Most significant stories of 2022: Meneses' surprise arrival

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2022. We continue the series today with the most unexpected development of the season: Joey Meneses …

The saddest day of the 2022 season in Washington happened to be the happiest day of Joey Meneses’ professional life. As Nationals fans lamented the trade of Juan Soto to San Diego, Meneses donned a big league uniform for the first time in a wandering career that most everyone in the sport had glossed over.

A 30-year-old rookie, Meneses had spent seven seasons in the Braves farm system, then one playing for the Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate, then part of one playing in Japan, then 1 1/2 seasons playing back home in Mexico, then one season playing for the Red Sox’s Triple-A club. The Nats signed him to a minor league deal last winter and gave him a chance to play every day at Triple-A Rochester, where he figured to spend the entire year.

But on that fateful day in August when Soto and Josh Bell were shipped off to San Diego for a host of prospects and the Nationals found themselves desperate to field a lineup for that night’s game against the Mets, it was Meneses who got the call. There he was, batting sixth and starting at first base, in a major league game at last.

“First of all, this is a dream come true,” Meneses said to a throng of reporters that left him looking like a deer caught in headlights. “It’s something that I dreamed about, obviously, growing up as a little kid. I’ve never gotten the opportunity, basically, and I want to thank the organization and everyone involved that gave me the opportunity to be up here. I’m very grateful.”

It wouldn’t be long before the Nationals were grateful for having him in the heart of their lineup. Meneses’ first career hit was his first career home run, making him the fifth-oldest player in history to homer in his major league debut.

And he never looked back. Meneses homered five times in his first nine games. He never batted lower than cleanup in manager Davey Martinez’s lineup after that.

As the rest of the club slogged its way through the final days of a brutal season, Meneses just wanted to keep going. He finished with 72 hits, 14 doubles and 13 homers in his first 56 major league games, totals only two other players in history have reached in the same amount of time: Ryan Braun and Bo Bichette.

Across 240 plate appearances, Meneses produced a .324 batting average and .563 slugging percentage. He’s only the ninth player in the last 50 years to do that as a rookie, joining a list that includes such star power as Braun, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout, as well as some other famous inaugural seasons by the likes of Fred Lynn and Mike Greenwell.

All of this, of course, leaves everybody around the Nationals asking the same, simple question: Is Meneses the real deal?

“I’m thinking: OK, pitchers are going to start making adjustments,” Martinez said of his initial reaction to Meneses’ August success. “They made adjustments, and he continued to hit. And he kept doing that for the whole year. You go back and look at his whole career in the minor leagues. For me, he can hit. And he proved that.”

Perhaps the most interesting comparisons to Meneses come from some of the most recent rookies to produce similar numbers.

Would you believe Trea Turner had an almost identical offensive slash line (.342/.370/.567) as a rookie as Meneses did this season (.324/.367/.563)? Turner did receive 84 more plate appearances for the Nats back in 2016 – and obviously he stole a whole lot more bases – but the production was eerily similar.

Turner, of course, was only 23 when he did it. Meneses was already 30, which is why so many red flags have to be raised. That’s where it may be more instructive to look at two older rookies who burst onto the scene in recent years: Luke Scott and Frank Schwindel.

Scott was 28 when he took 249 plate appearances as a rookie for the Astros in 2006. He put up impressive numbers (.336/.426/.621) and went on to have a solid, if unspectacular career, finishing with 135 homers, 436 RBIs and an .821 OPS over nine seasons with three clubs.

Schwindel was 29 when he took the Cubs by storm in 2021, batting .342/.389/.613 over 239 plate appearances. He fell way back to earth this season, batting a mere .229/.277/.358 in 292 plate appearances. He eventually was optioned to Triple-A, then designated for assignment and released.

Those examples underscore the true uncertainty about what lies ahead for Meneses. If he can manage to hit at just a decent clip like Scott did, the Nationals will have themselves a quality big league first baseman for at least a few years as they go through their rebuild. If he falters like Schwindel did, he’ll become a trivia question and be fondly remembered by diehards but few others.

If, however, Meneses actually is the real deal, if his breakthrough 56 games in August and September were just the start of something, the Nats will have found themselves one of the unlikeliest hitting talents in modern baseball history.

“Some of his teammates would joke around with him: What took you so long to get to the big leagues?” Martinez said. “And his response was: ‘Freddie Freeman.’ And it’s true. He played behind Freddie Freeman for a lot of years. And Rhys Hoskins in Philly. Now he gets an opportunity to play for us, and he’s made the best of it.”