1st picture is of his first MLB hit, 2nd is his first MLB homerun.
Noticed when Curtis was called back up the Rays had him work on his stance in the minors. He always had an extremely upright stance (if you take away his hands his original stance is almost a carbon copy of Longo) and his hands were held extremely high similar to Mike Trout ( i tried to find a better example but was best the best i can do) but a little more awkward as his hands were even higher and more over the plate then Mike’s. In the end it made for a blend of Longo and Mike Trout (pictures 3 and 4 respectively), which both are great players to emulate but both had their issues Longo is pitches high in the zone but he could leverage his arms rake on balls down in the zone. Trout of course famously couldn’t hit high fastballs early in his career but small tweaks enabled him to get to those balls more effectively thanks to a more atheltic stance then Longo. I am not a fundamentals guy with regards to stance and how they impact the ability to attack the zone. However I do know a stance like Mead’s created a lot of excess movement when swinging as you have to drop your hands when you go to load. So the dropping of his hands made a lot of since, and the transition to a more athletic stance should greatly help his ability to get to ptiches up in the zone. Removing noise in his swing should allow him to get the bat to the ball more consistently and create more consistent hard contact at the Majors. With a more atheltic stance and less noise theoretically Mead should have a more effective plate coverage and should be able to reduce strikeouts while still creating leverage to hit the ball hard in zones that he normally would struggle with.
This has played out as roughly in the same number of ABs (36 vs 30) in his two stints in the MLB he has hit really well since he was called up a .300/.323/.533 slash line compared to a .250/.372/.278 line he put up with old stance. Avg Evs are also up in this time as well as K% being slashed from 30 to 16%, hard hit rate is up 2% plus he has produced the only 2 barrels in his MLB career so far. I am extremely excited to see what he can do going forward with this modified approach and can’t wait to see what he can produce with a full year next year. I know this was a long post but hope yall enjoyed!
4 comments
I noticed this as well, they also shortened his swing. During his first game against the Tigers, he was helplessly so far behind on everything because his swing was incredibly long.
Looks like Longo’s stance
I’ve said it since he was called up. His stance and swing were a carbon copy of Longos. The new stance reminds me a lot more of Brandon Lowe now.
I’ve read before that lowering the hands increases bat speed for most batters. I don’t have Mead’s stats for that, but I wonder if that’s what we’ve been seeing with him since he got called up again. He definitely seems to be whiffing less, which like you said is probably down to decreasing the noise in his swings and taking less time to move his hands.