People Have Hypotheses On Why Chris Davis Is Failing

In early October of 2015, Peter Angelos talked to Roch Kubatko about the importance of Dan Duquette and Buck Showalter to continue on doing what they do.  He also dropped what I thought was a bombshell at the time that no one else seemed to notice.  Angelos made it known that it was his intention to re-sign Chris Davis.  That was stunning to me because the thought at the moment was that Davis would pull in a 200+ MM deal, which seemed unthinkable in Baltimore given its status as a small market, lower revenue club.  It was also frightening because Davis is exactly the kind of player who should not have been given that contract.  Alas, Detroit was also curiously interested and the structure of a contract for a 161 MM deal with deferred money was figured out.

It has been a bit of a mess as the club is now into the third year of the deal with not only little to show, but also horrifically diminishing returns.

Standard Batting

Year	Age	PA	2B	HR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS+
2013	27	673	42	53	.286	.370	.634	168
2014	28	525	16	26	.196	.300	.404	96
2015	29	670	31	47	.262	.361	.562	147
2016	30	665	21	38	.221	.332	.459	110
2017	31	524	15	26	.215	.309	.423	95
2018	32	194	4	4	.156	.242	.249	37
11 Y	11 Y	4895	208	271	.242	.324	.481	114

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/29/2018.

That said, while we were certainly in the corner of this being no good and very bad.  The bolder, yet wise, minds around Baltimore painted the scenario as one that was not about the club losing out on Yeonis Cespedes or Justin Upton, but where Angelos only had the money for Davis alone.  Recently, rumors have come forward that had Duquette been in control that off-season that he would have gone after pitcher Johnny Cueto.  At the time, my industry contacts were saying that Duquette was being forced to sign Davis, but would have been allowed to sign Upton or Cespedes if Davis went elsewhere.  Regardless, the point is that this was not a slam dunk signing and absolutely no consensus was present.

With that in mind, I was no visionary.  I figured the club was looking to harness three or four valuable-ish years to keep that window of competition open and then suffer the last three with a player who would arguably be unplayable.  The issue I always had with Davis was that he had two tools.  He has plus plus power.  While that skill would be able to be MLB quality as he aged, he had a horrific contact skill.  My fear was that if he dropped from where he was (around a 40/45) rating that it would undermine all his power.  And, so, it is.

Chris Davis During Better Days

Davis' decline has been relatively straight forward.  His athleticism has tanked with him going from a first baseman with average speed to one of the slower ones over the past three years.  This is reflected in his loss of secondary power (i.e., doubles), which become important when the ball stops leaving the yard.  His bat speed has grown slower.  His exit velocity has cratered.  His timing is completely off at the plate.  Not only do his skills look missing, but he also appears to have little to no plan when he comes to the plate.

With four and two thirds years left in his deal, it is hard to both see how this club can keep him around or an ownership that is incredibly willing to accept that the money is sunk with nothing to salvage.  Similarly, things have manifested for fans and it sits in three fantastic stories about Davis: he is soft with money, his priority are his kids, and he needs drugs.

Tackling that first fan hypothesis: Chris Davis got soft with his contract.  I think this idea in general is one where people tend to notice how when free agents sign big money deals that their best seasons wind up coming in the years before that deal.  That leads to the idea that once a player is secure in their financial future that they take it easy, coast, and fall apart.  That idea happens to neglect the reality that given the way baseball free agency works, free agents tend to be 30 years old or older.  The age is typically on the downside of a player's age curve.  In other words, players sign contracts when physical skills decrease and injury rates increase.

Studies on this are numerous with considerable weight pointing to this not being a real thing.  Why?  It seems to make sense in our own lives that we have periods of time where we sacrifice in our jobs and push ourselves to our limits.  It is also likely true that we typically are not pushing ourselves to our limit.  In highly competitive environments, employees tend to push themselves fully even beyond the point where their financial comfort is secure.  This becomes more apparent in scenarios where the performance of an individual is public facing.  In other words, Chris Davis has excelled in a field where you have to push yourself hard all of the time.  Second, everyone can see his failures.  With that in mind, it seems highly unlikely that financial security is undermining his play.

The next knock I have seen is that a player performs worse with young children.  It is something that I have seen before with Davis, Adam Jones, and Nick Markakis.  However, it tends to not track.  Yes, family obligations.  Typically, this takes on a more gendered take in greater society.  Men are often preferred if they have children as it seems to point toward a seriousness or stability of some kind that seems rooted in far flung misguided notions of the past.  Women on the other hand have to deal with a great deal of negativity with insinuations of how brain chemistry alters and impacts their work performance or how they are expected to care for sick kids.  Personally, I was highly questioned as to why I was taking paternity leave.  It may be 2018, but we have some residual antiquated thoughts.

With baseball players, it seems to be focused on the idea that these guys are getting sleepless nights caring for young children screaming in the night.  Mind you, these families have been adapted and hardened for baseball.  Many players shifted their kids nap times in season so that they can be awake when their father finishes the game.  Pregnancies are planned so that births happen in the off-season.  So with that in mind, do you really think a player with a 161 MM contract is somehow unable to find support for his significant other to take care of the kids the night before a game?  Does that make much sense to you?  It does not for me.

The last hypothesis I commonly see is about Chris Davis' Therapeutic Use Exemption to treat his diagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).  It is advised to go back up above and look at Davis' career in the table above.  In 2014, Davis was nabbed for violating the league's rules on performance enhancing drugs.  In previous seasons, he had a therapeutic use exemption for Adderall.  For some reason that still does not seem clear, Davis was unable to secure one for the 2014 season.  He was terrible and resorted to taking the drug when nothing else worked.  It is uncertain how often he took it.  One dose of Adderall will show up in the metabolites found in urine up to four days after taking it.  However, chronic use will keep the metabolites in high enough concentration to be measurable for up to seven days.  Regardless, whatever his usage was in 2014, his performance was terrible.

That off-season, Davis experimented with a time released version called Vyvanse.  It is not Adderall.  Adderall is not time released, it apparently comes on rather suddenly.  Vyvanse takes out the highs and lows.  By taking it, you even out the effect.  Davis came to the conclusion that he preferred this version of therapy for ADHD.  MLB, and really most doctors, prefer time released medications to treat ADHD.  There certainly was some pressure on Davis to seek a TUE for Vyvanse at a level, very least, as a social pressure.  To my knowledge, Adderall is still the most common drug to treat ADHD for players on TUEs.

Anyway, Davis got a TUE for Vyvanse and, supposedly, has continued that treatment.  The common thread you hear is that ever since Davis went off Adderall that his performance has suffered.  This is not accurate.  Davis had another monster season in 2015, his first year using Vyvanse.  Then he signed his deal and then it all progressively fell apart.  While it sounds like a good narrative, it just does not fit well.

When you look at everything on the table, the popularly peddled excuses for poor performance simply are not very credible.  Davis has lost athleticism.  He is no longer a gold glove first baseman.  He no longer hits the ball with authority.  He no longer runs at a decent clip.  It may be a boring excuse, but the likely problem with him is that he is aging.  His chimp days are behind him.