Detroit Tigers: The season that never was, featuring Austin Meadows

Detroit Tigers outfielder Austin Meadows missed out on the 2022 season.

The Detroit Tigers missed out on a season of Austin Meadows after he underwent a season of very unfortunate luck. The Tigers outfielder was acquired ahead of the 2022 season when Tampa Bay Rays were shopping him.

Before being fired earlier this summer when the season began, Al Avila traded infielder Isaac Paredes and a compensatory draft pick in exchange for the veteran outfielder. The hope coming into the season was that he was going to anchor down an outfield position.

In reality, it was a season full of disappointment after injuries plagued him from getting back on the field. In all honesty, Meadows was seeing the ball really well to start the season. There is no pun intended there as he had some vertigo issues that kept him off the field and ultimately started a string of bad injuries.

But Meadows was finding ways to get on base. He played in 36 games, logging 147 at-bats for the Tigers in 2022, he’s produced a .250/.347/.328 slash line with eight extra-base hits and 11 RBI.

On top of the Tigers missing out on Meadows, he ended up needing to miss even more time with mental health issues. He got the full support of the Tigers which is huge and a good look for the organization.

However, with a season that never was for Meadows, things could vastly change for his future. With a new leader in town in Scott Harris, the Tigers have to analyze what Meadows will bring to the table moving forward.

Austin Meadows’s future may be changed based on 2022.

As the Detroit Tigers start building plans for the future, it will be interesting to see how Austin Meadows factors into the plans. He is under team control for the next two seasons with two arbitration years ahead of him.

For the Tigers, keeping him around still brings value. The hope is that Meadows can settle into the outfield. For Meadows, after an offseason of rest and recovery for Meadows, the hope should be that he is ready to get back on the field in 2023.

Even with Harris taking over and some roster moves expected to be on tap, keeping Meadows around seems like a good plan right now. Meadows is under team control for two years as was mentioned so the Tigers have a chance to see if he can get things on track in 2023.

With changes likely coming and Meadows’s lack of a 2022 season not giving much for Harris to look at, they will have to hope that he can perform as he did with the Rays in 2019 when he was an all-star.

While he has sputtered a bit, and 2022 did not help, a reset and time away from the field could allow Meadows to bounce back strong in 2022. There will be some time for Harris to start analyzing the state of the organization with the help of those around him and start making decisions for the future.

However, while Meadows missed so much time in 2022 it could impact how the Tigers view the future with the veteran outfielder. I’d still expect him to be factored in as part of the Tigers outfield moving forward, for now.