Two Starts by Zach Davies

Zach Davies. Photo courtesy of Les Treagus / Norfolk Tides.

The Orioles' farm system is deepest in starting pitcher prospects. Three of these prospects have been or are at AAA Norfolk in 2015. Mike Wright struggled at Norfolk for the first three-quarters of 2014, but has since pitched well there - including six starts in 2015 - and earned his first major-league start. Tyler Wilson came up to Norfolk in July 2014 and pitched well; he returned to Norfolk for 2015 and, like Wright, has been promoted to the Orioles. And Zach Davies, the Orioles #6 prospect according to Baseball America, joined Norfolk this season.

Zach Davies was the Orioles' 26th-round draft pick in 2011. He was signed to an over-slot bonus and began his professional career in 2012. He has risen through the Orioles system, spending one full season at each minor-league level. As he rose through the Orioles' system, he rose on BA's prospect list, climbing from 31 to 20 to 11 to 6.

Davies is a smallish pitcher, listed at 6-foot, 150 pounds (although that was his weight before the 2013 season, and may not be accurate today.) As we would expect, he doesn't have a great fastball and succeeds with command and control. I've worked two Zach Davies starts, and I'll share my observations and conclusions.

First, I was fortunate and saw Davies pitch well in each start:

Date	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	GS
April 22	6	4	1	1	1	5	64
May 9	5	3	0	0	2	5	64

The following is the results of each pitch in the two games. 

Date	Ball	Called Strike	Swinging Strike	Foul	In-play
April 22	26	19	7	10	16
May 9	35	17	7	17	12

The April 22 game is very interesting. First, over 40% of the pitches batters didn't swing at were called strikes. Second, nearly half of the pitches batters did swing at were put in play. For whatever reason - perhaps batters didn't see the pitches well; perhaps Davies was doing a good job not throwing what the hitters were expecting; perhaps Davies was putting pitches on the corners where batters couldn't hit them anyway - the batters were not swinging at a lot of strikes. And the batters weren't "spoiling" good pitches by fouling them off. In that game, Davies impressed not only me but several other longtime baseball observers.

The May 9 game has a more typcial distribution of pitch results. The increased number of balls and fouls led to an increased pitch count, and Davies threw more pitches in five innings than he did in the six innings of the April 22 start. Again, I don't know why he threw more balls and more pitches were fouled off - but it is clear that Davies will have to consistently be very sharp if he will be a successful pitcher. He doesn't have much margin for error.

Finally, I broke down Davies' results according to whether the batter was on the 40-man roster of the opponent's parent club. I reasoned that players on the 40-man roster are more likely to be (eventually) promoted to the major-league team, and so are more likely to be the players Davies (and other pitchers) will eventually face in the major leagues. It's not clear that the players on the 40-man roster are better hitters than the players not on the 40-man roster, and so it's not clear what, if anything, the breakdown will reveal. I include it as food for thought and perhaps to stimulate more research.

	BA	OB P	SP
April 22, On 40-man	.400	.455	.400
April 22, Not On 40-man	.000	.000	.000
May 9, On 40-man	.167	.286	.167
May 9, Not On 40-man	.182	.250	.182

On the whole, Zach Davies is a moderately interesting starting pitching prospect. Most pitchers like him, who rely on command and control to make up for average-at-best stuff - don't have long careers. There are two points in his favor. First, at his best he was such an extreme example of his type that he may be an exception. Second, if he moves to the bullpen he may pick up some more velocity in shorter stints. I think he's got a chance to be a fairly good major-league pitcher, but I don't think he's going to be a difference-maker.