Monday, January 5, 2009

Chris Davis Projection Combos for 2009


I've watched Chris Davis for a couple of years now,knowing that one day others would see the potential in him that I saw. After a spectacular power display with the Ranger's in '08, it looks like the Crush Davis Bandwagon is about to overflow with believers.

Below are the 2009 estimates for Davis according to various projection systems:

Bill James: .302 Ave/ 39 HR/ 115 RBI
CHONE: .265 Ave/ 29 HR/ 102 RBI
Baseball HQ: .285 Ave/ 36 HR/ 104 RBI

So, the general consensus is somewhere around a .280 average and 35 home runs with 100+ RBIs. My biggest concern with these projections is that over his last 200 plate appearances in '08, Davis had just 7 home runs, with a strikeout rate of about 30%. I expect Davis to perform a little bit better than that throughout 2009, but I also think the Rangers will probably try to hit Davis higher in their batting order, and he won't get the same meatball pitches he was getting while hitting lower in the order. The Rangers might also suffer from the loss of Milton Bradley, and their entire offense might struggle to match its production from 2008.

With that in mind, there's 3 different levels of production that I feel we could see from Davis in 2009:

High Range: .310 Average, 41 HR, 125 RBI
Mid Range: .280 Average, 35 HR, 105 RBI
Low Range: .255 Average, 21 HR, 70 RBI

Obviously, that's a very wide range of production, and I haven't really convinced myself that any of them are absolutely the best combo to go with. So, I'll have to go with my gut on this one, and give the following combo as the official TPC 2009 projection for Chris Davis (based off of 600 plate appearances):

.285 Average, 31 HR, 103 RBI, .915 OPS



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