Chris Davis 2019 and beyond

[Moose Milligan]

3 hours ago, WI O’s Fan said:

How in the world will a two day reboot accomplish any positive results?  He was suppose to change over his swing this past off-season.  I would just put him on the end of the bench.   He does not deserve any further leash.  He should do the honorable thing and retire.  He has literally robbed the Orioles of    69 mil to date.

I agree with the spirit of your post, but I don't think it's in reality that he retires.  Maybe he does if this hitless streak gets to something ridiculous like 0-75 or something...and at this point, that could be a possibility.

The part I agree with most is the first part, what does a two day reboot do?  Nothing.  Aside from staving off some more embarrassment at a national level.  I couldn't believe that this got the national press that it did.  I think sitting him allowed some of the attention to blow over, hopefully the sports news cycle is more distracted with Magic Johnson and the NBA playoffs starting and don't have the bandwidth to report that Davis is still hitless.  

But if they think that they can make a difference with his performance over a couple of days, they're kidding themselves.  

I've been on record as saying that if he's as bad as last year (or worse) they'd make a decision on him by the ASB.  Unfortunately, I think I'm wrong about that.  I think we're in this for the long haul and there's no end in sight.

[Barnaby Graves]

I hope to god this team never signs a long term contract with a player ever again.  Baseball's labor model is great for a few rich players and terrible for everyone else, including fans.  How does he sleep while stealing this much money?  I am not on board with the sympathetic fans, nobody cares about the mental status of the 28 year old AAAA guy that gets waived after a month on the roster and bats .200 and has a fraction of a fraction of Davis' net worth.

[Moose Milligan]

12 minutes ago, Barnaby Graves said:

I hope to god this team never signs a long term contract with a player ever again.  Baseball's labor model is great for a few rich players and terrible for everyone else, including fans.  How does he sleep while stealing this much money?  I am not on board with the sympathetic fans, nobody cares about the mental status of the 28 year old AAAA guy that gets waived after a month on the roster and bats .200 and has a fraction of a fraction of Davis' net worth.

You make it sound like you think he's perfectly happy with how he's performing and "stealing" money.

You think he is, really?

[Es4M11]

11 hours ago, Frobby said:

He wasn’t awful in 2016.    Disappointing but not awful.  

He's beyond awful now. Davis does not even register on the scale anymore. He flat out should not be on a major league roster. Money be damned.

[foxfield]

3 hours ago, Barnaby Graves said:

I hope to god this team never signs a long term contract with a player ever again.  Baseball's labor model is great for a few rich players and terrible for everyone else, including fans.  How does he sleep while stealing this much money?  I am not on board with the sympathetic fans, nobody cares about the mental status of the 28 year old AAAA guy that gets waived after a month on the roster and bats .200 and has a fraction of a fraction of Davis' net worth.

The team signed a long term contract on the wrong player.  It should have been Manny Machado.  I hope that the next time they offer a 9 figure contract, its for a worthy player and done so at the urging of the folks running the team, not by ownership at the objection of the GM.

I agree that a case can be made that the model is terrible in many ways.  But there are plenty of guys making the minimum of 500K+ who are pretty thrilled to not be selling insurance or cars.

How does Chris Davis sleep?  I have no doubts that he struggles and he may in fact feel like he is stealing.  But blaming him for saying yes, is simply, without question, misappropriation of blame.

Not sympathetic?  I will say I get your point, it's hard to be sympathetic when Davis: 1) Gets criticized by HOF'er Jim Palmer for not working hard. 2) Gives interviews where he sounds surprised that he isn't hitting 50 bombs.  3) Manny Machado is gone.  But again, Davis said yes to a contract put in front of him.  And he seems to be making every effort to hit (well except bunting) but if we cannot feel some sympathy for the man, standing in front of everyone failing at a historic level, it says more about us, than him.

Again, in my opinion, Davis is done.  His performance demonstrates that and his decline is long, constant and continuing.  But I can root for it to end, and I can hope the team never repeats this mistake without piling on the man.  

[TonySoprano]

4 hours ago, Barnaby Graves said:

 I am not on board with the sympathetic fans, nobody cares about the mental status of the 28 year old AAAA guy that gets waived after a month on the roster and bats .200 and has a fraction of a fraction of Davis' net worth.

When one of those AAAA guys gets national media coverage about failure at their job for a year, then I'll understand the comparison better.   That's not to say I'm unsympathetic to their plight, but who outside of their family knows about it?

[Camden_yardbird]

1 hour ago, Es4M11 said:

He's beyond awful now. Davis does not even register on the scale anymore. He flat out should not be on a major league roster. Money be damned.

Statcast data suggests he should be doing no worse than any other of a number of struggling players.

Look I am not defending Davis, his salary or what a mess this whole situation is, but what I will say is that on top of being bad, he has also been unlucky.

[RVAOsFan]

I am disappointed to see Davis in the lineup today, and no this is not me piling on the he sucks and shouldn't play wagon.  I was really hoping they would keep him out for extended period of time while they tried to overhaul his swing.  I know the odds are not in his favor of turning things around but I feel like a couple weeks hitting BP with a new swing approach might improve his confidence.  Working on a new approach and facing MLB pitching at the same time doesn't sound like a recipe for a great outcome.

[Dale]

2 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Statcast data suggests he should be doing no worse than any other of a number of struggling players.

Look I am not defending Davis, his salary or what a mess this whole situation is, but what I will say is that on top of being bad, he has also been unlucky.

"Although Davis ought to have broken out of his hitless streak by now — Statcast reports an expected batting average of .119 for Davis this season, based on the quality of his batted balls — his strikeout totals have made it impossible for him to be a functional hitter."

Neil Paine FiveThirtyEight before last night's game 

... Those other players must be really struggling. 

[MongoBoy]

Slip him some Adderall and be done with it.  He did better while he was high.

Edited April 11, 2019 by MongoBoy

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

5 minutes ago, Dale said:

"Although Davis ought to have broken out of his hitless streak by now — Statcast reports an expected batting average of .119 for Davis this season, based on the quality of his batted balls — his strikeout totals have made it impossible for him to be a functional hitter."

Neil Paine FiveThirtyEight before last night's game 

... Those other players must be really struggling. 

Even if Davis was lucky he would still be worse than his record breaking season last year.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

2 minutes ago, MongoBoy said:

Slip him some Adderall and be done with it.

and HGH. 

[MongoBoy]

3 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

and HGH. 

I'm not giving him any of my stash.  He can afford to buy his own.

[foxfield]

6 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Statcast data suggests he should be doing no worse than any other of a number of struggling players.

Look I am not defending Davis, his salary or what a mess this whole situation is, but what I will say is that on top of being bad, he has also been unlucky.

This is a true statement.  In his last full game where he had 5 at bats, he hit the ball pretty sharply three times.  The expected batting average on those balls were in the neighborhood of .600.  Davis has had some bad luck.  And not just in that game.

However, the expected average of his full season to date would be .119?  If so even without bad luck, he is still declining.  But yes, he has been unlucky, and of course so have the Orioles.  But let's not mistakenly believe that if only CD was not unlucky, that Crush would be back.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

20 minutes ago, MongoBoy said:

I'm not giving him any of my stash.  He can afford to buy his own.

Well of course.

But if there was a Go Fund Me to raise money for Davis’ “medications”, I would chip in a couple dollars.