Chris Davis Player Card | Baseball Prospectus

Chris Davis

BAL

Age: 39

Birth Date: 1986 Mar 17

Birthplace: Longview, TX, USA

Height: 6' 4"

Weight: 255 lb.

B/T: Left/Right

Season	G Games	PA Plate Appearances	WARP Wins Above Replacement Player	DRC+ Deserved Runs Created plus - Measures batter contributions, not just results. 100 is average. Higher is better, lower is worse.	SD± DRC+ Standard Deviation - Our measure of uncertainty surrounding a player’s DRC+	DRAA Deserved Runs Above Average - DRC+ converted to runs	BRR Base Running Runs - Measures the number of runs contributed by a player's advancement on the bases -- opportunity and park adjusted	DRP Deserved Runs Prevented - Total summary of all fielding contributions
Career	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Current Season	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

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2016-01-21 : Baltimore Orioles signed free agent 1B Chris Davis.
2015-11-02 : 1B Chris Davis elected free agency.
2011-07-31 : Baltimore Orioles traded RHP Koji Uehara to Texas Rangers for 1B Chris Davis and RHP Tommy Hunter.
2011-07-23 : Texas Rangers recalled Chris Davis from Round Rock Express.
2011-06-08 : Texas Rangers recalled Chris Davis from Round Rock Express.
2011-04-13 : Texas Rangers recalled 1B Chris Davis from Round Rock Express.
2010-09-11 : Texas Rangers recalled 1B Chris Davis from Oklahoma City RedHawks.
2010-07-09 : Texas Rangers recalled Chris Davis from Oklahoma City RedHawks.
2009-08-25 : Texas Rangers recalled Chris Davis from Oklahoma City RedHawks.

Date On When the player was placed on IL or injured	Date Off When the player was activated from IL or returned	Transaction Action taken by team	Days Total days missed by player	Games Approximate team games missed by player	Side The side of the body where the injury occurred	Body Part The part of the body where the injury occured	Injury A description of the injury
2021-03-26	2021-08-12	60 day	139	-	none	back	Lower back strain
2020-09-14	2020-09-28	10-IL	14	-	left	knee	patellar tendinitis in left knee
2020-08-21	2020-09-08	10-IL	18	-	left	knee	patellar tendinitis in left knee
2020-08-01	2020-08-04	DTD	3	-	none	knee	knee injury
2020-07-29	2020-07-31	DTD	2	-	none	internal	sinus infection
2019-05-26	2019-06-04	10-DL	9	-	Left	Hip	Inflammation
2019-04-16	2019-04-21	DTD	5	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Other
2018-09-20	2018-09-21	DTD	1	-	No Side	Neck	Other
2018-09-03	2018-09-04	DTD	1	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Other
2018-04-23	2018-04-23	DTD	0	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Other
2017-08-17	2017-08-20	DTD	3	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Other
2017-06-13	2017-07-14	10-DL	31	-	Right	Oblique Muscle	Strain
2017-04-30	2017-04-30	DTD	0	-	Right	Elbow	Contusion
2017-03-09	2017-03-14	Camp	5	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Bronchitis
2016-09-07	2016-09-09	DTD	2	-	Left	Hand	Soreness
2016-07-18	2016-07-22	DTD	4	-	No Side	Other	Other
2015-07-11	2015-07-12	DTD	1	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Gasteroenteritis
2014-07-28	2014-07-31	DTD	3	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Other
2014-04-26	2014-05-11	15-DL	15	-	Left	Oblique Muscle	Strain
2013-09-30	2013-09-30	DTD	0	-	Left	Wrist	Sprain
2013-09-26	2013-09-27	DTD	1	-	Right	Foot	Soreness
2013-07-20	2013-07-20	DTD	0	-	Not Known	Ankle	Soreness
2013-07-15	2013-07-15	DTD	0	-	Right	Hand	Blister
2013-05-04	2013-05-05	DTD	1	-	Right	Knee	Soreness
2012-07-05	2012-07-07	DTD	2	-	Right	Back	Trapezius
2011-09-29	2011-09-29	Off	0	-	Not Known	Pelvis	Sports Hernia
2011-08-15	2011-09-06	15-DL	22	-	Right	Labrum & Rotator Cuff	Strain
2011-08-05	2011-08-09	DTD	4	-	Right	Shoulder	Inflammation
2011-07-05	2011-07-08	Minors	3	-	Not Known	Groin	Strain
2010-10-01	2010-11-01	DTD	31	-	No Side	Viral Infection	Other
2009-09-29	2009-10-01	DTD	2	-	Left	Hamstring	Strain
2009-03-31	2009-04-02	Camp	2	-	Not Known	Knee	Patellar Tendonitis

7 years/$161M (2016-22). Re-signed by Baltimore as a free agent 1/16. Salaries of $23M annually, with $17M paid as earned and $6M deferred without interest. The $42M in deferred money is to be paid in 10 installments of $3.5M annually in 2023-32 and five installments of $1.4M annually in 2033-37. MLB calculates contract's present-day value to $147,831,478 with deferrals. MLBPA's present-day calculation is $147,737,635. Limited no-trade protection. Retired 8/12/21, with Davis receiving 2022 salary but agreeing to defer the $17M portion due in 2022 over three years
1 year/$12M (2015). Re-signed by Baltimore 1/16/15 (avoided arbitration). Reinstated from restricted list 4/7/15.
1 year/$10.35M (2014). Re-signed by Baltimore 1/17/14 (avoided arbitration). Placed on restricted list by Baltimore 9/12/14 (positive test for Adderall without therapeutic use exemption).
1 year/$3.3M (2013). Re-signed by Baltimore 1/18/13 (avoided arbitration). Award bonuses, including $50,000 for All-Star selection.
1 year/$488,000 (2012). Signed by Baltimore 3/10/12.
1 year/$418,290 (2011). Re-signed by Texas 2/22/11. Acquired by Baltimore in trade from Texas 7/30/11.
1 year/$414,120 (2010). Re-signed by Texas 3/4/10
1 year/$406,620 (2009). Re-signed by Texas 2/25/09. Award bonus: $10,000 for All Star.
1 year (2008). Contract purchased by Texas 6/26/08.
Drafted 2006 (5-148) (Navarro JC, Texas). $172,500 signing bonus.

Year Contract Year	Age Seasonal Age	Team Signing Team	Salary Salary or other detail	Service Time Accured service time
2009	23	TEX	$406,620	1.056
2010	24	TEX	$414,120	1.120
2011	25	TEX	$418,290	2.060
2012	26	BAL	$488,000	3.060
2013	27	BAL	$3,300,000	4.060
2014	28	BAL	$10,350,000	5.060
2015	29	BAL	$12,000,000	6.060
2016	30	BAL	$21,118,783	7.060
2017	31	BAL	$21,118,782	8.061
2018	32	BAL	$21,118,782	9.060
2019	33	BAL	$21,118,782	10.060
2020	34	BAL	$21,118,783	11.061
2021	35	BAL	$21,118,783	-
2022	36	BAL	$5,666,667	-
2023	37	BAL	$5,666,667	-
2024	38	BAL	$5,666,666	-
Total			$171,089,725	11.061

Year	Comments	Buy now
2022	When the end came, we didn't have to watch it. Davis announced his retirement in August, three months after he had been ruled out for the season following hip surgery and five months since he suffered a back strain in his first spring training game—his last in an Orioles uniform. Then again, perhaps we had just been watching the end for years. If it hadn't arrived when he slipped to replacement-level in his age-31 season, it surely felt like it had the following year, when he cost his team three wins. By the time he mercifully ended his record-breaking hitless streak in 2019, you'd have been hard-pressed to find an O's fan who thought they weren't watching the most painfully-protracted conclusion of a career in living memory. Baltimore will pay Davis for another 15 years, so this undoubtedly isn't the last we've heard of this disaster stretch. Let's instead try to remember him as the truly fearsome power hitter of his prime. We've spent quite enough time on his downfall.	Buy it now
2021	Davis’ infamous 0-for-54 start to the 2019 season was big news. For the final 20 plate appearances or so of that streak, the whole baseball community was tuned in to every start as the Slugger Formerly Known as Chris Davis flailed his way into the history books. Davis became the sport’s biggest meme, its most tragic punchline. Eventually he roped a single into left field off Rick Porcello, and suddenly he was merely the worst hitter in baseball. The baseball world had moved on. Davis was just as inept in 2020. No one cared. Watching him hit gave off the vibe of living among the ruins of ancient Greece: you know something grand once stood there, something awe-inspiring, but now you’re just sleeping on rocks. It must be emphasized that he was once a majestic baseball thing, a mountain with forearms of stone, capable of depositing baseballs into new zip codes. To fall like he’s fallen, you’ve got to reach a certain height in the first place. He was basically phantom IL’ed for the last month-plus of the season, tallying only three at-bats after August 18th. There’s been chatter about a buyout, some muttering about how Crush has played his last game, despite the two years left on his contract. Who knows what the future holds, but if this truly is the end, a hefty kudos to a man who reached unimaginable highs and unwatchable lows, but through it all went back out there each day and tried to smack the crap out of the ball.
2020	There was a wraparound stretch across 2018 and 2019 during which Davis set a major-league record, going 62 consecutive plate appearances without a hit. Something like that doesn't happen without very bad luck, but striking out in 30 of those trips to the plate surely didn't help. Since he signed his miserable seven-year, $161 million contract ahead of the 2016 season, 96 players have at least 2,000 plate appearances and Davis has the eighth-lowest soft contact rate among them. It's just that his 36.1 percent strikeout rate is miles ahead of anyone else, culminating in a 39.5 percent strikeout rate last season—another major-league record (min 350 PA) that he will wear. Another year and Davis will have been known as "Crush" longer for his impact on the Orioles' payroll than on opposing pitchers' fastballs.
2019	While most US schoolchildren learn about the Great Chicago Fire, little attention is paid to a much larger fire that occurred on the same day in 1871: the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin burned over a million acres of forest and killed scores more than in Chicago, its conditions so deadly that in WWII, US and British soldiers studied the so-called Peshtigo Paradigm to plan bombing campaigns against Axis strongholds. It remains to this day the deadliest wildfire in American history, and yet few outside of the region know about it. This is to say, historical memory is often a social construct, or so Chris Davis should hope it is. This may be the only way to leave the smoking ruin of his historically awful 2018 campaign behind, hoping that somewhere out there in baseball is the equivalent of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and one very tippy lantern.\r\n\r\n
2018	Joey Gallo may be the popular symbol of the modern age of baseball—with Rob Deer and Adam Dunn the prophets who foretold a time of binary baseball, success or failure—but Davis isn't far behind in the procession. If you look at his batted-ball numbers, his disappointing 2017 looks like the usual old Chris Davis: same BABIP, same line-drive and fly-ball rates, same hard-hit ratios. It's just getting to that stage in the at-bat that haunts him. Davis had the third-worst contact rate of all qualified hitters last year, and while he's tried to adjust by leaving the bat on his shoulder more, pitchers have duly compensated by throwing more strikes than they have since his pre-arbitration days. Granted, we're talking about a man whose career arc is more of a Ferris wheel, so he could have a four-win season like he does every third year. But if this is what he is now, he'd be better served to literally lean into it, pull the ball all the time and at least accept the 40+ home-run part of his Faustian bargain.
2017	He continues to provide above-average offensive production while striking out at historic rates. But for Davis to be worth his salary, given his relative lack of defensive value, he needs to hit for overwhelming power. There's some evidence—beyond the empirical evidence about aging that has piled up over the decades—that he's going to find that increasingly difficult. Davis swung much less often than he ever had before in 2016, but still made less contact. He pulled the ball less often than he had since 2011, and had less success when he did pull it. He should keep hitting for power and drawing walks for another few years, but that doesn't guarantee he'll be more than an average player.
2016	The disparity between his 2013 and '14 seasons was so wide that the lazy analysis of “he'll hit somewhere between” was nigh unavoidable. Davis acquiesced for much of the year, and on July 28th his .240/.323/.480 slash was just six points askew of PECOTA's 50th percentile projection. And then he caught fire: 15 home runs in the span of 23 games, 35 runs driven in, a slugging percentage raised by 100 points. He continued to mash for the rest of the season, and when the dust had settled Davis led the American League with a .300 ISO and topped the majors in homers for the second time in three years. It was less a fantastic walk year than a fantastic walk half, but Davis' raw power is unquestioned and his Adderall drama is in the rearview. Now he can focus on the game and collect his considerable paycheck.
2015	Since the dawn of history, Man has never been able to hit 50 home runs forever. For Chris Davis, the power didn't disappear altogether, but 26 home runs looks bad compared to 53. A scout told BP last August that his hands and timing at the plate are "a mess." All that really improved was his walk rate—a moderately promising indicator that opposing pitchers still respect the threat of his thump—but the 300 points in decreased OPS indicates most other pitchers figured him out. To compound his frustration, a 25-game suspension for unpermitted Adderall use abruptly ended his season mid-September. The good news is 2015 is another year and a home run every 17 at-bats is still really nice and good.
2014	The 2012 and 2013 seasons from Davis are why teams repeatedly give chances to players with obvious tools who have yet to put them into action at the big-league level. No one from the Orioles' front office would pretend they saw this level of production coming, but his elite power isn’t often available, especially in a trade for a reliever (even a very good reliever like Koji Uehara). It was worth being wary of Davis's high BABIP for a while, but at this point, as you can see in his PECOTA line, he's hit the ball hard for long enough that it's time to believe it's truly a skill. Davis also got much better on the outer third of the zone, giving him power to all fields. The whiff rate is still scary, but a sampling of the names around Davis' on a contact percentage leaderboard show how hard it is to draw conclusions solely from that number: Giancarlo Stanton and Mark Reynolds miss slightly more often than Davis; Adam Dunn and Brandon Moss slightly less.
2013	For the first time in his career, a starting job was Davis's to lose, and he made the most of the opportunity. Davis may as well be followed to the plate by a blue ox given the raw power he uses to handle the lumber. That’s where he’s going to make his money, because his pitch recognition can be atrocious. Davis is a mistake hitter capable of being dominated by a pitcher with a good plan. His swing has definite holes, and a savvy pitcher will get him off-balance on his front foot to sap his power. Those strikeouts will never go away, but he did do a better job of staying inside the ball and using the whole field last season. As long as he capitalizes on the opportunities pitchers dangle, he’s a valuable hitter capable of playing all four corner positions better than any tree stump could.
2012	The centerpiece of the Koji Uehara deal, Davis may finally be given a full season of at-bats in 2012, assuming he can stay healthy. His health is no given: he played through a partially torn labrum late in the year and suffered a sports hernia. If he can avoid injury setbacks, he’s a good candidate for a Carlos-Peña-style break out. If he doesn’t, or he doesn’t, he’ll be remembered as strictly 4A. After years of riding the bus back and forth between Triple-A Round Rock and Texas, Davis has proven all he can in the minors. He has the raw power of Thor, and that will be the tool to carry him.
2011	Once a very promising power bat, Davis looks to be a one-hit wonder, topping the charts back in 2008 by slamming 42 extra-base hits in only 80 games, including 17 jacks. After a disappointing 2009 campaign, Davis was given another opportunity to find his swing and opened the 2010 season as the starting first baseman for the Rangers. Unfortunately, he continued to struggle against major-league pitching, getting the hook after only 15 games and watching the Rangers move on without him. As is customary for newly-christened Quad-A players, Davis went on to crush Triple-A pitching and earned another major-league call-up after Justin Smoak was traded to the Mariners. Davis is going to float between the two levels until he either makes the necessary adjustments that will allow him to execute against quality pitching or finds himself doing his best Matt Murton impression across the Pacific.
2010	After a blistering 2008 debut, Davis went into the season as the club\'s everyday first baseman, but what was once bad plate discipline was ratcheted down to flat-out awful, which led to some pressing, which led to even more bad swings, and... well, you get the picture. Mercifully sent back to the minors in early July while sporting a .202 batting average with 114 strikeouts in 258 at-bats, Davis took the demotion like a man, and proceeded to work with coaches on his approach and rediscovering his swing. Success at Oklahoma did wonders for his confidence, and he was a completely different player after his late August return, batting .308/.338/.496 to once again stake his claim as the club\'s first baseman of the future. With off-the-charts raw power, he\'s learned the valuable lesson of just hitting balls and letting the home runs come naturally, and all systems should be go for a big 2010.
2009	Davis\'s game-breaking power didn\'t merely pound pitching, it beat back all comers in an accelerated climb through the upper levels of the system to claim whatever big-league corner Blalock wasn\'t in by late June. Mike Laga? Ouch, but I guess it beats a comparison to Dave Hostetler; use Klesko as your guide, and enjoy the bopping to come. Something of a piece of furniture at third despite a strong arm, the Rangers are moving him across the diamond to stay.
2007	Chris Davis is a hulking first baseman who was among the Northwest leaders in home runs. He`ll have to keep it up to move up because that`s all he does well.

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