Chris Davis 2019 and beyond

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Or by some miracle he's playing at replacement level or better.

Yeah, I just don't see that happening.  I like Elias, I believe he's going to do whatever he can to help Davis out but he's in a world of suck that can't be helped, I'm afraid.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah, I just don't see that happening.  I like Elias, I believe he's going to do whatever he can to help Davis out but he's in a world of suck that can't be helped, I'm afraid.  

I did use the term miracle.

[El Gordo]

It's ridiculous to think any new GM will come in and cut  a teams biggest contract player without taking his own look at the guy. No doubt he'll come to the same conclusion we have, but he has to make it based on his his own evaluation..

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

If he's on the roster come June 1st, something is wrong, IMO.

Depends how he’s doing, I suppose.    If he’s played a lot and looks exactly like he did in 2018, then I will be scratching my head a little.    But I’m not going to get too tied up in an exact deadline to give up on Davis.  

[mdbdotcom]

If he makes it to players weekend, the nickname on his uniform should be Stinky.

[theocean]

11 hours ago, El Gordo said:

It's ridiculous to think any new GM will come in and cut  a teams biggest contract player without taking his own look at the guy. No doubt he'll come to the same conclusion we have, but he has to make it based on his his own evaluation..

I agree. The Orioles are going to be bad next year with or without Chris Davis. They have to pay him either way. There really is no reason to rush and get rid of him. I can't stand watching Davis play as much as anyone, but let Elias have a full season with his staff to see if he can turn Davis around. 

[Bradysburns]

On 11/26/2018 at 9:17 AM, Frobby said:

I think we have to give it a shot for at least a few months of 2019.     I’d be lying if I said I think we’ll turn him around.    

Oh yeah -- I'd put the chances at somewhere under 15%. However, I also feel like perhaps the greatest area the Orioles can improve is player-development. It seems like our system tends to make players underperform expectations, for the most part. 

I'm open to the possibility that we've totally mishandled player development, including Chris Davis's struggles... and that if there's ANY chance of getting him back on track, guys like Elias and Sig are the ones to do it. 

I should correct myself. There IS a point to Davis performing less horribly. It won't act as a cancer on players around him. 

[foxfield]

12 hours ago, El Gordo said:

It's ridiculous to think any new GM will come in and cut  a teams biggest contract player without taking his own look at the guy. No doubt he'll come to the same conclusion we have, but he has to make it based on his his own evaluation..

This is of course, spot on.  I would add that it would also be ridiculous to think the new GM is going to return Chris Davis to the home run leader.  I believe he will come to the conclusion as you note above that the rest of us and baseball have.  But I will also hold out hope that Davis can return to respectability with the comfort that if he can't he will be gone.  That doesn't save anyone money but of course that really is what it is.

1 hour ago, theocean said:

I agree. The Orioles are going to be bad next year with or without Chris Davis. They have to pay him either way. There really is no reason to rush and get rid of him. I can't stand watching Davis play as much as anyone, but let Elias have a full season with his staff to see if he can turn Davis around. 

The first part of this is fact.  The Orioles will be bad regardless of what happens with Davis and they do have to pay him either way.  I personally think the bolded part is wrong.  I think it is dangerous for any of us to put a specific date on Davis.  If he is earning continued reps, even if it continues to be well below what he is paid, I am ok with that.  But if he continues to decline and cannot adjust, then he is not earning the right to be on the field, or in the lineup.  And in my personal opinion, keeping him on the roster or in the lineup will undermine and prolong the foundational work of the new leadership.  A full season, again assuming that Davis' decline cannot be changed would be unnecessary.  Two seasons of 1 war would be horrendous value, but perfectly acceptable for a rebuilding team.  Again, I hope Davis earns his way back.  But I am pretty sure new leadership has the necessary authority to cut ties whenever it deems the case lost and the improvement or continued decline should be evident long before 500 more at bats.

[Frobby]

https://www.mlb.com/orioles/news/chris-davis-eyes-bounce-back-year-with-orioles/c-301460620

[Moose Milligan]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

https://www.mlb.com/orioles/news/chris-davis-eyes-bounce-back-year-with-orioles/c-301460620

Not a lot of meat to chew on.

We're all hard on Davis here, I think all of us are rooting for him to get back to being productive though.  He seems like a good dude, a good teammate and the past couple seasons had to have sucked for him.  It's easy to be all "ahh, what does he care, he's making 23 million a year, must be nice!" but no one likes to suck at their job.  Especially when everyone can see you doing it, and everyone who's seeing you doing and bitching about it can't even come close to doing it as good as you can, even when you're hitting .169.

I'm not getting my hopes up but I hope Elias can dial up some magic and get Davis back on track.  No one else is going to take Davis off his hands so hoping he gets back to speed is all we can hope for.

[interloper]

27 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Not a lot of meat to chew on.

We're all hard on Davis here, I think all of us are rooting for him to get back to being productive though.  He seems like a good dude, a good teammate and the past couple seasons had to have sucked for him.  It's easy to be all "ahh, what does he care, he's making 23 million a year, must be nice!" but no one likes to suck at their job.  Especially when everyone can see you doing it, and everyone who's seeing you doing and bitching about it can't even come close to doing it as good as you can, even when you're hitting .169.

I'm not getting my hopes up but I hope Elias can dial up some magic and get Davis back on track.  No one else is going to take Davis off his hands so hoping he gets back to speed is all we can hope for.

The question is, when Elias comes to him and says you have to commit to completely rebuilding your swing based on the following data we see, will he listen and stick with it?

I tend to think, no, no he will not.

He changed his batting stance for all of 2 games last year and Palmer threw him and Coolbaugh under a succession of buses. Coolbaugh then also threw Davis under some more buses. 

The guy is a head case, straight up. I hope he does change things because that's his only option left is a complete and utter teardown of his whack batting mechanics, hopefully helped by Elias. If he listens, great, we can say he tried his best. I currently have no faith that he will listen until proven otherwise. Which I hope to be!

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, interloper said:

The question is, when Elias comes to him and says you have to commit to completely rebuilding your swing based on the following data we see, will he listen and stick with it?

I tend to think, no, no he will not.

He changed his batting stance for all of 2 games last year and Palmer threw him and Coolbaugh under a succession of buses. Coolbaugh then also threw Davis under some more buses. 

The guy is a head case, straight up. I hope he does change things because that's his only option left is a complete and utter teardown of his whack batting mechanics, hopefully helped by Elias. If he listens, great, we can say he tried his best. I currently have no faith that he will listen until proven otherwise. Which I hope to be!

There are at least four  possible ways to look at this:

1.   Davis is too stubborn to change.

2.   Davis has gotten lazy and isn’t putting in the work necessary to fix his problems.

3.   Davis has been getting so much contradictory advice, he’s hopelessly confused and desperately needs one clear voice to straighten him out.

4.   Davis has simply experienced a physical decline that can’t really be reversed, whether it’s strength, reaction time, bat speed, whatever.

It could be any of these things, or a combination of some or all of them.   Personally, I fear that 4 is the true answer.     But I’m hoping it’s mostly 3.     All I know is, we should spend the entire next four years trying to figure it out.    Fix him or get rid of him during 2019.

 

 

[interloper]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

There are at least four  possible ways to look at this:

1.   Davis is too stubborn to change.

2.   Davis has gotten lazy and isn’t putting in the work necessary to fix his problems.

3.   Davis has been getting so much contradictory advice, he’s hopelessly confused and desperately needs one clear voice to straighten him out.

4.   Davis has simply experienced a physical decline that can’t really be reversed, whether it’s strength, reaction time, bat speed, whatever.

It could be any of these things, or a combination of some or all of them.   Personally, I fear that 4 is the true answer.     But I’m hoping it’s mostly 3.     All I know is, we should spend the entire next four years trying to figure it out.    Fix him or get rid of him during 2019.

 

 

Agree. The thing with #4, though, is that we can't really know unless he tries different things. Maybe his decline can be slowed with a different approach at the plate. Maybe the swing path can be changed. His hands. Something that helps speed up his bat. Maybe he can be given information to make him a better guess hitter (since he's basically just a guess hitter). 

If he gets up there with the same batting stance, and some quotes about "it was good to get a break from the game and reset and we talked about/tweaked some things that should help" and that's it? Then I'm sorry, he's not trying hard enough. I want to hear, "we completely changed the way I approach at-bats and here's precisely how". Anything less I'm not buying. Because that's where he's at in his career right now - he's at a place where he owes it to himself and his organization to change everything about the way he tries to hit a baseball and convince people that he's committed to doing that in specific ways.

[atomic]

Reading Astroball and how JD Martinez went out on his own and asked a fellow player how he improved his batting and he recomended Craig Wallenbrock.  So JD Martinez contacted Wallenbrock and spent the off-season changing his swing. The swing worked in the minors but big league pitchers adjusted to it and found weaknesses in it.  And he went from a .650 OPS to an OPS Over .900 the next year.

Chris Davis needs to find a new hitting instructor and work with him to re-work his swing and approach.  And he needs to do that now.  I am guessing Chris doesn't do anything.  He will continue to hit .150 and collect his checks and strike out all the time.  

[Bird Lover]

8 minutes ago, interloper said:

Agree. The thing with #4, though, is that we can't really know unless he tries different things. Maybe his decline can be slowed with a different approach at the plate. Maybe the swing path can be changed. His hands. Something that helps speed up his bat. Maybe he can be given information to make him a better guess hitter (since he's basically just a guess hitter). 

If he gets up there with the same batting stance, and some quotes about "it was good to get a break from the game and reset and we talked about/tweaked some things that should help" and that's it? Then I'm sorry, he's not trying hard enough. I want to hear, "we completely changed the way I approach at-bats and here's precisely how". Anything less I'm not buying. Because that's where he's at in his career right now - he's at a place where he owes it to himself and his organization to change everything about the way he tries to hit a baseball and convince people that he's committed to doing that in specific ways.

That’s the curse of high money contracts. Some players have a personal quest for perfection and regardless of their contract will do everything possible to achieve that. The other end of the spectrum is players that hit the lotto and coast for the rest of their career. We will see where Chris places on this scale soon I think.