SEATTLE \u2014 Curtis Mead\u2019s baseball journey has taken him from one side of the planet to the other \u2014 and from the top of the game\u2019s prospect stock market, tumbling toward becoming a trade-deadline commodity.<\/p>\n
Once considered among baseball\u2019s most highly touted young infielders, the 24-year-old Adelaide, Australia, native is out to prove he still can be a top-level performer with the White Sox, who acquired him last week from Tampa Bay Rays in a three-prospect package for veteran starter Adrian Houser. The deal came as \u201ca breath of fresh air\u201d for a career that felt stifled in Tampa\u2019s system, Mead said ahead of the Sox\u2019 series opener Tuesday night at Seattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying time was pretty limited, so I was excited for a new beginning and a new start,\u201d Mead said. \u201cFor another club to you and give you another opportunity, it\u2019s definitely something you don\u2019t take for granted.\u201d It\u2019s just the latest whirlwind for the 24-year-old whose love for the game was inspired by his family down under. Mead\u2019s grandfather played cricket and picked up baseball from American servicemen stationed in Australia during World War II. His father, Tim Mead, played for the Adelaide Giants of the Australian Baseball League.<\/p>\n
The Sox\u2019 new infielder was signed by the Phillies as an international free agent in 2018. They later traded him to the Rays for left-handed pitcher Cristopher Sanchez \u2014 who\u2019s put himself in the Cy Young conversation with a stellar campaign for Philadelphia this season. But Mead\u2019s stock has fallen steadily since then. He was listed as the No. 33 prospect in baseball in 2023, then he fell to No. 55 last year and until he was deemed expendable by the Rays for a deadline rental.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an up-and-down journey for sure,\u201d Mead said. While he has batted .298\/.372\/.506 with 57 homers across five minor-league seasons, he hasn\u2019t been able to translate that success to the bigs. He hit .226\/.318\/.339 with three homers in 49 games this year before the Rays dealt him. \u201cHe\u2019s not the first player that has had some major league struggles early on,\u201d general manager Chris Getz said after swapping Houser \u2014 who gave up five runs in his first start for the Rays on Monday \u2014 for Mead and two Triple-A pitchers.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Mead] has been productive, but based on what he\u2019s done in the minor leagues, we feel like there\u2019s more in the tank, and we identified some things in his offensive game that we feel like we can try to tap into to make him a real impactful major league player,\u201d Getz said. He compared Mead to Miguel Vargas \u2014 one of Getz\u2019 first trade deadline acquisitions in Getz\u2019 first full season as GM last year \u2014 as \u201ca high profile player that hadn\u2019t really translated or taken at the Major League level.\u201d Before landing on the injured list over the weekend with an oblique strain, Vargas had overcome an anemic start to his Sox career to emerge this summer as one of their most consistent hitters and most versatile defenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel like Curtis can do the same thing,\u201d Getz said. \u201cMost importantly, it\u2019s about the next two months of work, going into the offseason and seeing where we\u2019re at come spring training with Curtis.\u201d He\u2019ll get plenty of opportunities with Vargas on the shelf and no one else seizing the first-base job. Manager Will Venable values defensive versatility, shuffling Colson Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, Lenyn Sosa and Brooks Baldwin around the infield. \u201c[Mead\u2019s] a corner infielder that we can mix and match with, and obviously the right-handed bat we like against the lefties. So we\u2019ll see what he can offer us here,\u201d Venable said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a look Mead said he wasn\u2019t sure he\u2019d ever get playing his way up through the Australian Baseball League. \u201cI didn\u2019t really think that anyone outside of the Phillies were really watching me play,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a pretty crazy journey to get to this point.\u201d With the White Sox, Curtis Mead is poised to rejuvenate his career, leveraging the fresh start and the opportunities provided by his new team to prove himself as a top-level performer in the major leagues.<\/p>\n
Who is Curtis Mead?<\/strong><\/p>\n What teams has Curtis Mead played for?<\/strong><\/p>\n Why was Curtis Mead traded to the White Sox?<\/strong><\/p>\n Introduction to Curtis Mead’s Journey SEATTLE \u2014 Curtis Mead\u2019s baseball journey has taken him from one side of the planet to the other \u2014 and from the top of the game\u2019s prospect stock market, tumbling toward becoming a trade-deadline commodity. Early Life and Inspiration Once considered among baseball\u2019s most highly touted young infielders, the 24-year-old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/9c49cb1\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3404x1943+0+0\/resize\/1461x834!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F09%2Fcf%2F4605060f4e6aac254ab2e179786a%2F2150589837.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25957,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25955\/revisions\/25957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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