Batting Around Depression

     Ay! Ever heard of Chris Davis? Yeah, that guy who hit 53 home runs and then 47 two years later? Yeah, that guy. Did you know he had a .233 career batting average? Well, that's unfortunate, but managers will often overlook bad batting averages if the guy has loads of power. Chris Davis was no exception to this practice.

    But take a look at his 2018 campaign:

    If you can't see it, Chris Davis hit a rather sad .168 in 2018, good for an OPS+ of only 49. YIKES!

    Yes, while this season was very bad, there's a reason for this: he did badly. But, something even more impressive than batting .168 in 128 games is what he did from September 14th of 2018 through April 12th of 2019.

    After starting the game 1-for-1 on a beautiful day in September, he went 0-for-3 the rest of the contest. No worries, right? 1-4 games raise his batting average, so we're all good.

    The next game he went 0-3, and 0-3 the game afterward. Oh well, 0-fors happen. Then he went three more games without a hit. Oh well, slumps happen. 

    But not like this.

    Davis ended up 17 games and part of two seasons without a hit. This streak was 0-for-54, which is the record by a whole 8 ABs! And the Orioles had just signed him to a seven-year, $161,000,000 contract two years before. 

    These 17 games dropped Davis's career batting average by three whole points! While on the surface it doesn't seem a huge deal, you know there's a problem once you hit your eleventh and twelfth seasons and let 17 games drop your career batting average by three points.

    At least Davis broke it with a bang. On April 13th of 2019, Davis went 3-for-5 with two doubles and four RBI. I bet you that was the greatest game of his career. Well, he ended up batting .179 that year, and .115 in 16 games in 2020 before calling it quits. Unfortunately, Davis didn't go out the way he would've liked to.

In that last contract with the Orioles, Davis batted .196 ( 363/1851). He came into 2016 batting .255 and coming off a year good for MVP-14. This stint dropped his batting average 22 points. It just goes to show that power isn't everything, because you're not hitting bombs if you're not hitting the ball.

    But I have his autograph, so we're all good.