Davis a two-way Player?

[Luke-OH]

6 minutes ago, El_Duderino said:

I guess the worst reliever in baseball is more valuable than the worst regular in baseball.

The worst regular in my life time. 

[El_Duderino]

If we are talking mop up duty only then sure. But then again they could let a fan get some innings then and I wouldn’t care. That’s not a two way player though. 

[Frobby]

44 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

It kind of is, but I can practically guarantee if he pitched 40 innings in the bullpen in 2018 and didn't hit or play in the field at all, the team would have been much better off. 

Depending on which 40 innings.  

[Tx Oriole]

3 hours ago, justcompete said:

Seems like the idea may be catching on around the league.

Why not give it a try?

He's hardly enough of a oneway player. 

[weams]

1 minute ago, Tx Oriole said:

He's hardly enough of a oneway player. 

I think he would be a good semi-pro. If not at least a middling retiree. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

3 minutes ago, weams said:

I think he would be a good semi-pro. If not at least a middling retiree. 

Imagine the headlines: "Who's On First? Cleburne Railroaders have interesting Spring Training competition, between Rafael Palmeiro and Chris Davis."

[Moose Milligan]

31 minutes ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

Imagine the headlines: "Who's On First? Cleburne Railroaders have interesting Spring Training competition, between Rafael Palmeiro and Chris Davis."

I gotta believe Raffy would have done better than Davis in Baltimore last year.

[Rene88]

You know it’s a slow offseason....

[Dark Helmet]

I guarantee 2 things...he would hold hitters to a higher BA than his own. And his K rate as a hitter would be higher than his K rate as a pitcher.

[scOtt]

7 hours ago, AceKing said:

Chris Davis is really a “No Way” player right now....

 

As in: “There is No WAY he should have swung at that!”

Or: “There is No WAY he should have TAKEN that pitch in this situation!”

NO WAY!

That's kind of two-way. Swings at what he shouldn't, doesn't swing at what he should.

[sportsfan8703]

11 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I gotta believe Raffy would have done better than Davis in Baltimore last year.

If MLB were to let Raffy and Davis take all the PEDS they wanted, I’d go with Raffy. 

[McLikin]

16 hours ago, El_Duderino said:

Hoping this is a joke...

As do I. He has enough on his plate to concern himself with. Rather he work on fixing the "way" that he's used to and that he was paid handsomely to perform. I'm rooting for him.

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

It kind of is, but I can practically guarantee if he pitched 40 innings in the bullpen in 2018 and didn't hit or play in the field at all, the team would have been much better off. 

Oh... this is the kind of thing I love.  Serious answers to absurd hypothetical questions.

So let's say Davis pitched 40 innings of relief at the lowest leverage index of any real pitcher who threw, say, 20 innings in 2018.  That would be Chris Beck's 0.217.

As a hitter/fielder he was worth 2.8 wins below replacement.  His goal as a pitcher would be to be better than that, so -2.7 rWAR or better. 

Let's just say that a replacement level-reliever allows runs at a rate of 5.0 per nine.  I could go into some more detailed calculations, but that's close enough.  That means replacement level in 40 innings would be 22 runs allowed.  Davis needs to be 27 runs worse than that to equal his position player performance, or 49 runs allowed.  But... we've assumed he has a leverage index of 0.217, meaning he pitches predominantly in blowouts.  This makes things go from "2011 Brian Matusz bad" to "that sandlot guy who pitched the Ty Cobb strike game" bad.   49 divided by 0.217 gives you 226 runs.  Leaving an ERA of 50.85.  That's because we're assuming Davis almost never pitches in a game when the outcome is in doubt, so he'll have almost no impact on wins and losses no matter what he does.

If he pitched in average leverage situations, say something like 5th inning of a 4-2 game, he'd have to manage a 11.00 ERA to be a more productive pitcher than he was in 2018.  If he was a closer with a 1.75 leverage index a 6.30 ERA would be -2.7 rWAR.  As a spot check I remembered that Mike Williams once had a year with 28 saves and an ERA over 6.00 - he ended up with a leverage index of 1.5 and was in a pretty high run level in '03, and he's listed with a rWAR value of -1.3.  That tells me our hypothetical Davis replacement level may be a bit off... his closer ERA for our goal here might be more like 7.00 or 8.00.

Brian Matusz was -2.3 rWAR when he allowed 10.87 R/9 in 49 innings in 2011.  So that's pretty close.

In summary, 2018 Chris Davis was the rough equivalent in productivity of a 40-inning reliever who:

- Pitched only mopup with a 50.00 ERA
- Pitched in average use cases with an 11.00 ERA
- Pitched 40 innings as a high-leverage closer with a 6.30+ ERA

What this really tells us is that it's almost impossible for a mopup reliever to be as (not) valuable as a batter with 500 PAs.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I gotta believe Raffy would have done better than Davis in Baltimore last year.

You know he had a .919 OPS in the American Association last year in over 100 PAs?   If he'd qualified that would have been 6th-best in the league.  This isn't a good league, but he had basically the same numbers as Todd Cunningham, who OPS'd over .800 in the PCL in 2017.

I don't care what league you're in, if you can OPS .919 at the age of 53 that's something.  And I'm not sure it's something that's helping Raffy's case that he never knowingly took PEDs.  There are people who don't OPS .919 at the age of 53 in church softball.

[Tony-OH]

15 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

It kind of is, but I can practically guarantee if he pitched 40 innings in the bullpen in 2018 and didn't hit or play in the field at all, the team would have been much better off. 

That is the sad truth. I'm for any way to keep his bat out of the lineup if he has another 2018 type of year. Besides, the changeup against lefties is  weapon! Well at least against Adrian Gonzalez!