Chris Davis needs to hit for avg.

[Number5]

11 minutes ago, spleen1015 said:

I wonder how many leadoff hitters strick out 37% of their ABs.

Actually, type of out matters least when nobody is on base.

[OFFNY]

28 minutes ago, spleen1015 said:

 

I wonder how many leadoff hitters struck out 37% of their AB's.

 

o

 

Bobby Bonds struck out a lot in the lead-off position.

He also held the all-time Major League record for leading off a game with a home run in a career (35), and a single season (11 in 1973) before Rickey Henderson broke his  career record, and Alfonso Soriano and Brady Anderson broke his single season records (and Jacque Jones tied it.) Soriano surpassed Bonds' single season record twice during his career, with 12 lead-off home runs in 2003, and 13 lead-off home runs in 2008. 

 

o

[jamalshw]

9 minutes ago, Number5 said:

Actually, type of out matters least when nobody is on base.

THIS. I'm not concerned about this Ks so much from the top of the order (at least the first time through the order), but am concerned about his ability to reverse the trend in his dropping OBP. I'm hopefully that Davis takes leading off seriously, bunting down the line.

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, jamalshw said:

THIS. I'm not concerned about this Ks so much from the top of the order (at least the first time through the order), but am concerned about his ability to reverse the trend in his dropping OBP. I'm hopefully that Davis takes leading off seriously, bunting down the line.

Right.  Last year Davis had the second lowest OBP of our eight qualifiers, at .309.   However, he’s just a year removed from .332, which would be solid enough at leadoff.   

I’ll be a little surprised if this becomes Davis’ regular spot.   

[DrungoHazewood]

A little research... nobody fitting the Chris Davis profile has ever led off for an extended period of time.  Some similar cases have existed:

- Bobby Del Greco was an outfielder for several teams in the 50s and 60s.  Led off in 130 games, 609 PAs despite an overall .229/.330/.352 line.
- Mark Bellhorn was a notable Bill James/Red Sox leadoff experiment.  Led off 459 PAs in his career, hitting .230/.334/.420 in the role.
- Dodgers' slugger Joc Pederson has a .22/.345/.435 line and has led off in 82 games.
- Danny Espinoza has to be one of the more illogical leadoff hitters, with a career .297 OBP and seasons of 21 and 24 homers. 304 PAs with a .266 OBP at leadoff.
- Curt Blefary led off in 66 games.
- Mike Young led off for 202 PAs.
- Darrell Evans hit .172 as a leadoff hitter, but with a .338 OBP.
- Adam Dunn was a leadoff hitter in 18 games.
- Joe Carter, who got more mileage out of low-OBP RBIs as anyone ever actually led off in 24 games, OBPing .234 in the process.

[DrungoHazewood]

The worst leadoff hitter of all time is probably Enzo Hernandez.  He was a tiny shortstop who played mostly for the Padres in the 1970s.  Had 1474 PAs as a leadoff hitter, with a .220/.281/.256 line.  Per 150 games leading off he stole 32 bases, but scored just 62 runs. 

Enzo's rookie year he batted 618 times and drove in 12 runs.

The worst single-season leadoff performance may have been a gentleman by the name of Art Scharein.  For the 1933 St Louis Browns he led off in 98 games, hitting .183/.253/.220 in the role, with five steals and seven caught.  The '33 Browns finished 55-96, fired their manager twice, finished 2nd-to-last in the league in runs in a big hitter's park, and drew 88k fans the entire year.

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, spleen1015 said:

Duquette should be fired for his contract alone.

This year is going to be a mess and then we lose Machado at the end of it.

Looking forward to a long year.

I've heard it was ownership pushing for Davis.

I've heard it was ownership pushing for Davis because Buck wanted him.

If the latter is true do you want Buck fired?

If the former is true why blame Dan?

[Hallas]

On 3/27/2018 at 11:29 AM, Pheasants said:

The weird thing is that if he quit trying to catch up to fastballs, he could hit them to the opposite field and thus raise his average.  He needs to slow the start of his swing by a fraction of a second.  So if he's cheating to get ahead, he's overcompensating. 

I'm of the opinion that if he quit trying to catch up to fastballs, he'd hit them foul or strike out.  There's probably some middle ground where he can cheat a little bit but not all the way, but I don't know if that's attainable, or if that would result in him being in-between on everything.

[Hallas]

On 3/27/2018 at 2:14 PM, OrioleDog said:

This won't help Davis's AVG.

https://www.mlb.com/news/astros-consider-4-man-of-vs-lefty-hitters/c-269799738

I just read on Fangraphs that air balls are up another few ticks this spring training.  There's a tipping point coming and it sounds like some regular season run could be possible starting now.

If they go for a 3 man infield, he can't hit a grounder into the shift...

[OFFNY]

55 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

 

The worst leadoff hitter of all time is probably Enzo Hernandez.  He was a tiny shortstop who played mostly for the Padres in the 1970s.  Had 1474 PAs as a leadoff hitter, with a .220/.281/.256 line.  Per 150 games leading off he stole 32 bases, but scored just 62 runs. 

Enzo's rookie year he batted 618 times and drove in 12 runs.

The worst single-season leadoff performance may have been a gentleman by the name of Art Scharein.  For the 1933 St Louis Browns he led off in 98 games, hitting .183/.253/.220 in the role, with five steals and seven caught.  The '33 Browns finished 55-96, fired their manager twice, finished 2nd-to-last in the league in runs in a big hitter's park, and drew 88k fans the entire year.

 

o

 

I remember reading about him in Xander Hollander's Complete Handbook of Baseball, 1977.

At that time, he was the Padres' franchise record-holder for stolen bases in a single season (37), and in a career (129.)

He committed suicide in 2013, at the age of 63 and-a-half.

 

o

[TGO]

On 3/26/2018 at 1:56 PM, interloper said:

Incorrect. Via Buck himself.

I still don't think what Buck said was 100% clear at the time, but credit where credit is due on this one.

[Number5]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The worst leadoff hitter of all time is probably Enzo Hernandez.  He was a tiny shortstop who played mostly for the Padres in the 1970s.  Had 1474 PAs as a leadoff hitter, with a .220/.281/.256 line.  Per 150 games leading off he stole 32 bases, but scored just 62 runs. 

Enzo's rookie year he batted 618 times and drove in 12 runs.

I remember the unique way the the San Diego pubic address announcer would introduce Hernandez.  He would combine his number and first name into one word:

"Now batting for the Padres, number Elevenenzo Hernandez."

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, spleen1015 said:

I wonder how many leadoff hitters strick out 37% of their ABs.

All players who've led off at least 500 PAs and struck out in 25% or more of those (1908-present, but bb-ref splits get sparse prior to about 1950):

                                                                                                      
Rk   I          Player       Split From   To   G  SO   PA  AB   R   H SB CS  BB   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB
1      Jonathan Villar Batting 1st 2013 2017 239 298 1076 955 144 252 91 25 106 .264 .337 .416 .753 397
2         Melvin Upton Batting 1st 2004 2016 243 294 1103 981 155 234 66 28 109 .239 .315 .398 .712 390
3          Drew Stubbs Batting 1st 2009 2016 227 275  974 867 144 211 56 11  96 .243 .323 .364 .687 316
4       Jordan Schafer Batting 1st 2009 2014 178 203  790 698  99 167 57 20  72 .239 .312 .325 .637 227
5      Adolfo Phillips Batting 1st 1964 1970 154 198  672 600  89 148 37 20  58 .247 .324 .427 .751 256

The most PAs batting leadoff while striking out at least 37% of the time are 59, by the immortal Teoscar Hernandez over the last couple years.  He's at 44%.  Drew Sutton also has 59 leadoff plate appearances but three less Ks, so inching towards a more Willie Keeler-like rate at 39%.