Chris Davis, 2020

[Hallas]

4 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Edgar Martinez played 138 games at DH in 1995 and put up a 7.0 WAR season.  He had a 185 OPS+.  Frank Thomas had a year over seven in '97 but played less than 50 games at DH.

I'll take the 160 OPS+ that Martinez put up as a 38 year old for the next 3 years.  We'll call the leftover WAR a rounding error.

[Hallas]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah, its gotta be more than a hot month or two.  It's gotta be over a full season and well into the next one.

You don't think someone would trade for him next offseason coming off a .900 OPS season?  We obviously eat some (a lot of) money.

[BRobinsonfan]

3 hours ago, jrobb21613 said:

30 bombs at the break get a trade done? 

Trade him?  We should be trying to extend him.  

[HowAboutThat]

The Davis “resurgence” made it into the Dallas News “MLB Roundup” as the top story. They mention that he has 3 home runs in four spring training games.

Either Davis has lots of fans pulling for him, or his awful past has really been awful.

[murph]

14 hours ago, Hallas said:

I'll take the 160 OPS+ that Martinez put up as a 38 year old for the next 3 years.  We'll call the leftover WAR a rounding error.

Not to totally derail this thread, but went back to look at Martinez's stats, well just because and in 1995 he and Albert Belle both of 7.0bWar were beat out by 4.3bWar Mo Vaughn for the MVP.  What a sham.  I guess because Vaughn was a Redsox, the writers hated Belle and Martinez was "just" a DH, but that's terrible.  I am sure @DrungoHazewood knows dozens of other examples which are just as or even worse that than that slight, but it just caught my eye. 

To keep it on Davis, I love that he has bulked up and his making contact, but I still do not believe it is real...at all.  And I don't want him to fail, just don't see how this could be possible after the last 2+ years. 

[Mr. Chewbacca Jr.]

8 minutes ago, murph said:

Not to totally derail this thread, but went back to look at Martinez's stats, well just because and in 1995 he and Albert Belle both of 7.0bWar were beat out by 4.3bWar Mo Vaughn for the MVP.  What a sham.  I guess because Vaughn was a Redsox, the writers hated Belle and Martinez was "just" a DH, but that's terrible.  I am sure @DrungoHazewood knows dozens of other examples which are just as or even worse that than that slight, but it just caught my eye. 

To keep it on Davis, I love that he has bulked up and his making contact, but I still do not believe it is real...at all.  And I don't want him to fail, just don't see how this could be possible after the last 2+ years. 

Juan Gonzalez - both times.

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, murph said:

Not to totally derail this thread, but went back to look at Martinez's stats, well just because and in 1995 he and Albert Belle both of 7.0bWar were beat out by 4.3bWar Mo Vaughn for the MVP.  What a sham.  I guess because Vaughn was a Redsox, the writers hated Belle and Martinez was "just" a DH, but that's terrible.  I am sure @DrungoHazewood knows dozens of other examples which are just as or even worse that than that slight, but it just caught my eye. 

To keep it on Davis, I love that he has bulked up and his making contact, but I still do not believe it is real...at all.  And I don't want him to fail, just don't see how this could be possible after the last 2+ years. 

I mean, I don't blame them. It was many years before WAR or any of it's predecessors existed, much less became mainstream. You make decisions based on the available data, of which there was a lot less back then.

[scOtt]

8 minutes ago, Hallas said:

I mean, I don't blame them. It was many years before WAR or any of it's predecessors existed, much less became mainstream. You make decisions based on the available data, of which there was a lot less back then.

Like hot girlfriends...

[Moose Milligan]

16 hours ago, Hallas said:

You don't think someone would trade for him next offseason coming off a .900 OPS season?  We obviously eat some (a lot of) money.

Probably not.  I mean, they'd have to be starved for a mid 30's 1st baseman who had one scalding hot year after having several disasterous ones.  A first baseman who's defense is no longer that great.  

Call me crazy, but I don't see teams clamoring for that type of profile.  We'd be eating a lot of that salary, but I also don't think we'd be getting anything in return.

[MongoBoy]

On 2/29/2020 at 3:09 PM, DirtyBird said:

I actually witnessed Davis illegally dumping used mattresses, motor oil, tires and needles in a back alley in West Baltimore

That's not illegal in West Baltimore.  Maybe making a right on red when flashing light says no...that might be.

[scOtt]

1 hour ago, MongoBoy said:

That's not illegal in West Baltimore.  Maybe making a right on red when flashing light says no...that might be.

Not for dumping mattresses. But you tear that tag off and they're coming after your @$$!

[DrungoHazewood]

18 hours ago, murph said:

Not to totally derail this thread, but went back to look at Martinez's stats, well just because and in 1995 he and Albert Belle both of 7.0bWar were beat out by 4.3bWar Mo Vaughn for the MVP.  What a sham.  I guess because Vaughn was a Redsox, the writers hated Belle and Martinez was "just" a DH, but that's terrible.  I am sure @DrungoHazewood knows dozens of other examples which are just as or even worse that than that slight, but it just caught my eye. 

To keep it on Davis, I love that he has bulked up and his making contact, but I still do not believe it is real...at all.  And I don't want him to fail, just don't see how this could be possible after the last 2+ years. 

Prior to, say, 1980 even GMs, writers, etc had some pretty out-there ideas about valuing players.  In the early days of MVP voting like the 1920s you'd often have player-managers get a lot of votes for leading their teams while playing.  Catcher often got a similar bump. 

But one of the more egregious MVP awards was Roger Peckinpaugh in 1925.  The Senators won the pennant, he was their 34-year-old shortstop in his last year as a regular.  He hit .294/.367/.379 with 16 doubles and four homers, and by modern retroactive figuring was a +2 shortstop (although was +21 the prior year).  He won the award.  Also playing in the AL that year was HOFer Al Simmons (.387/.419/.599 with 129 RBI), HOFer Harry Heilmann (.393/.457/.569, 134 RBI), HOFer San Coveleski (20-5, 2.84), and the Browns' Harry Rice (.359/.450/.568).  Mickey Cochrane was a catcher who hit .331/.397/.448.  The Indians' Joe Sewell was another shortstop who hit .336/.402/.424 and struck out four times all year.  Goose Goslin was Peckinpaugh's teammate and had a .931 OPS, 34 doubles, 20 triples, 27 steals.  But none of those guys polled as well as the 34-year-old Senators shortstop who had a 2.6-win season but "led" them to the pennant.

Also look at Johnny Bassler.  I've mentioned him before, he was a catcher with a short career, but in the 1920s he had three straight top-10 MVP finishes in seasons where he had zero or one homers and didn't get to 500 PAs.

In 1944 Marty Marion was the Cards' shortstop, had a .686 OPS, won the MVP award over teammate Stan Musial who OPS'd .990.  In 1947 DiMaggio had a 4.9-win season and beat Ted Williams despite Williams' 9.9-win triple crown season.  Luis Aparicio got a lot of down-ballot MVP support for 2-something win seasons.  Dick Groat won the '60 NL MVP for being the shortstop on the pennant winning Pirates with a .766 OPS and 2 homers, despite being in the same league as Willie Mays (.936 OPS), Ernie Banks (shortstop with 41 homers, 117 RBI), Hank Aaron (40 homers), Eddie Mathews, etc.  In '62 the writers thought a .720 OPS with 102 steals (Maury Wills) was more valuable than each of Willie, Frank and Hank OPSing 1.000.

 I love Boog, but he had a 5-win MVP season in '70 while Yaz was at 9.5.  Don Baylor's '79 MVP was pretty nuts - ran away with it in a 3.7-win season when Singleton, Brett, Lynn, Rice, Porter, Bell, Grich and others were clearly better to a modern set of eyes.  Stargell wasn't even in the same zip code as Keith Hernandez or Dave Winfield that same year unless you're giving him a 6-win bump for being a cool old dude to Pittsburgh fans.

[DrungoHazewood]

17 hours ago, Hallas said:

I mean, I don't blame them. It was many years before WAR or any of it's predecessors existed, much less became mainstream. You make decisions based on the available data, of which there was a lot less back then.

When you literally have no ground truth data you could convince yourself that a catcher with no homers who missed a month's worth of games but was perceived as a great "field general" was worth more than an RFer who hit .393 with 75 extra base hits.  It sounds ludicrous today, but they were voting on how a player looked and was perceived and they put a lot of emphasis on how the team did.

Also voting systems weren't (and still aren't) well conceived or exectued.  Ruth had years where he OPS'd 1.252 and didn't get any MVP votes because there was a rule (either written or understood, not sure) that you couldn't win the award twice.

[BohKnowsBmore]

20 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Probably not.  I mean, they'd have to be starved for a mid 30's 1st baseman who had one scalding hot year after having several disasterous ones.  A first baseman who's defense is no longer that great.  

Call me crazy, but I don't see teams clamoring for that type of profile.  We'd be eating a lot of that salary, but I also don't think we'd be getting anything in return.

I would think the most likely scenario (still incredibly unlikely) would be a good 2020, followed up by a good 2021 first half. A team starved for power or who suffered an injury could be interested if he's put up a run. I don't think anyone would be interested with one just good year following two terrible (and we can assume more options available during the offseason).

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

I would think the most likely scenario (still incredibly unlikely) would be a good 2020, followed up by a good 2021 first half. A team starved for power or who suffered an injury could be interested if he's put up a run. I don't think anyone would be interested with one just good year following two terrible (and we can assume more options available during the offseason).

I'd agree with that scenario, kinda.  I mean, I don't think there are too many teams starved for power these days, at least not with the jackrabbit ball they've been using.  Of course not every team can be at the top of the pack when it comes to slugging but I'd imagine that the top slugging teams are higher up in the standings than the ones that aren't...usually.  In other words, I don't see a team that's winning games and in a pennant race hurting for scoring runs.  It's possible, but not likely.

That said, Davis could make sense in this scenario because he probably wouldn't cost any top prospects and we'd still be eating a lot of the salary.  A team trying to sell off a younger player with more years of team control would probably cost more prospect capital than Davis.  He could be a viable option but I'm not counting it.

That said...hey, whatever.  We'd all love to see Davis get back to a 40+ homer guy.  It was fun when he was hitting bombs.  If he can somehow iron himself out and get back to that, that'd be quite a story.  And if we still can't trade him, at least he'd be finishing his contract on a high note and we'll have had some fun moments watching him.