The Orioles recently resigned Chris Davis to a 7 year and $161 million dollar contract. As Jon wrote at the time (http://camdendepot.blogspot.com/2016/01/orioles-go-slightly-bananas-and-sign.html), Davis brings to the immediate a strong bat with a heavy right handed favored split. It’s pretty simple honestly, people like Chris Davis because he has elite power and can absolutely crush pitches. Meanwhile, CBS Sports (http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25451265/report-chris-davis-agrees-to-7-year-deal-to-return-to-orioles) argues that he still strikes out a lot, but made small strides with his plate discipline last season. The writer argues that Davis’ BB/K ratio of .4 may not be ideal but is progress. People generally seem to agree
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Even though Chris Davis has a better BB/K and wOBA Not in Play then Adam Jones, the fact that he puts so many fewer balls into play hurts him.
This analysis does make two questionable assumptions. It presumes that Adam Jones will hit the same proportion of pitches in the strike zone or not in the strike zone if he makes contact less frequently and it also presumes that his production when he does make contact won’t increase if he makes less frequent contact. At least the first assumption is highly unlikely while the second one is plausible.
The wOBA All Balls Field projects how Adam Jones would perform if the extra in play contact was solely against pitches out of the strike zone and thus takes into account both of the assumptions in the paragraph below. Even still, Adam Jones is better. In reality, as shown in the chart below, Chris Davis’ plate discipline is about as good as Jonathan Schoop’s and only slightly better than Jimmy Paredes.
(Chart …show more content…
It seems reasonable to presume that Chris Davis will start struggling if his primary competency of hammering pitches put into play starts to falter or if his plate discipline becomes significantly worse. This may not happen immediately, but is probably likely to occur before his contract ends. Although, Ortiz didn’t stop being elite in this regard until he was 36. Nelson Cruz is still elite at 35. Davis’ contract only runs through 36 so if he can take after those players then he’ll likely be a huge
Even though Chris Davis has a better BB/K and wOBA Not in Play then Adam Jones, the fact that he puts so many fewer balls into play hurts him.
This analysis does make two questionable assumptions. It presumes that Adam Jones will hit the same proportion of pitches in the strike zone or not in the strike zone if he makes contact less frequently and it also presumes that his production when he does make contact won’t increase if he makes less frequent contact. At least the first assumption is highly unlikely while the second one is plausible.
The wOBA All Balls Field projects how Adam Jones would perform if the extra in play contact was solely against pitches out of the strike zone and thus takes into account both of the assumptions in the paragraph below. Even still, Adam Jones is better. In reality, as shown in the chart below, Chris Davis’ plate discipline is about as good as Jonathan Schoop’s and only slightly better than Jimmy Paredes.
(Chart …show more content…
It seems reasonable to presume that Chris Davis will start struggling if his primary competency of hammering pitches put into play starts to falter or if his plate discipline becomes significantly worse. This may not happen immediately, but is probably likely to occur before his contract ends. Although, Ortiz didn’t stop being elite in this regard until he was 36. Nelson Cruz is still elite at 35. Davis’ contract only runs through 36 so if he can take after those players then he’ll likely be a huge