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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Sunday, March 04, 2012BPP: Any player/Any era: Eric Davis
But, but…the Cards don’t win shannon-shiit without Maris’ ______ and _______ on the field and his ________ in the clubhouse! Repoz
Posted: March 04, 2012 at 09:17 AM | 51 comment(s)
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1. Ray (CTL)There's a lot that's fun about his career, including coming back at age 34 after missing a year and looking like he had nothing left. In his next 302 games after coming back, he posted a 143 OPS+. (1996 must have been all kinds of fun for Reds fans.)
Played 131 games for Baltimore at asge 36, hitting for a 151 OPS+.
I think it was Bill James who noted a lot of similarities with Strawberry's life and career.
WAR doesn't like his defense for some reason.
I could have some of that wrong (particularly c), but that was the gist of it. There were a dozen or so factors he listed that were interesting. And not in the "you can find random coincidences with any two items" sort of way.
As to Strawberry, he showed late in his career that he could still hit, which makes it all the more disappointing that he was basically done producing by age 30. He had 41 WAR in his 20s, and 2 WAR in his 30s.
Both were great players.
For Davis, that great year in Baltimore came while he was undergoing chemo. Which boggles the mind.
In Little League I changed my batting stance to emulate Davis. Back straight, hands close to the body and very low, almost waist level...but still waving it menacingly (as much as one can from that position). Of course, I began to hit much worse. But who cared, I looked like Eric Davis!
Great SB% for his career. Not only did he have great raw speed early, he maintained his instincts and stole at the right time off the right pitchers later.
I could imitate a lot of players and still hit. Not Davis though. If I tried that stance I couldn't do anything. Those first 2 months of 1987 were unreal. That and the end of 1986. He threatened the boundaries of what was possible on a baseball field. I mean, who else is going to tag up from 2nd to 3rd on a foul popup to Keith Hernandez?
He was like Bonds, but faster and could play center
When folks my Dad's age talk about Mickey Mantle and his raw talent, Davis is the guy who comes to mind for me.
did you switch hit? i thought you're a lefty
straw threw his career away for drugs. ED was injured playing baseball. straw wasn't near the baserunner or fielder that ED was
would they get compared all the time if one of them had been a White boy from iowa?
He was like Bonds, but faster and could play center
When folks my Dad's age talk about Mickey Mantle and his raw talent, Davis is the guy who comes to mind for me.
It's hard to think of any players since Mantle retired who better match the Mick's skill set than Davis, though Mantle had more power and Davis had a better arm. What's interesting is that while Mantle was 5-11 / 195, Davis was 6-2 and only 165. His wrist powered, whip-like swing always reminded me more of Ernie Banks and Hank Aaron.
Do people realize that Beltran is 87% stealing for his career?
Natural righty. But I taught myself to switch hit, and sometimes throw lefty.
No, but most realize that he is 100% at...TAKING A ####### CALLED THIRD STRIKE!!!
Or so I've been told by thousands of bulby Met fans.
i remember it was the year after we lost to the mets and mama told me eric was a supadupa DUPA star. she was more up on him than on barry lamar
guys who are really excellent baserunners really don't get near enough respect, especially guys who don't steal 80 bases, like, say larry walker or jeff bagwell
trust me i know ALL about carlos beltran who shoulda been an astro - woulda changed the franchise
sigh
- thank you for cheering me up
that pitch was, what i believe joe morgan referred to as "your mothereffing strike 3 curve"
it was a thing of beauty
Look at Davis' 1987 season...in 129 games, OPS+ of 155, with 37 HRs, 100 RBIs, 84 BBs, 50 SBs, only 6 CS, 120 runs scored, has a slash line of .293/.399/.593, wins the GG and the Silver Slugger, named an All-Star...what a year.
Anyway, you can make a case for Davis as we quibble over BA vs. walk rate, and I'll point to Cedeno doing that at 21-22 and you'll point to Davis's age 24-25 64 HR and 130 SB or we can just wait for God to give us the right answer when we get to the other side. As to "any player, any era", I'll take my chances with either one of those guys in any era. If you want to comp peak Davis to Mantle then you have to comp peak Cedeno to Mays (comparisons that do neither of them any good).
For their careers:
CC 8133 PA, 123 OPS+, 52 WAR
ED 6147 PA, 125 OPS+, 34 WAR
141 games, 564 PA, 484 AB
Slash:314/407/638
123 runs, 42 HR, 111 RBI, 86 SB, 11 CS
Not sure about the homeruns, but if you go to game logs for the season it lists go ahead hits(he had 20).(note you don't have to go game by game, it's listed at the top of the page---it has hit streaks, on base streaks and other info) If you look at homerun track, he had 4 walk offs in his career. Homerun tracker also shows 8 homeruns in the 9th or later for the season.
Really? I didn't see any great pitch; I saw a hanger over the heart of the plate that Beltran froze on.
I always assumed he had just guessed wrong, not that he had been fooled.
He made some sort of epic outfield assist, didn't he?
That being said, if Eric Davis were to have played in the 1960s, in Busch Stadium (the huge ashtray), with no Curt Flood to compete with, he would have made a great CF there, although the pitcher-friendly characteristics of the time would have drained his raw hitting stats. Huge outfield territory to give value to his speed and arm, although almost no one except Dick Allen and Jack Clark could hit serious homers there.
- Brock Hanke
(who was a little kid when Willie Mays was a young ballplayer, and who, therefore, has no chance of having a balanced idea of who was the best athlete that he ever saw play baseball.)
Byron Scott knew him really well and said that he was unbelievably quick on the basketball court.
Of the power-speed guys, the 30-30 club, Davis was the fastest by far.
Jay Buhner used the exact same batting stance as Davis, and the stance is so unusual that I cannot believe I never heard anyone mention this over the course of their careers.
As any national leaguer who tried to hit homers to center in the late 1980's can attest, Eric also had incredible leaping ability. I have no doubt he could have played in the NBA. No idea if he would have been good enough to star, but he could have at least had a Dee Brown type career that includes a dunk contest.
Me too. Hella fun to watch.
QFT. Not the best player of my lifetime, but nobody made the game look easier or more graceful. Fantastic player, but also a fantastic player to watch play.
never forget this game-- he scored on a wild pickoff throw to first which ended up being the winning run in a 25 inning marathon
Rk Player SB% SB CS PA From To
1 Carlos Beltran 87.725% 293 41 7730 1998 2011
2 Tim Raines 84.696% 808 146 10359 1979 2002
3 Eric Davis 84.096% 349 66 6147 1984 2001
4 Willie Wilson 83.292% 668 134 8317 1976 1994
5 Barry Larkin 83.114% 379 77 9057 1986 2004
6 Tony Womack 83.066% 363 74 5389 1993 2006
7 Davey Lopes 83.010% 557 114 7340 1972 1987
8 Stan Javier 82.828% 246 51 5755 1984 2001
9 Jimmy Rollins 82.705% 373 78 7537 2000 2011
10 Doug Glanville 82.353% 168 36 4282 1996 2004
11 Michael Bourn 82.105% 234 51 2663 2006 2011
12 Jacoby Ellsbury 81.776% 175 39 2245 2007 2011
13 Ichiro Suzuki 81.660% 423 95 8060 2001 2011
14 Carl Crawford 81.644% 427 96 5934 2002 2011
15 Willy Taveras 81.590% 195 44 2644 2004 2010
16 Julio Cruz 81.473% 343 78 4438 1977 1986
17 Shane Victorino 81.407% 162 37 3629 2003 2011
18 Brian Hunter 80.997% 260 61 3659 1994 2003
19 Joe Morgan 80.964% 689 162 11329 1963 1984
20 Vince Coleman 80.947% 752 177 5970 1985 1997
21 Rickey Henderson 80.758% 1406 335 13346 1979 2003
Rk Player SB% SB CS PA From To
1 Greg Gagne 52.941% 108 96 6209 1983 1997
2 Pete Rose 57.061% 198 149 15890 1963 1986
3 Dave Parker 57.678% 154 113 10184 1973 1991
4 Lenny Randle 58.209% 156 112 4427 1971 1982
5 Alfredo Griffin 58.896% 192 134 7331 1976 1993
6 Carl Yastrzemski 59.155% 168 116 13992 1961 1983
7 Chili Davis 59.167% 142 98 9997 1981 1999
8 Luis Gonzalez 59.535% 128 87 10531 1990 2008
9 Derrel Thomas 60.345% 140 92 5268 1971 1985
10 Tony Phillips 60.825% 177 114 9110 1982 1999
11 Ozzie Guillen 61.011% 169 108 7133 1985 2000
12 Andres Galarraga 61.244% 128 81 8916 1985 2004
13 Minnie Minoso 61.377% 205 129 7692 1951 1980
14 Reggie Smith 61.435% 137 86 8051 1966 1982
I'm a little too young to remember the '86 & '87 seasons, I remember Davis at the end of us 1st go around with the Reds. Still amazing, but not otherworldly.
A friend of mine that is about your age would always tell the stories of awesome Davis was and how effortless he made it look. The same friend wears the number 22 in honor of Davis. He has worn it from little league to high school till today in men's softball.
Bake was a 3:1 K-W guy in the minors and less than 2:1 in the majors. In his second full season in the minors he had 50 extra base hits, including 17 homers. Dude had some real hitting talent.
I had heard about his speed but never saw it myself. I only remember him as a right fielder for the Phillies (who had Garry Maddox in center) who stole only occasionally and drove in a decent number of runs (87 in 1980).
By the stats it looks like he lost a step right when he turned 30 (yeah, that's so uncommon). At 29 he stole 28 out of 31, at 30 he was only safe 25 out of 39 tries, and he never was a serious SB threat after that.
He was listed at 6'2 but must have been 6'5 with the 'fro. He had one of the great ones of the time.
Ah seventies baseball; big hair, porn star 'staches and unis that looked like pajamas, you had to love it.
I'm not sure what he's doing to normalize. Doing this for the 1952 Cardinals using the BB-ref tool gives you a 261/351/470 line. I finally RTFA, expecting something more to be explained than in the headline, but I don't understand how normalizing his career to 1952 has any relevance to how he might handle the 1960's.
Normalizing his numbers to the 1960's doesn't look so good, but of course you could say this about anyone. I don't know if Davis would have been hurt more or less than average by the extreme conditions of the time, with the high mounds and power pitchers getting high strike calls. He might have dominated, but he also might have struck out so much in that era that nobody would remember him as a good hitter.
how do you "normalize" someone's numbers to some other time when the strike zone was different and the parks were different and the player would have been hitting against different pitchers and some of the teams didn't even exist?
also, BITGOD seems there were a whole lot more sac bunts and if mickey mantle was sac bunting, wouldn't everyone else be too? how would you add in sac bunts, especially if you have someone who can't/never bunted?
"McBride Picked off 1B, safe on E1; McBride Scores/Adv on E2/unER"
So, bad throw from the pitcher, McBride zips around the bases, RF (or somebody) recovers the ball and throws home, but the catcher drops it?
For AROM, I went over to BB-Ref, to see if they had any record of Bake in college, and they do have a mention, although what they say is that GENERALLY they don't include a college unless the player actually played there. My memory is that his not playing college ball was a big thing when they drafted him in the 37th round, but that's my memory. The college in question, Westminster College, is not exactly division 1, even if Bake played some there, and he's only listed as being there for 2 years. Essentially, Fulton, MO, is the town where Churchill gave the Iron Curtain speech. It's a two-college town. Westminster is boys only; William Woods is girls only. Or, at least, that was true 20 years ago. The colleges have a finishing school feel to them, although they do have academic pretensions. They have NO illusions about their athletic teams. So, even if Bake did play there, the level of play was only a very little above high school.
Also for AROM - if you can ever get a video, take a look at some of Bake's AB in his first two years. He was hilarious to watch. He had a quick bat, so he wasn't overmatched by fastballs, but he didn't have the experience to have bat accuracy yet, so he hit a lot of popups and infield dribblers. A lot of his game was beating out infield singles. There is one game - I can't find a reference to date it - where Bake hit one of these things right at the pitcher, but slow enough that it was obvious that it was going to die about 30 feet in front of the plate. I think the pitcher got there first, and then these things happened, in this order: 1) Bake's foot hit the bag, 2) Bake's other foot hit as a step beyond the bag, 3) the ball hit the 1B glove, 4) the umpire called Bake out! The Cardinal clubhouse exploded. After the game, the umpire admitted that he hadn't really been watching Bake's feet; he was watching the fielding play to see when the ball hit the glove, using his internal umpire clock to judge whether it had gotten there quick enough to beat the runner. He then said that he would never doubt the evidence of his eyes again when dealing with Bake McBride. That's how fast Bake was, and how much fun it was to watch him run out infield grounders. A unique experience, but nothing like the value of Eric Davis. - Brock
Not to take away from Eric Davis (who is one of my all-time favorite players), but Brian Roberts is 80/89 in his career in steals of 3rd base.
If I remember right, Davis went to a rival school to Strawberry in LA. They were childhood rivals as the best players in LA, I don't think they were friends until later when both were in MLB.
I may also be mixing up details between Chris Brown and Davis in my head, though, since it's been years.
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