Building a relationship with Chris Davis
We’ve made it to February friends. There will be baseball played this month – and every month that follows – until the end of October. Warmer weather is on the way, and within the next two weeks, teams will be welcoming their pitchers and catchers to their respective camps. Days later, position players will begin trickling in and soon enough, workouts will turn to actual nine-inning baseball games.
For the Baltimore Orioles, their pitchers and catchers will report to the Ed Smith Stadium Complex in just 11 days. Position players will begin filing in after that but they’re not required to report until six days later. One player that will be arriving earlier than the required February 18th deadline is Chris Davis. When speaking with the media at FanFest this past weekend, Davis confirmed he’s, “actually going down to Sarasota a little early.”
Do I need to tell you about Davis’ career-low season in 2018 or can we just put it behind us? Career lows in batting average (.168), on-base percentage (.243) and on-base plus slugging percentage (.539), Davis is ready to bury last season and never speak of it again. Although it’s brought up more often than he’d like to speak about it, Davis has put that “anomaly” of a season behind him.
“It was a lot quicker than I thought it was going to be,” Davis said about how he put it behind him. He continued telling MASN’s Roch Kubatko at FanFest, “Once the season ended, I kind of took a deep breath and let it go.” As he should. The only way Davis is going to begin to regain his confidence is to do just that… let it go. You can insert your own Disney movie reference any time you’d like now.
It’s a fresh start in a new era
He’s hit .191 since the start of the 2017 season. He’s struck out a whopping 387 times and has just 42 home runs in 926 at-bats. But this year, he’s got zeros across the board. Nothing has happened in 2019 other than Davis changing up his offseason workouts to do anything he can to move forward from some of the worst baseball he’s ever played.
Speaking one-on-one with Roch Kubatko, Davis said, “I’ve been hitting for, I guess, a little over a month now. I’ve done a few different things. Nothing drastic. But I really took a good chunk of time once the season ended and sought some people out as far as hitting mechanics and philosophy go. And I feel like the things I’ve been working on, hopefully, will translate to a little bit more consistency at the plate.”
He’s been criticized in the past for his lack of adjustments during his struggles. Perhaps his most recognized criticism came from Orioles Hall-of-Famer, Jim Palmer. In a postgame interview last season, Palmer proceeded to discuss, although Davis was sporting the largest contract in franchise history, he wasn’t making any adjustments during his struggles. “You’ve got to throw that away, and you’ve got to make some adjustments. I don’t see anything. I don’t see a wider stance, I don’t see a closed stance, I don’t see him dropping my hands. I don’t see anything. And we’re seeing the results.”
The Orioles are moving in a direction to where the development of players will be strictly analytics driven. The introduction of a new analytics department could work in Chris’ favor. On the subject of analytics with Roch Kubatko, Davis said, “There’s some good information out there that a lot of people that have different insights, different perspectives, and I’m looking forward to working with those people, meeting those people and seeing what they have to offer.”
Knowing the hitter personally
The new coaching staff is trying to develop relationships with each hitter and understand who they are personally, before diving into what adjustments need to be made. That’s the mentality of new hitting coach Don Long and manager Brandon Hyde. Last night on the Orioles Hot Stove show, Jim Hunter and Roch Kubatko spoke with Don. They asked him a few different questions but one of the more intriguing portions of the conversation was about Chris Davis.
“I think the most important thing to do with Chris, or anybody else, is try initially to give them the first voice,” Long said. He wants to get to know the hitters – not just Davis – on a personal level to understand them. “My experience has been that everybody has a routine, especially if they’ve been successful, that they like to do. Some guys are trying to re-invent themselves, some guys are trying to get back to what they once were. Some guys are trying to create an edge to get a little bit better than they’ve been.”
And although Davis has been putting in some extra work this winter, Long discussed how winter adjustments can potentially be a challenge for a hitter. “The challenge is trying to make changes and adjustments either physically or mentally without the layer of competition to tell you whether or not those adjustments are the right ones.”
There’s so many quotes floating around about Chris Davis and they’re all in the optimistic form. At FanFest, manager Brandon Hyde had one of my personal favorites, so far. Hyde said, “You just don’t have those years that he had if it’s not in there.” He’s referring to the Davis from 2012-2015, that turned in an on-base plus slugging percentage of .876 and hit 159 home runs.
“I’m trying to get to know him first, and as we go into Spring Training, then we make adjustments as we see them. If you just pile on a player before there’s a relationship there, [it’s] not going to work.”
With the exception of Howie Clark, nobody on the current coaching staff was with this organization last year, so it’s a clean slate for all of them with Chris. Just keep in mind though, the objective is to still field the best team on a nightly basis and Brandon Hyde wants to win as many games as the team can. “We’re in a competitive field, this is about winning ballgames and we’re going to do everything we can to do that. With that being said, we’re going to go in with our best guys and I know he [Davis] will be one of those guys.”
