeouts. Montero, 22, still is walking too many (seven in those last three games), but his repertoire is one of the better on Detroit’s farm. His second half should push him far up the Tigers’ top-prospect pecking list.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.