Daniel Meadows Spring Training Check-Up #1

For those of you coming in late, every member of the RtB staff has chosen one Brewers player to stalk  dance with  frisbee golf  (sigh) follow.  Since I am the boss, I got first pick and I knew who my guy was going to be…The Waco Kid himself, Daniel Meadows.  Not sure if that nickname is going to stick, but we will try a few others over the course of this article…see how they fit. 

A quick catch-up:

He goes by Daniel, but is recognized as Dan Meadows according Baseball-Reference and multiple other sources.  Deadshot Meadows is only 6’6″ tall and weighs a mere 225 pounds.  Average fastball, serviceable change-up, and an out of this world slider.  Daniel spent a large part of last season dominating Double and Triple-A competition.  At 24 years old, he can’t even rent a car, without paying a ridiculous daily fee…but he knows how to record outs. 

I chose this kid because he is exciting to me.  Very rarely do I get excited about a guy who will probably be a bullpen pitcher his entire career, but something about him is…awesome.  Uniquely awesome.  This kid is a major league talent, who just needs more experience.  So far, Captain Ron Roenicke has not been afraid to use The Centaur.

Meadows “Big League” debut was not what you would call ideal.  It was the opposite of ideal…

GAME 1:  Last  Tuesday, my man got the ball in the 8th inning and had some issues getting the ball to miss Oakland A’s bats.  Tylenol DM faced 9 batters and gave up hits to 5 of them.  He was lucky to have gotten out of there only allowing two runs.  Based off of that one performance, I think he was tentative and apprehensive about any pitch that was not his slider.  While I really like his delivery (sort of like Chris Capuano…if he was taller), his balls were just way to high in the zone.  No one took him yard, but giving up 4 singles is almost worse.  Danny did not give me a lot to be positive about, looking at that 13.50 ERA made my soul hurt a little.  The Brewers lost that game 6-0. 

GAME 2:  But, like many players this time of year, the young man was given another opportunity to prove himself.  Luckily, for number 79, that opportunity came against the San Francisco Giants just three days later.  Threw a scoreless 6th inning, only allowing one hit and striking out two batters.  That is what I am talking about!!!  Danny Phantom struck out the Kung Fu Panda (Pablo Sandoval) , thus destroying all programming in Nickelodeons Wednesday night lineup.  Then the Phantom struck out the next batter.  No need to even discuss the double he gave up.  Unimportant.  This outing he seemed more confident.  I love to see a young guy just grip and rip and that is what Meadows did on Saturday. 

The scoreless inning on Saturday helped cut his ERA in half.  On the spring, Meadows has a 7.71 ERA and 2 strikeouts.  It has only been a small sampling, so it is hard to know what we have in this guy.  You have got to like the fact that he struck out Sandoval.

Today was an off day, so we could see Meadows throwing again tomorrow.  Since they have two games, it will be split squad, so I am going to predict that the Tumbleweed will throw tomorrow.  Let’s give the kid another couple of outings and see how he does. 

"RtB Spring Training Grade to Date:  B-Prospect shows flashes of dominance, but needs to work on confidence.  Also needs to keep ball lower in the zone."

Go Brewers!!