Ike Davis, Non-Automatic Out

It's not good for a Major League baseball team to have spots in its batting order that are essentially automatic outs. National League teams all have one of those, for the first several innings anyway, for the pitcher, but they all have that in common so it more or less cancels out (except for the Pirates). But you don't want any other spots to be that bad, and if they are, hopefully you're getting Ozzie Smith-type defense out of it and you can bury the guy in the 8 or 9 spot. Having, say, someone you want to think of as your cleanup hitter, a power-hitting first baseman, say, suddenly decide to become an automatic out is basically an unremitting disaster, especially since you'll probably spend a while leaving them in the #4 spot, and then gradually moving them down to #5, and then #6, and then maybe #7. So they're not just making outs all the time, they're making outs in more important spots than you'd really like to be giving them, given how terrible they are.

Anyone who's watched any of the 2013 Mets, of course, knows I'm talking about one Ike Davis. As he did in 2012, he got off to a very slow start, but a) he didn't have a Spring Training bout of valley fever as an excuse, and b) he didn't ever snap out of it. On June 9th, Ike was batting .161 with a .242 on-base percentage and a paltry .258 slugging percentage. He had hit only five home runs, only three doubles, and had driven in only 16 runs in 207 plate appearances over 55 games. Terrible numbers for anyone, but as I said, a catastrophe of epic scale from a left-handed slugging first baseman expected to protect David Wright in the cleanup spot. Accordingly, Ike got his ass sent down to AAA, to the Las Vegas 51s. There, however, he seemed to find his stroke, hitting .293/.424/.667 in 21 games and belting 7 home runs, to go along with 7 doubles. The Pacific Coast League in general, and Vegas in particular, is a great offensive environment, but a 1.091 OPS is pretty bloody terrific in any environment. So they brought Ike back.

Now, Keith Hernandez keeps saying that he thinks Ike looks the same as he did in the early part of the season, out in front on pitches, lunging, etc. But the simple fact is that Ike has stopped being an automatic out. The power isn't really there, but everything else is. In his first game back, on June 5th, Ike went 3-5 with a walk, two runs scored, two driven in, and a strikeout. And the strikeout was on a borderline 3-2 pitch that I thought was a ball. In other words, in 6 plate appearances Ike had 6 good showings; he didn't give away a single at-bat. That looked very promising. Obviously he hasn't kept that pace up, but since his return he's got a .256 batting average with, more importantly, a very nice .370 OBP. The power still isn't there; of his 10 hits, 2 have been doubles but he hasn't had any home runs, so the slugging percentage stands at just .308. That will need to change, and the fact that the two doubles were in the last two games is encouraging. But the simple fact is that 37% of the time Ike Davis strides to the plate since his return to MLB, he does not make an out. Before being sent down, that number was 24%. That's the difference between terrible and great, at this particular, very important, aspect of overall performance. If he can keep it up I have no doubt the power will show up, because he just does have tremendous raw power, and he might be able to put together a monster second half as he did last year.

If so, he'll be perhaps the toughest player in all of baseball to forecast going forward. Which is the real Ike Davis, the guy who's a threat to hit 40 home runs or the guy who isn't a threat to break the Mendoza line?