Chris Davis 2019 and beyond

[Frobby]

I know I’m on a silly tangent now, but:

Great sac bunter: Brooks Robinson , 83.5% success rate.

Terrible sac bunter: Jim Palmer, 48.4% success rate.

Non-sac bunter: Frank Robinson, who went 13 years without a sac bunt attempt.   But he had a 70.8% success rate when he actually tried it (24 times in 21 years, 17 of which were in his first two seasons).

[LA2]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Well, actually, for his time he wasn’t that great.    Per BB-ref, he had a 68% success rate, during a period when the league average was 77.6%.    The league average today is only 59.6%, and of course teams bunt far less often.

Hmm, I was going by the fact that there was a string of seasons where he either led the league in sacrifices or was close to it. That's probably what my memory formed around. It could be that his percentage was lower because infielders knew he was more likely to bunt than someone like Brooks due to his low average and lack of power.

[LA2]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Now if you want to talk about a great bunter, Don Wert had a career 96.6% success rate.   56 out of 58.

I remember Don Wert, but not as a bunter. Always intriguing how subjective memory is. Don Wert always overperformed for me as a hitter in Strato-matic.

[El Gordo]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

I know I’m on a silly tangent now, but:

Great sac bunter: Brooks Robinson , 83.5% success rate.

Terrible sac bunter: Jim Palmer, 48.4% success rate.

Non-sac bunter: Frank Robinson, who went 13 years without a sac bunt attempt.   But he had a 70.8% success rate when he actually tried it (24 times in 21 years, 17 of which were in his first two seasons).

Why would you ever ask Frank to bunt?

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, El Gordo said:

Why would you ever ask Frank to bunt?

Obviously, all of Frank’s managers agreed with you.    

[Number5]

On ‎9‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 6:07 PM, Frobby said:

I know I’m on a silly tangent now, but:

Great sac bunter: Brooks Robinson , 83.5% success rate.

Terrible sac bunter: Jim Palmer, 48.4% success rate.

Non-sac bunter: Frank Robinson, who went 13 years without a sac bunt attempt.   But he had a 70.8% success rate when he actually tried it (24 times in 21 years, 17 of which were in his first two seasons).

I have no way of knowing, but I would suspect that the 3B was playing way in virtually every time Palmer came to bat with a runner on and less than two outs, while the 3B played back against Brooks nearly every time.  I can't say whether Jim or Brooks were in fact good or poor bunters, but I'm just saying that logic tells me that they were most probably defensed very differently.

[Frobby]

15 hours ago, Number5 said:

I have no way of knowing, but I would suspect that the 3B was playing way in virtually every time Palmer came to bat with a runner on and less than two outs, while the 3B played back against Brooks nearly every time.  I can't say whether Jim or Brooks were in fact good or poor bunters, but I'm just saying that logic tells me that they were most probably defensed very differently.

I’m sure Palmer was defended like any other pitcher, and most pitchers in that era were way better bunters than Palmer.    Here’s a few contemporaries:

Dave McNally 61.1%

Mike Cuellar 53.8%

Pat Dobson 77.1%

Catfish Hunter 81.3%

Jim Kaat 79.1%

Denny McLain 88.9%

Sam McDowell 81.2%

Jim Perry 83.6%

I didn’t omit anyone I looked up.   I picked a few teammates and then some guys with fairly long careers mostly in the AL who pitched a number of years before the DH came into existence.

As to Brooks, his numbers compare favorably with other good hitters of his era, keeping in mind that Brooks was a good, not great, hitter and was asked to bunt much more often than someone like Frank (121 career attempts for Brooks, 24 for Frank).     

 

 

[Frobby]

Back to Davis, he’s back below the Deer/Uggla line at .174.    

[AuburnAL]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Back to Davis, he’s back below the Deer/Uggla line at .174.    

As of this morning, Chris Davis has 497 Plate Appearances, just 5 short of qualifying for the . . . batting title?  As noted, his batting average is 0.174, below the worst ever of 0.179.  There’s worse news.  He’s going the wrong way.

On Sept. 5th he got his average up to 0.180 (Yay!).  Since then he’s gone 0 for 15 with 6 strikeouts, no walks. 

Power?  His last extra base hit was a double on August 28th, ten games ago.  Last home run was Aug. 24th, at least 57 at bats ago.

His OPS for September, for 8 games, 31 At Bats, is 0.388.  His OPS for the season is 0.553.  That’s last among qualifiers for MLB first basemen.  The next lowest is 0.700 by some guy named Pujols.  Mancini is 0.703.

It’s been mentioned that several players have had worst qualified seasons in terms of OPS than 0.553, but those players were not expected to hit for power.  I don’t know how to research it, but how does an OPS of 0.553 for the season rank for qualified Major League first basemen?  Similar question for OPS+, which is 53?  WAR?

Remember, Chris Davis bats fifth for the Baltimore Orioles.
 

[Can_of_corn]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Back to Davis, he’s back below the Deer/Uggla line at .174.    

His strikeout total (178) is higher than his average(174). 

[Babypowder]

22 minutes ago, AuburnAL said:

As of this morning, Chris Davis has 497 Plate Appearances, just 5 short of qualifying for the . . . batting title?  As noted, his batting average is 0.174, below the worst ever of 0.179.  There’s worse news.  He’s going the wrong way.

On Sept. 5th he got his average up to 0.180 (Yay!).  Since then he’s gone 0 for 15 with 6 strikeouts, no walks. 

Power?  His last extra base hit was a double on August 28th, ten games ago.  Last home run was Aug. 24th, at least 57 at bats ago.

His OPS for September, for 8 games, 31 At Bats, is 0.388.  His OPS for the season is 0.553.  That’s last among qualifiers for MLB first basemen.  The next lowest is 0.700 by some guy named Pujols.  Mancini is 0.703.

It’s been mentioned that several players have had worst qualified seasons in terms of OPS than 0.553, but those players were not expected to hit for power.  I don’t know how to research it, but how does an OPS of 0.553 for the season rank for qualified Major League first basemen?  Similar question for OPS+, which is 53?  WAR?

Remember, Chris Davis bats fifth for the Baltimore Orioles.
 

All time or this season? I'm assuming all time. This is all according to Fangraphs. Davis is tied for the worst all time season by first basemen with Ivy Griffin in 1920 at -2.8 WAR. He is also second worst all time in wRC+ to Ivy Griffin in that same season 46 to 49. His raw OPS is 9th worst all time.

[Aglets]

Looking forward to seeing the articles in January in February of him saying 2018 was unacceptable and not up to his standards he sets for himself.  So he spent the entire offseason working out with Coolbaugh (who will hopefully not deny it this time) and now he feels like's in better shape than ever and ready to turn over a new leaf in 2019.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Aglets said:

Looking forward to seeing the articles in January in February of him saying 2018 was unacceptable and not up to his standards he sets for himself.  So he spent the entire offseason working out with Coolbaugh (who will hopefully not deny it this time) and now he feels like's in better shape than ever and ready to turn over a new leaf in 2019.

Won't Coolbaugh be busy with the job search?

[Aglets]

I guess if Buck goes the entire coaching staff probably will too.

Fine, take out "Coolbaugh" and insert "Hitting Coach X."   Hey, Eddie Murray is back with the team now right?  

[atomic]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

His strikeout total (178) is higher than his average(174). 

Also if you add his Walks (37) to his total bases (139) once again it is lower than his Strike out total.  I wonder how many times that has happened in baseball for qualifying batters.