We want to take this time to answer a particularly important question: what has happened to Baltimore slugger Chris Davis? It only seemed like yesterday when he burst onto the scene in Major League Baseball in 2013, hitting 53 home runs and garnering an All-Star selection, a Silver Slugger, and finishing third in the AL MVP voting. In the following two seasons, Davis hit a combined 73 home runs, hitting 47 of them in 2015, which led the Majors that season. This type of power hitting, and offensive output led to Baltimore signing Davis to a 7-year, $161 million contract in 2016. This then led to a slow and progressive decline in his overall production, as we go By The Numbers to breakdown his performance.
From 2015 to 2019, the number of home runs that Davis has hit season-by-season has steadily declined. One reason for this is his decline in launch angle, meaning that when a hitter swings, the angle that they take with their swing to draw contact on a pitch will determine its distance and exit velocity. The recommended launch angle for hitters seeking to generate home runs is about 18 degrees. Davis launch angle has significantly declined since 2015, as depicted below:
As mentioned above, Davis hit 47 home runs in 2015 along with a launch angle of 17.3 degrees on all pitches that he faced. Since that season, this critical hitting component has decreased every year. His home run rate has declined partly due to how he swings and drives pitches and has hindered his overall value as a slugger.
Another component that has affected Davis production is his ability to generate a specific type of contact on his pitches, reflected in the amount of barrels (a batted ball event whose comparable hit types led to a minimum batting average and slugging percentage of 0.500 and 1.500) he has generated in the last five seasons. As shown in the figure below, his barrel percentage (barrel%) has declined at a near linear rate:
Focusing on 2015 to 2018, there was a sharp decrease in barrels on a per year basis. This implies that both the exit velocities and launch angles at which Davis hit pitches has declined as well. This then results in a lower probability of fly balls being hit, which equals a lack of home run productivity.
For our final component of this analysis we focus on Davis strikeout percentage (SO%), which in contrast to his launch angle and barrel%, has increased per season since 2015, as represented by the graph below:
In the season he hit 47 home runs, his SO% was 31.0%. Last season (where he only hit 12 long balls), his SO% was a whopping 39.5%. He was striking out a rate of nearly 4 out of 10 pitches, which is alarming. Apart from 2018, where this percentage slightly decreased relative to 2017, Davis has consistently swung on pitches that he should not have or has taken pitches that he should have swung on.
While there are other elements that have contributed to Davis decline, aside from what has been discussed, we circle back to the 7-year, $161 million contract. It is a stark lesson for organizations that while a player may be productive for a two- or three-year stretch, it does not mean that it will be sustained, nor should it garner a nine-figure commitment. In the case of Chris Davis, the numbers support this conclusion.
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