Comments on: Valuing Chris Davis in 2010

By: Adam Reynolds

Adam Reynolds — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:31:41 +0000

I expect to own him in every league again.

By: vivaelpujols

vivaelpujols — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:02:19 +0000

Streaks are meaningless. But minor league reputation and stats aren’t.

By: R M

R M — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:43:00 +0000

Fresh Hops, it is rare that you get a player player like this drafting him based on his floor projection. If you find middle ground, you can still get the player AND get the value.

By: Fresh Hops

Fresh Hops — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:58:57 +0000

Streaks are meaningless.

Unless you get that potential for the price of a .258/.304/.488 1B, then you’re not really getting a deal, because you’re paying for the potential. The point of finding guys with potential is get the potential but not pay for it.

By: JoshShep

JoshShep — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:30:42 +0000

Yeah except he did have the streak, and beyond that was rated a top 4 prospect in a loaded Rangers farm system going into 2008. He has off the charts power, and given his age has time to develop as a hitter (see the improving walk rate of Ryan Braun). So if you draft him as a .258/.304/.488 hitting 1B and completely ignore upside you won’t own him, and miss out on his potential. While he may not reach his potential, you won’t have to pay nearly as steep a price as last year, so he seems to be a reasonable gamble this year.

By: Freshhops

Freshhops — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:46:32 +0000

If during his entire major league career of 736 plate appearances, Chris Davis had never had a streak and instead had in every month hit .258/.304/.488, you’d draft Davis like a second or third tier 1B (depending on league depth). That’s what you should do.

By: vivaelpujols

vivaelpujols — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:25:51 +0000

Good post Zach.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:31:43 +0000

Sorry about that, it was a poorly formed argument the 29.6% K rate is based on the fangraph 2010 projections, the HR/FB is my own projection (maybe a little low). I formed the list of people posting similar IFH% numbers using fangraphs major league leaders, over the last 3 years, sorting by IFH%.

As for determining what LD% he’d need to post a .285 average. I’m using a calculator that I’ve devised to calculate BABIP using LD%, GB%, FB%, HR/FB, IFFB%, and IFH% (it also determines BA using K’s, HR’s, and BABIP). I’ve played around with the hardball times xBABIP calculator, and I didn’t like having to put in a fixed numbers of HR’s, GB’s, FB’s, etc., so I developed another one. I’ve pondered putting the calculator out there, and explaining how I came up with it, but I don’t really know how to do that (get it out there, and get feedback).

And the .331 BABIP that I project him for, comes from my calculator, when I use my projections for his LD%, GB%, FB%, HR/FB, IFFB%, and IFH% (which are highly subjective at this point, given his small sample size, but even using his career numbers, he comes in well under .347, or the .349 that bill james projects for him.

BABIP does seem extremely difficult to project for young players, how much stock can we put in his minor league BABIP numbers? We don’t have the batted ball data, so it’s entirely possible that all of his minor league BABIP numbers were luck inflated, we don’t have any way (that I know of) to calcluate an xBABIP based on his minor league numbers, and his major league numbers are a fairly small sample size.

By: Big Oil

Big Oil — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:53:41 +0000

2nd

By: Abiding Dude

Abiding Dude — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:16:55 +0000

Not that he would be confused with Borbon, but like Cruz he does have some wheels. He’s always maintained high BABIP and LD rate. I’m kinda more in Zach’s camp on the numbers.