Future for Chris Davis

no

As long as his plate discipline and pitch recognition remain where they are, pitchers will exploit those weaknesses. After coming back from the Minors, Davis’s approach became more careful; he began concentrating on straight contact as opposed to uppercutting it as he did during the first half. This resulted in a lessened HR rate. Davis was possibly my favorite Ranger going into last year, but I’m not sure if he can be an above-average hitting first baseman (850 OPS or more).

but would i consider him a bounceback candidate? probably not…

his batting average and therefore all other percentage statistics rose when he came back, but he still was walking at a putrid rate….the thing that makes 200K’s from dunn or reynolds passable is that they also walk nearly 100 times per year…even using that small sample size as a basis, davis only walks 40ish times per year…not even half of the other guys with the same strikeout rate….

Broad term. The guy can hit in the majors, but will never hit for a high AVG – again, this was a minor league illusion created by some lucky AVGs – and exacerbated by a red hot MLB debut. He does have massive power… so if .250-.260 w/ a .330-.340 OBP and 25-30 HRs is “success” to you, than sure. It would be “success” to me, but I never had high expectations for Davis. That’s a pretty valuable player. He should never have been considered a top prospect, though, as I was quite vocal about that at the time. I think the most likely outcome is he’s the good Mike Jacobs. I believe Paul Thomas threw out that comp – so credit to him. There is, of course, still some time for him to make adjustments… but, IMHO, his approach is pretty badly flawed (not so bad he cant be decent, though) and he has some pretty big holes in his swing that dont lend themselves to big adjustments. He’s a hacker with big power. He’s just not patient enough to hit for a high AVG. His bad years will look awfully bad… but he should put up some good years, too.

If he can stay at 3B I like him considerably more. That would make a huge difference. I dont think he can, though… so he most likely becomes another run of the mill 1B.

.308/.338/.496 6 HRs in 36 Gs/133 ABs

Still a hacker. A few extra hits fell in and gave him a better AVG and SLG over these 36 games… Now if his AVG falls down to where we would expect (Lets be charitable and say league AVG – .275), then his line would look like: .275/.308/.463 (assuming extra base hits remained stable – which they likely wouldnt – just a fun, simple exercize).

Im also thinking he might be the kind of guy who feasts on bad pitching but cant hit good pitching…

No one has any idea how Davis is going to turn out and anyone making definite statements about his future is being rather foolhardy. At the beginning of this season, he looked terrible, all of the negative aspects of his game incredibly amplified. He barely even resembled the player he was the past few seasons. When he was sent down, he made a concerted effort to fix his swing mechanics and work on his plate discipline. We haven’t seen enough to say what the outcome of those changes will be (or if there will even be any effect, long term).

There are a variety of outcomes that match his skillset/position on aging curve, some more likely than others, but all possible.

- He could improve upon his poor BB:K while retaining his power and become a legitimate force in the lineup. (e.g. Richie Sexson)

- He could improve upon his poor BB:K while losing some of his power, but becoming a more rounded hitter (e.g. Derrek Lee )

- He could maintain a poor BB:K overall, but draw a few more walks and become a super streaky TTO (e.g. Mark Reynolds?)

- He could have a few big seasons then become a good role player (e.g. Tony Clark)

- His game could stagnate where it is, thus becoming a role player/starter for a poor team (e.g. Mike Jacobs)

- He could revert to the form he showed earlier this year and be relegated to minor league slugger (e.g. Mike Hessman)

etc.

For those who want to look at Davis’ first half of the season and write him off a a terrible major league hitter as well as those who want to look at his good second half last season and this season and say he’s got what it takes to be a good MLB batter:

Your approach is all wrong.

Was Chris Davis incredibly good in his 317 PAs in 2008? Absolutely.
Was Chris Davis incredibly bad in his 277 PAs to begin the year before his demotion? Of course.
Was Chris Davis promisingly good in his 142 PAs after he was recalled to the majors? Yes.

The problem we are having is that people are split on how to take these 3, seemingly separate sets of statistics, and how they apply to Chris Davis’ future.

There are a few ways that one could look at this:
1) Add up the PAs from the Good Chris Davis, add up the PAs from the Bad Chris Davis, compare which one is more and then assume that the other was the aberration and toss it out the window. (i.e. Chris Davis is Good Chris Davis the majority of the time so far so that is his future)
2) Take the Bad Chris Davis as the true Chris Davis moving forward because that’s the much bigger sample size in his most recent season.
3) Ignore everything so far in his major league career and expect him to hit like his minor league career (adjusted for the majors of course).
4) Take his most recent season as a whole as the Future Chris Davis (with a little room for regular development).

The truth is that none of these are good ideas to do. Let’s look at it this way—we always want the biggest sample size we can get, right? So why would it be a good idea to take an already semi-small sample and cut it up? Does it actually make sense to expect that smaller sample to be a more accurate representation of that person than the bigger sample?

The best way to understand Chris Davis in the present and moving forward is to understand that everything he does (every PA) is added in to this big pot that is Chris Davis’ performance. From that big pot we have a better understanding of who he is. That gives us a good point of reference from our starting context. From there, we should weigh his very good sized minor league sample, weigh it with scouting reports and then weigh it along with his major league sample.

Projections are always difficult because there is so much that has to be taken into account, specifically the variables of player development. Some players develop. Some players don’t. Some players take steps backward. We have so many good statistics, but we still can’t really project with much confidence what is going to happen.

For Chris Davis, the biggest thing I’m worried about is his lack of walks. He’s had a fairly steady walk rate in the majors with an average of 37 walks per 620-ish PAs (season). Even projecting his hot streak at the end of the year over 162 games, he has a rate of 32 walks per season. There was not a single major leaguer this year with that few walks and more than 125 Ks. Based on Davis’ performance between the majors and minors I don’t think we can expect anything better than 160-200 Ks per season.

Chris Davis has something working against him that will be very hard for him to overcome—he has a very high swing percentage, both out of the zone and in the zone his numbers would place him in the top portion of the league, and a very low contact rate, he would be in the bottom three based on his career numbers as well as this year’s numbers. This is the biggest problem that Davis has and I don’t know if he can overcome it.

And that’s what I see from Davis. Someone who will bounce around with several teams and have a pretty good year or two. Definitely major-league caliber player, but not an all-star, and maybe/maybe not a starter.