Reckoning Week
Jake Meyers hard hit rate has declined this season, meaning he cannot get enough hits. Mike Burrows strikeout rate has declined, meaning he cannot get enough outs.
Entering the season, they seemed like they would be mainstays for the 2026 Astros.
Jake Meyers has been the team’s first‑choice center fielder since 2023, having won back the job he first claimed in August 2021 when then–GM James Click traded Myles Straw to Cleveland. Meyers was coming off his best major‑league season in 2025, posting career highs in batting average and on‑base percentage.
Mike Burrows was a key offseason acquisition. The front office targeted him as a young rotation piece for 2026 and beyond. In an organization low on prospects, they sent out two of them—Jacob Melton and Anderson Brito—to acquire Burrows and fill the rotation hole created by Framber Valdez’s departure.
Over the last 4 days, both have been sent to AAA Sugar Land and removed from the active roster. The choice to demote both players reflects how the season is going for the Astros. The team is playing at a 96‑win pace since bottoming out at 17–28 on May 14. They now stand 2 games out of the division lead and 1 game out of a Wild Card slot in a weak American League. They have played themselves into relevance, increasing the value of each start and plate appearance.
But the demotions also illustrate why the team is still below .500 and below the expectations set by Jim Crane. Several players are not hitting or pitching to expected levels, and that is holding the team back.
Today, I’ll cover what has gone wrong for Meyers and Burrows and identify the parts of their game that have declined.
Jake Meyers Power Outage
This blog has tended to be pro–Jake Meyers. Early in his career, I viewed him as an everyday center fielder, and the choice to prefer him to Straw was a good one by Click. Meyers has always provided excellent center‑field defense and occasional power, making him an average major‑league player—someone who raises the floor more than the ceiling.
But the 2026 Meyers is a player whose flaws have overcome his assets. He has slashed .206/.264/.316 for a .580 OPS. Since returning from the IL in late May, Meyers has a BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) of .227, which is quite low, and a sign of bad fortune.
The issue, though, isn’t batted balls finding fielders. It’s a decline in his hard‑hit rate: 28.0% this season, per Statcast. Meyers had hard‑hit rates above 36% in 4 of his 5 seasons. In 2025, he was in the 31st percentile; this season, he’s in the 13th.
That decline has driven down his expected batting average. His career xBA is .232; this season it’s .201, nearly identical to his actual .206.
Meyers has been valuable because he offers elite center‑field defense with occasional pop. He remains the team’s best defensive outfielder, but his inability to hit the ball hard removes the offensive value that once justified his glove‑first profile.
Age is the biggest factor here. Meyers is 30, and players tend to peak in their mid‑to‑late 20s. While I think we’ll see Meyers again at Daiken Park this season, my guess is that he will not be the first‑string center fielder again. The team is unlikely to offer him a contract this offseason.
A big factor for Meyers is age. He is 30 and baseball players tend to peak in their mid to late 20s. While I think we will see Meyers again at Daiken Park sometime again this season, my guess is that he will never be the first-string centerfielder for the Astros again. The team is not likely to offer him a contract this offseason.
A Declining Strikeout Rate for Burrows
In the lower minors, Mike Burrows struck out 26.2% of batters. In AAA, he maintained that rate at 26.0%. In 99 major‑league innings with the Pirates, his strikeout rate was 21.0%. This season with the Astros, he has struck out only 17.7%—10th lowest among the 63 qualified starters. His strikeout‑minus‑walk rate is 9.5%, 4th lowest among qualified starters.1
Most Astros fans would probably identify his issue as giving up hard contact. That makes sense, as Burrows has allowed 21 home runs, 3rd most in MLB.
But Statcast data shows he isn’t giving up harder contact. His barrel rate is down from 10.8% last season to 8.4% this year. His average exit velocity allowed is essentially unchanged (2025: 89.2 mph; 2026: 88.3 mph). His xwOBA on contact is down (2025: .389; 2026: .372).
The issue is not harder contact—it’s more contact. Because Burrows is striking out fewer hitters, more balls are being put in play. He has pitched essentially the same number of innings as last year yet has allowed 40 more batted balls. And since he gives up a hit on roughly a third of those, that’s a lot more hits and runs.
Burrows’s best strikeout pitches are his changeup and curveball. Unsurprisingly, his ability to get swing‑and‑miss on those pitches has declined. In 2025, he induced a whiff on 43% of his changeups; this season, that’s down 12 points. Last season, he got a whiff on 33% of his curveballs; in 2026, that’s down 9 points.
One issue is that he is throwing from a lower arm angle than in previous seasons. Chandler Rome of The Athletic wrote “throwing from a lower arm slot alters the movement of Burrows’ four-seam fastball.”
But the bigger effect seems to be on his strikeout pitches. In Rome’s article, pitching coach Josh Miller says, “I feel like his curveball has definitely shortened up some… A higher slot should be able to create more depth to the pitch.” A better fastball would also make the curveball more dangerous.
The arm‑slot issue is a key one for Burrows to work on in the PCL. He is 26, has had major‑league success, and should be someone the Astros want in the rotation later this season and in 2027 and beyond. The hope is that the pitching lab in Sugar Land can help him regain the strikeout ability he needs to be effective. There is a major‑league pitcher in there, and the team needs to find him.
He’s tied in that metric with Framber Valdez (!). Valdez strikes out batters less frequently than Burrows—at 17.6%.
I welcomed the news concerning Burrows. He just doesn't miss bats, it seems. Waiting for Mike to convert a 2 strike count into an out is like Waiting for Godot. Foul ball after foul ball until the hitter straightens it out or there's 4 out of the zone. Bottom quartile across the majors in whiff %age bears that out. So does bottom third on the team in K/9. So whatever, moving on with Cristian or Hayden or someone else.
Jake made me sad. I love a homegrown prospect and I love a dynamic centerfielder, and thought he'd turned the corner last year. Was interested in your comment, "He remains the team’s best defensive outfielder." Not that they don't have their own offensive problems, but with the rapid defensive emergence of Cam and Brice--and the fact that they both have arms that put Meyers' to shame--why do you say that?
Is there something about Jake's routes or his bursts that puts him in front of those two in your mind?
It seems to be cannon that Meyers won the CF job. E was splitting time with McCormick in 2021 until his shoulders injury took him out of the running. Didn’t really return until 2023 when he duked it out with Chas and Dubón for playing time. Then they’ve been trying to trade him ever since. He was never anything more than a stopgap there. While he had tremendous skills in going and getting the ball, he is among the worst CF arms I’ve ever seen on this team. His offensive success in 2025 boiled down to one really good month.