So, it took me longer to get around to writing the second part of this series than I expected because of this. And also this. Obviously all of that changes the calculus quite a bit, but not necessarily as much as you might think. The trade didn't involve any players who were under contract for next year, and while Harvey will obviously be missed if he does miss the 2014 season, his replacements aren't going to be Chris Schwinden and it's not a certainty he will miss next year. So I'll keep on with the series, although to make my life a little bit easier I'm going to split the infield up into corner and middle. Up first: the corners! Note that I'm only considering the starters here, and will address the bench (infield and outfield, though not catchers since I've already addressed the backup catcher spot) in a separate piece. Also note that everything I said about catching stands exactly as I wrote it, despite the Harvey injury and the trade of Byrd and Buck. Perhaps, if anything, this makes it slightly more obvious that John Buck won't be back in next year, which I had considered obvious from the beginning. So here we go, the corner infielders.
Showing posts with label Ike Davis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ike Davis. Show all posts
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
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?
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?
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Ike's Radical Home/Road Splits
If you've paid any attention to Mets baseball this year, you probably know that Ike Davis, projected as the team's cleanup hitter before the season, has not been hitting very well. Specifically he's got a .179/.237/.311 slash line, good for just a 54 OPS+, where 100 is league average. But here's the weird thing. In team road games, he's 16-for-57, with four walks, two doubles, and four home runs, including a mammoth one last night. That's a .281/.328/.526 slash line, everything you could ask for (well, except maybe a slightly higher OBP, but that's quibbling compared to his overall numbers) from Ike. Hell, he's driven in 10 runs in 14 games on the road, which extrapolates to a marvelous 116 RBI over the course of a 162-game season. The only trouble is, at Citi Field he's got just three hits, all of them singles, in 49 at-bats. Along with four walks that gives him a .061/.132/.061 line, which is, uh, bad for a pitcher. He's a left-handed first baseman who can hit the ball 500 feet. Not a pitcher. So... what? Why is Ike hitting like Ike when he's not at home, but hitting like Al Leiter when he is? I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. But it's an interesting thing to keep in mind, that in order to return to Ike Davis-esque form he just needs to start hitting at home like he's been hitting on the road.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Ike Davis and First Base
Last year Ike Davis posted a .264/.351/.440 slash line, good enough to be a little bit above league average as a hitter. This year he's at .345/.424/.595, which is a wee bit better, and which he's almost certain not to keep up all year, but let's say he turns out to be a little bit better than his rookie campaign. Maybe he ends up having an overall batting average around .275 or .280 instead of the .265 region, raising OBP to around .365 or .370, and gets his slugging percentage up around .500. That's a pretty good hitter; in fact, it's a very good hitter. But it is not, we are told, good for a first baseman. I have two problems with that assumption. One relates to Ike Davis himself, and the other relates to the idea of defensive positions having certain levels of offensive prowess required of them.
As for Ike, here's what I'd say. The idea that first base should be a plus-plus-plus offensive position is that it is the least demanding and/or least important position on the field defensively. All you have to do to be a competent first baseman is stand there and catch the ball. Therefore, it's a perfectly natural place to put big, hulking sluggers who couldn't very well be a shortstop or a center fielder. All true enough. But it's also true that, at first base just as at any other position, better defense is better. Having a first baseman who moves well, has decent range, is really really sure-handed on the catching side of things, and will make lots of smart aggressive plays and make them well really does improve your team. And Ike Davis looks to be a pretty fine defensive first baseman. Keith Hernandez hit a career-high eighteen home runs for the Mets in 1987. He was a first baseman, and he never hit twenty home runs. Sure, he had a .384 OBP and averaged thirty doubles a year, but he still wasn't a slugger in the mold of Albert Pujols or Mark Teixeira or Adrian Gonzalez or Prince Fielder. Or Ike Davis, for that matter, who's got more power than Keith though probably less hitting-for-average skills. But he won eleven Gold Gloves, and that made a difference for his teams. First base needs to be a strong offensive position because we assume it will be a weak defensive one, but a strong defensive first baseman has that much less need to be Albert Pujols at the plate (and note, Ike isn't a bad hitter).
More to the point, though. You have a team consisting of nine players, eight of whom aren't pitchers (I'm assuming no DH, because that ruins things). Those eight position players need to play the eight positions, and you'd like for them to play those eight positions well. They also each need to bat, in some order, and you'd like both for them to each bat well and for them to form a nice cohesive lineup. Fundamentally those are different things. Now, since first base is a much easier position than shortstop we expect more people to be able to play first than short and therefore to find more sluggers at first; perhaps there's also an idea that spending more effort becoming an offensive player means you should be playing a position that requires less effort. But from the team's perspective, it doesn't matter. You want your lineup to produce X hits, and Y home runs and Z doubles and score ABC runs. It doesn't matter if your shortstop hits 15 home runs and your first baseman 25 or it your shortstop doesn't hit any and your first baseman hits 40. (Well, it might matter in that there might be a difference between having two players 40/0 and two players 25/15, but which positions they play doesn't matter.) One thing the New York Mets have on their current lineup is a shortstop who can easily hit fifteen home runs, while also providing at least that many triples. That's way the hell above-average power for a shortstop. And to a certain extent it takes some pressure off the positions that are "supposed" to produce sluggers to do so. (It's one of the things Jose Reyes brings to the table that doesn't get mentioned very often.) So Ike Davis is a good defensive first baseman and he's also a good power hitter (how good, exactly, remains to be seen). He's also, for the time being, dirt-cheap. That's a good player to have on your team, especially if it is a team with a power-hitting shortstop and a power-hitting third baseman. That other people who play first base, many of them not as well, are even better hitters does not really change that.
As for Ike, here's what I'd say. The idea that first base should be a plus-plus-plus offensive position is that it is the least demanding and/or least important position on the field defensively. All you have to do to be a competent first baseman is stand there and catch the ball. Therefore, it's a perfectly natural place to put big, hulking sluggers who couldn't very well be a shortstop or a center fielder. All true enough. But it's also true that, at first base just as at any other position, better defense is better. Having a first baseman who moves well, has decent range, is really really sure-handed on the catching side of things, and will make lots of smart aggressive plays and make them well really does improve your team. And Ike Davis looks to be a pretty fine defensive first baseman. Keith Hernandez hit a career-high eighteen home runs for the Mets in 1987. He was a first baseman, and he never hit twenty home runs. Sure, he had a .384 OBP and averaged thirty doubles a year, but he still wasn't a slugger in the mold of Albert Pujols or Mark Teixeira or Adrian Gonzalez or Prince Fielder. Or Ike Davis, for that matter, who's got more power than Keith though probably less hitting-for-average skills. But he won eleven Gold Gloves, and that made a difference for his teams. First base needs to be a strong offensive position because we assume it will be a weak defensive one, but a strong defensive first baseman has that much less need to be Albert Pujols at the plate (and note, Ike isn't a bad hitter).
More to the point, though. You have a team consisting of nine players, eight of whom aren't pitchers (I'm assuming no DH, because that ruins things). Those eight position players need to play the eight positions, and you'd like for them to play those eight positions well. They also each need to bat, in some order, and you'd like both for them to each bat well and for them to form a nice cohesive lineup. Fundamentally those are different things. Now, since first base is a much easier position than shortstop we expect more people to be able to play first than short and therefore to find more sluggers at first; perhaps there's also an idea that spending more effort becoming an offensive player means you should be playing a position that requires less effort. But from the team's perspective, it doesn't matter. You want your lineup to produce X hits, and Y home runs and Z doubles and score ABC runs. It doesn't matter if your shortstop hits 15 home runs and your first baseman 25 or it your shortstop doesn't hit any and your first baseman hits 40. (Well, it might matter in that there might be a difference between having two players 40/0 and two players 25/15, but which positions they play doesn't matter.) One thing the New York Mets have on their current lineup is a shortstop who can easily hit fifteen home runs, while also providing at least that many triples. That's way the hell above-average power for a shortstop. And to a certain extent it takes some pressure off the positions that are "supposed" to produce sluggers to do so. (It's one of the things Jose Reyes brings to the table that doesn't get mentioned very often.) So Ike Davis is a good defensive first baseman and he's also a good power hitter (how good, exactly, remains to be seen). He's also, for the time being, dirt-cheap. That's a good player to have on your team, especially if it is a team with a power-hitting shortstop and a power-hitting third baseman. That other people who play first base, many of them not as well, are even better hitters does not really change that.
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