Jake Meyers is another amazing fruit of the Astros’ outfield tree

The Astros keep showing the baseball world that they continue to grow outfielders out of nowhere. More than pitchers, shortstops, or first basemen, the Astros have had the ability to bring talented OFs from the Minors for years. Jake Meyers is just one more of those brilliant names Houston has developed either from the start or after a trade.

Appealing to memories from recent years, the first name that comes to mind is George Springer. Then, Yordan Álvarez, Kyle Tucker, Chas McCormick, Myles Straw, and Meyers.

Fortunately, we can say it’s even funny how things have worked out for the Astros. Months ago we were crying after Springer signed a huge contract with the Blue Jays — there was a clear demand for an outfield acquisition and there were also doubts about Straw in the Astros’ environment, wondering whether he could embrace the everyday role or not.

Straw put up a 1.6 bWAR before surprisingly being traded to the Cleveland Indians for reliever Phil Maton. Then, when Chas McCormick was supposed to see regular playing time, he got injured, and Meyers stepped up as the new trending name around Minute Maid Park.

In only 14 starts so far, Meyers has been the key man in at least three of those games, including Friday and Wednesday’s contests. In his last 10 games, the 25-year-old is slashing .350/.357/.500, thanks to 14 hits across 40 at-bats, three doubles, one home run, and nine runs batted in.

This is developing as another huge story for the Astros in 2021 after Yordan and Kyle’s successful debuts.

Meyers just looks good at the plate and on the field in general. Despite the fact that his BB and K ratios are not ideal, he’s averaging 91.9 MPH on exit velocity (according to Baseball Savant) while he’s hitting line drives 35.7% of the time.

Mostly, this kid is being challenged with fastballs and he’s just crushing them. Against that kind of pitch, Meyers is averaging .484 (15-for-31) with all of his four doubles and one of his four-baggers.

But Meyers can’t rest on his laurels. Even though he’s enjoying a great debut with the Astros and might stay as an important player in the long run, Jake’s plate approach still needs some polishing.

However, there have been hundreds of players that have become regulars on their teams after appearing out of the blue. And it’ll be interesting to see how Meyers performs on a playoff run, which may give us a hint about his probable role for 2022.