BOSTON — Chase Meidroth has walked in 19.0% of his plate appearance while striking out in just 10.7% of his plate appearances. His ability to draw so many walks while striking out so infrequently has left his Triple-A Worcester teammates locked in every time he steps to the plate.
“It’s funny. We actually call him Force Field down there,” said Jamie Westbrook who right now is on the Red Sox’ 26-man roster but has spent most of the 2024 season with the WooSox. “Because it seems like he just gets up there and walks. It’s like he doesn’t swing at balls ever.”
Meidroth has 31 more walks (71) than strikeouts (40).
“It’s almost like an electric force field around him that they’re like allergic to throwing him strikes or something,” Westbrook said. “There’s so many games, he leads off a lot, and he’s 2-0, 3-0 to start the game.”
WooSox players know what that means … “Force Field is engaged.”
“He could be 0-2 and he’s just fouling stuff off and ends up walking,” Westbrook said. “So yeah, it’s definitely a special talent, for sure.”
Walking so often obviously leads to a high on-base percentage. He led all qualified Red Sox minor leaguers in on-base percentage last year (.408). He’s third this season for Red Sox minor leaguers with more than 250 plate appearances.
- Kristian Campbell, Greenville/Portland (.458 OBP, 319 plate appearances)
- Mickey Gasper, Portland/Worcester (.438 OBP, 272 plate appearances)
- Meidroth, Worcester (.436 OBP, .374 plate appearances)
“Having him at the top of the lineup definitely helps everybody out,” Westbrook said. “Especially to be such a young hitter and understand the strike zone and his game, it’s fun to watch.”
Meidroth has 19 more walks than Niko Kavadas, who is second in the Red Sox system with 52 walks. Meidroth, Kavadas, Nick Sogard (51) and Allan Castro (50) are the only four hitters in the system with 50 or more walks.
Eight Red Sox minor leaguers have more walks than strikeouts. Meidroth and Gasper are the only two to do it in more than 150 plate appearances. Nobody but Meidroth and Gasper has 10 or more walks than strikeouts.
- Meidroth, Worcester (71 walks, 40 strikeouts, 374 plate appearances)
- Gasper, Portland/Worcester (41 walks, 30 strikeouts, 272 plate appearances)
- Andruw Musett, FCL (26 walks, 20 strikeouts, 150 plate appearances)
- Anderson Fermin DSL (20 walks, 11 strikeouts, 123 plate appearances)
- Justin Gonzales DSL (11 walks, 10 strikeouts, 112 plate appearances)
- Gerardo Rodriguez DSL (16 walks, 12 strikeouts, 66 plate appearances)
- Efren Teran DSL (8 walks, 5 strikeouts, 69 plate appearances)
- Liosward Marin DSL (12 walks, 4 strikeouts, 52 plate appearances)
“It’s definitely rare,” Westbrook said. “Strikeouts are definitely up and more like I would say acceptable for hitters nowadays (with) how pitching is. But to watch him have 30 more walks than strikeouts is honestly incredible. When he strikes out, everyone’s like, ‘What the heck? What was that?’ So he’s a good leadoff hitter for us down there and he’s fun to watch play.”
Arguably the only knock on Meidroth’s offensive game is a lack of extra-base power. He has only 19 extra base hits (three homers, 16 doubles) and a .372 slugging percentage. But the Red Sox don’t seem concerned. We’ve seen players like Andrew Benintendi lose what they do best (batting average, OBP) when they try to chase power.
Is there pressure for prospects to chase power?
“I’m not really sure. I think when you get to that point, it’s all about finding out which player you are,” Westbrook said. “Some guys are going to have more swing and miss with more power. Some guys are going to put the ball in play and not strike out as much. I think it’s just finding out which player you are and being the best you can at the mold that you fit.”
Red Sox hitting coach Peter Fatse said earlier this season he’s not concerned with the lack of slug.
“The old saying of you come into your power later,” Fatse said. “I think whether that’s true or not … when you look across the league, slug will come in waves. So there’s points in times where there is a high degree of slug and then it kind of dips and there’s like this higher level of variance whereas on-base for me is something that kind of stays at the team level pretty consistent. So when you have a guy that’s able to get on base and impact your group that way, to a degree it’s kind of like speed never slumps. To that degree …. he’s always an at-bat away from getting on base. Getting hits is hard to do. But being in a position to get on base is very important.”
