Chris Davis, 2020

[InsideCoroner]

32 minutes ago, baltfan said:

I may be in the minority but I am rooting for the guy. It is obvious he has some issues with the mental part of the game and is trying to overcome them.  It isn’t all mental, obviously but the effort seems to be there.  The mental thing also might explain the dust up with Palmer last year. This guy was in an emotional hole and hiding.

I don't think you're in the minority, just the opposite. Who would root for Davis to fail? I think everyone would love to see him have a huge bounceback year (or years). I just feel more and more that it's unlikely to ever happen. 

[Frobby]

39 minutes ago, baltfan said:

I may be in the minority but I am rooting for the guy. It is obvious he has some issues with the mental part of the game and is trying to overcome them.  It isn’t all mental, obviously but the effort seems to be there.  The mental thing also might explain the dust up with Palmer last year. This guy was in an emotional hole and hiding.

The dust-up with Palmer actually was two years ago.

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Loooooong interview of Davis in Roch’s blig today.    A little bit of everything in there.   https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2020/02/chris-davis-i-feel-alive-right-now.html

This part was particularly interesting. It seems his work began before the offseason, as has been previously reported, but not detailed. 

Quote

Another pivotal moment for Davis came last summer with a return visit to OnBase University, an offshoot of the Titleist Performance Institute in California that studies a hitter’s movements. Davis met with Dr. Greg Rose, who specializes in sports biomechanics, strength and conditioning, manual therapy, rehabilitation and therapeutic exercises as they relate to sports.

Head athletic trainer Brian Ebel and strength and conditioning coach Joe Hogarty accompanied Davis, who managed the appointment while the club was on a West Coast trip to Anaheim and San Diego.

What they found out is that Davis is lacking range of motion in his left hip. He’s gone on the injured list with soreness, most recently in May 2019.

“Over time, the amount of twisting and turning that we do, it’s abnormal for our bodies, and your body is designed to protect itself,” Davis said, now sounding more like physician than therapist. “You build compensation or you build these patterns to where you start to lose range of motion. You start to lose the ability to fully utilize the strength in that muscle. That’s really what that (appointment) was all about.

“The information I got back from kinematic sequence - I’m so glad I remembered that. That’s my smart term - all the information that they were getting from these readouts, he’s sitting there and telling me, ‘There’s nothing wrong. Your power output, your torque, your force, all of that is off the charts.’ The problem that I was running into is I wasn’t able to utilize about 60 percent of that, so I was getting about 40 percent of the power that I was generating from the ground up because it was getting severed in my hips. It was getting cut off at my waist is basically what he said.

“My hip was so tight that I wasn’t able to transfer that properly. Once I understood what the problem was, it was a lot easier to find the solution. If you don’t know what you’re trying to fix, it’s kind of hard to fix it, and that was part of the little workout plan that Elias and Hyder and I talked about. How are we going to go about strengthening these things, how do you want to do some of this stuff?

A "return" visit - I wonder when the last time he went there was. 

[Moose Milligan]

1 hour ago, baltfan said:

I may be in the minority but I am rooting for the guy. It is obvious he has some issues with the mental part of the game and is trying to overcome them.  It isn’t all mental, obviously but the effort seems to be there.  The mental thing also might explain the dust up with Palmer last year. This guy was in an emotional hole and hiding.

I think everyone wants to see him do well.  But that just doesn't seem realistic anymore.  

[canonfaz]

I'm rooting for the guy, for sure, but I have very little expectation that he's anything more than he's shown the last few years.

[wildbillhiccup]

In all seriousness, after reading Roch's interview my first thought was that his off season would have been better spent doing yoga and gaining flexibility than lifting weights and gaining 25 lbs of muscle. 

[panick]

So was his hip issue the reason he would swing at two pitches that were not strikes, and then stand there and watch strike three go right down the middle of the plate?

[Win Column]

https://twitter.com/JonMeoli/status/1232286493579804672

Edited February 25, 2020 by Win Column
I give up...can't get it to show

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Win Column said:

https://twitter.com/JonMeoli/status/1232286493579804672

Read: SWING THE BAT

lol 

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

In all seriousness, after reading Roch's interview my first thought was that his off season would have been better spent doing yoga and gaining flexibility than lifting weights and gaining 25 lbs of muscle. 

Improving flexibility is allegedly what Davis worked on in the prior offseason.   Now he’s gone the other direction, but it sounds like he’s done some things to address his hip.    From a January 2019 Trezza article:

To do so, Davis huddled in the batting cage with instructors from his prospect days as a member of the Rangers. In between sessions, he tweaked his exercise regimen to add extra emphasis on conditioning and flexibility ("I can't go in the gym and crush arms all the time anymore," Davis said. "Everybody tells me I look skinny.")

https://www.mlb.com/news/chris-davis-eyes-2019-as-redemption-season-c303225758

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Improving flexibility is allegedly what Davis worked on in the prior offseason.   Now he’s gone the other direction, but it sounds like he’s done some things to address his hip.    From a January 2019 Trezza article:

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/chris-davis-eyes-2019-as-redemption-season-c303225758

I never understood why he thought he couldn't "crush arms all the time" at age 31, 32. You can be flexible enough and well-conditioned and muscular at the same time. He can't really run anymore anyway, so just go be a huge powerful dude. 

[wildbillhiccup]

42 minutes ago, interloper said:

I never understood why he thought he couldn't "crush arms all the time" at age 31, 32. You can be flexible enough and well-conditioned and muscular at the same time. He can't really run anymore anyway, so just go be a huge powerful dude. 

I agree it seems like he's gone from one extreme to the other, but I think there is a middle ground in there somewhere. Plenty of instances where players have overly bulked up, lost their flexibility, and have become much more prone to strains and pulls. 

[wildbillhiccup]

1 hour ago, panick said:

So was his hip issue the reason he would swing at two pitches that were not strikes, and then stand there and watch strike three go right down the middle of the plate?

I'm imagining that episode of Friends where they're trying to move a couch into a tiny NY apartment and Ross just keeps screaming "pivot!" 

[Redskins Rick]

3 hours ago, InsideCoroner said:

I don't think you're in the minority, just the opposite. Who would root for Davis to fail? I think everyone would love to see him have a huge bounceback year (or years). I just feel more and more that it's unlikely to ever happen. 

How can you not root for him to do well, if you are a fan of the team?

That doesnt meant we stick our head in the sand and pretend there isnt a problem.

At least they are working with identifying the problem and a solution.

Time will tell.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

22 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

How can you not root for him to do well, if you are a fan of the team?

That doesnt meant we stick our head in the sand and pretend there isnt a problem.

At least they are working with identifying the problem and a solution.

Time will tell.

We all want Davis to play well if he is on the team, but Davis hasn't been good enough to be a regular in the starting lineup since 2016. Davis is going to be 34 years and the odds are against him to turn it around. We'll see if a more muscular Chris Davis can hit better soon enough.