How one former SF Giants prospect solidified Wade Meckler's confidence

Wade Meckler credits former SF Giants prospect Tyler Graham for helping his confidence. Graham talked with GBI about Meckler’s development.

It's no secret that SF Giants outfielder Wade Meckler (Giants Top 22 Prospect) has had plenty of doubters throughout his career. Meckler had to walk on at Oregon State and was actually cut from the roster. Rather than transferring, Meckler used it as motivation and eventually revived his career with the program. In spite of those hurdles, Meckler has remained steadfast in his belief that he would one day play in the major leagues. He credited Michigan assistant coach Tyler Graham, who coached Meckler at Oregon State, for helping him develop that confidence.

Dbacks OF Tyler Graham strikes out looking against the Cubs at Chase Field. (2012) / Jennifer Hilderbrand-USA TODAY Sports

"Actually, former Giant Tyler Graham coached at Oregon State," Meckler told reporters before his big-league debut. "Day one, I walk in there, and he's like, 'You're just like Steven Kwan. You can be a big leaguer. Steven Kwan was a big leaguer. You can be a top-five rounder.' From day one, he was in my ear telling me this stuff and kind of giving me that confidence that if I grinded and worked as hard as everyone else and worked the right way that, eventually, I was going to be a starter there."

Graham met Meckler when the outfielder arrived at Oregon State as a walk-on in 2018. In a phone interview with Giants Baseball Insider last week, Graham recalled what Meckler was like as a prospect when he first arrived on campus.

"He came in and was small, undersized, didn't really have a position, was a switch-hitter, and there was just a lot of work to do on both sides," Graham said.

That hardly sounds like the description of a future MLB player. While Kwan, who now stars with the Cleveland Guardians, had been drafted in the fifth round out of Oregon State a few months earlier and shared a comparably small frame to Meckler, plenty of players are thin and undersized. What Graham noticed was Meckler's relentless work ethic.

"He decided to go one side and picked lefty, and he lived in the cage," Graham said. "We had a lot of hard-working kids, but he's probably one of the top kids who ever came through the program in terms of work ethic... When kids have those qualities: the extreme work ethic, the really good attitude, and then the coachability and curiousness to get better. When they possess those three things, there was a really good track record with those kind of kids"

It says a lot that Graham is willing to single Meckler out among the long list of big-league players to spend time with the program. Graham, after all, played in the Oregon State outfield from 2003-2006 before he was drafted by the Giants in the 19th round of the 2006 MLB Draft. When his playing career was over, he returned to Corvallis as a coach from 2015-2019. Even in the years since, as his coaching career has brought him to the minor leagues and now to the University of Michigan, he has kept close tabs on his alma mater.

Like Meckler, Graham had limited power at the plate and found other ways to be productive. He focused on putting the ball in play and tormenting opponents on the basepaths. Graham spent parts of eight seasons in the Giants organization, hitting .297/.348/.376 across four Triple-A campaigns. He still holds the Fresno Grizzlies single-season stolen base record (60).

Graham never appeared in the majors with the Giants but received a cup of coffee with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2012. Even if he only appeared in 10 games, Graham's big-league pedigree made his confidence in Meckler even more meaningful.

"It really helps to have someone, especially someone of his caliber who had been there before and done that, have him in my ear immediately," Meckler said.

The Giants decision to add Meckler to the 40-man roster and call him up on August 14th was somewhat surprising. Meckler has crushed the minors since he was drafted, hitting .377/.472/.527 with as many walks as strikeouts (59) across every stateside minor league level. However, the team had other young outfielders like Bryce Johnson, Luis González, Heliot Ramos (Giants Top 30 Prospect), and Luis Matos (Giants Top 4 Prospect) available and already on the roster. In fact, the Giants optioned Matos and designated González for assignment to get Meckler into the lineup.

Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has prioritized 40-man roster flexibility during his tenure, constantly acquiring players via the waiver wire. Meckler was not going to be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this offseason and could have remained off the 40-man roster until next year without risk. Given the organization's track record, adding Meckler was a clear sign that they were confident he could help the team immediately.

Meckler's big-league career did not get off to a great start. A contact-oriented hitter with a sub-15 % strikeout rate in the minors, Meckler struck out 13 times in his first 23 MLB plate appearances. Defensively, Meckler misplayed several balls in center field, including a play that resulted in an inside-the-park home run. He was even picked off first base.

The Giants remained confident in Meckler's ability to adjust. Graham remembered that Meckler had a tendency to overthink his swing when he found himself struggling.

"Later on, it was mostly the mental part of the game," Graham recalled. "His mind would go to his swing, and it was never his swing. It was his process... When his mind was in the right place, he dominated. When his mind wasn't in the right place, he struggled a bit."

Graham's insights on Meckler's previous struggles seem to carry over into this recent stretch. Meckler struck out swinging on a 3-2 breaking ball outside the strike zone from Rays lefty Jacob Lopez in the Giants' 10-2 loss in his debut. Following the game, Meckler acknowledged that he got beat because he misread Lopez.

"I thought I was getting a fastball there," Meckler told reporters. "I made two pretty good takes on some sliders, and I was like, 'Alright, he's going to go back to the fastball here.' He didn't. I chased a pitch low."

It remains to be seen how Meckler will adjust to big-league offspeed offerings. Meckler has had no problem hitting fastballs since his callup, hitting .444 with an exceptional 10.7% whiff rate. However, 12 of his 14 plate appearances that have ended against a non-fastball ended in a strikeout. His whiff rates against both breaking balls and offspeed pitches are well north of 50% (MLB average is 24%).

Despite those struggles, Meckler has looked far better recently. Alongside more consistent defense, Meckler is hitting .500/.625/.500 over his last five games with just three strikeouts in 16 plate appearances. He has looked like the player the Giants saw in the minors.

San Francisco is expected to face a roster crunch this week when outfielders Mike Yastrzemski and Mitch Haniger return from the injured list. Meckler, Matos, and Ramos are all currently on the big-league roster. Presumably, two will be optioned to Triple-A to create space for the veterans. 

All three rookie outfielders have had promising performances recently. However, Giants manager Gabe Kapler reiterated that Yastrzemski and Haniger's rehab timeline will not be slowed to give the young players some more playing time.

"I think it's more when those guys are ready, it's time to have them back," Kapler told reporters on Sunday. "Yaz has been for several years one of our best hitters against right-handed pitching and a dependable center fielder, a dependable baserunner, and a great teammate... Mitch Haniger was our biggest free-agent acquisition this offseason. He's not that far removed from a 40-home run season."

So, the question remains whether Meckler will stick on the roster for now. Ramos and Matos are both right-handed hitters, making one of them (likely Ramos) the logical odd-man-out for Haniger. 

Yastrzemski, however, is a left-handed hitter who will seemingly take the majority of opportunities away from Meckler. It's also worth noting that the Giants only called Meckler up after Yastrzemski suffered a setback in his injury rehab two weeks ago. Yet, the Giants sacrificed a 40-man roster spot for the entire offseason to call up Meckler. That seems like a move made with a more long-term place for him on the roster in mind. 

Regardless of what happens over the next week, it's clear that Wade Meckler is a part of the SF Giants' long-term plans. Michigan coach Tyler Graham is one of the few people in the world who can say he saw it coming.

"I always told him he was a big leaguer," Graham said. "I didn't know it would happen this fast. For Wade, it happened a lot faster than everyone expected, but that's the thing that can happen when you do the things he does."