Chili Davis

[Edgy MD]

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/sub-mets-combo.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&width=550>



In 2013, I won a championship ring with the Boston Red Sox. Heck, I wasn't just along for the ride, neither. My boys produced 5.27 runs per game. That was tops in the league and 7.33% more runs than the next hittingest team. I earned that ring.



But then I left under a cloud.



But, you know, onward. So I joined the storied Chicago Cubs. And you know what that team did in 2016? They won a championship too! It had seemed impossible, but it totally happened! It was a whole new team in a whole new league, but guess whose pupils led the team in runs? Well, that was Colorado hitting instructor Blake Doyle, whoever that was. But my team came in second! And Colorado shoudn't even count.



But then I left under a cloud.



So now I move onto Flushing, with about as impressive CV as a man can have, while also being the first (and still only one of four) big leaguers to be born in Jamaica.



I was also a dazzling switch hitting offensive force for almost two decades, and I'm a switch hitter, so I can demonstrate for everybody like no Mets coach (since HoJo) could.



So what's my future have in store for me here? More rings, or more clouds?

[smg58]

He was in Boston from 2015-2017. So he's left two cities under a cloud in two successive years. It's a fair concern.

[MFS62]

Curious that there have no leaks about the causes of those clouds.

I could live with him bringing a championship or two if those clouds don't involve women, children or small animals.

Later

[smg58]

I think the clouds had more to do with elite lineups not hitting close to expectations.

[Edgy MD]

Sorry I got the timeline wrong. I work with hitters, not calendars.



Speaking of hitting, I hit a nice round 350 homers in my day. Combined with 2380 hits and 1,190 walks, I had a heckuva career. I only made two All-Star teams, but I never really had a fart of a season. I only got 0.6% of the vote in my one year on the Hall of Fame ballot, but we all know the BBWAA has a documented anti-Bahamian bias.



Also just look at what kind of figure I cut when I cocked my hip like a bad ass. I'm like Michelangelo's David, but in flesh and blood.



Mercy. Call out the National Guard.



https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Chili_Davis_1983.jpg>

[whippoorwill]

yowzers

[Lefty Specialist]

Chili seems to have had more than a few bowls of his name since that pic was taken.

[batmagadanleadoff]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Chili_Davis_1983.jpg>



He was just about the only player that had Dwight Gooden's number, back when not even God could touch Doc. Also, never noticed until now how much Chili in his prime, resembled Eddie Murphy in Murphy's prime.

[Edgy MD]

But with Eddie Murray's physique.



He went .448 / .515 / .552 // 1.067 against Gooden in 33 career plate appearances. It's a good thing he was in the other division.



Even in 1985, he went .500 / .545 / .600 // 1.145 against Dwight (in at least 10 trips).



Here are the top ten performers, OPS-wise, against Gooden from 1984-1989:



1. Randy Ready (12 PA): 1.402

2. Claudell Washington (13 PA): 1.371

3. Bo Diaz (11 PA): 1.273

4. Hubie Brooks (41 PA): 1.215

5. Duane Walker (12 PA): 1.170

6. Lloyd McClendon (11 PA): 1.121

7. Chili Davis (31 PA): 1.035

8. Andres Galarraga (21 PA): 1.031

9. Kal Daniels (10 PA): 1.000

10. Chris Chambliss (11 PA): .964



Apart from a "WtF is Duane Walker?" observation, my first thought is that Hubie F. Brooks needs to take a bow.



Also notable is that Tuffy Rhodes' three opening day homers were his only three appearances against Dwight.

[smg58]

He was a consistently good hitter for a very long time. I hadn't realized he had his best offensive years after leaving the Giants, although he mostly Died through the 90s.

[kcmets]

No clouds in Flushing, if gets the boot it will be clear as day why. He'll be fine.

[Centerfield]

I guess I should have given this more attention when he was being hired. Why is his reputation so bad? I mean, at the time there were articles that he stresses hard contact, using the whole field, opposite field, etc. All of those sound good to me.



They talked about bunting against shifts, stressing going up the middle. I feel like they've gotten away from all of that.



I know he clashed with Kris Davis and Anthony Rizzo. But that can just be a personality thing. Am I missing specifics?

[Edgy MD]

No, that's a large part of it. It was also considered that he had generational issues and pushed against the current prevailing philosophy, which I'm OK with.



https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/16/former-giant-as-hitting-coach-chili-davis-unemployed-heres-who-he-blames/Here's a story about his dismissal, within him being frustrated but not pointing fingers on his way out the door.



For me, I loved Chili Davis' work with the April Mets, but I'm disappointed with his work with the May Mets. That's not unfair, is it?

[smg58]

He wore out his welcome in Boston and Chicago in successive years, and you could argue he was developing a rep for taking great lineups and making them pretty good. Yeah there were egos involved and probably some injuries, but it's a risky hire if you can't fully absolve him. Plus we all saw how Boston did in his absence last year, and the Cubs seem to have bounced back and then some too.

[LWFS]

Whether or not you agree with his philosophies, if he has trouble explaining/implementing them with better players of this generation, then he's probably not the best guy to be coaching them, right?

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I've been thinking about Chili Davis a lot this year in part because for whatever reason this might be one of the best-hitting Mets teams ever, and because he was a guy I didn't really appreciate in his time as a player. That has much to do with him being a West Coast/American League and DH kinda guy--generally not the kids of guys I dig. But it absolutely blew my mind to have learned he hit 350 home runs in his career.



I think if you asked me to guess, I'd have said, like, 129. That's also because I didn't really realize he was an MLB ballplayer for 19 years.



Pretty interesting bio here: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/f842dfbdhttps://sabr.org/bioproj/person/f842dfbd

tl/dr: born in jamacia, moved to US at age 11, competed against Strawberry in HS, family whupped him with shoes, belts and automobile parts, apparent philosophical student of former Met hitting coach Tom McCraw.

[Ceetar]

I'm still not thrilled with him, but I admit I don't really have the tools to evaluate a hitting coach.

[Edgy MD]

One easy, if fuzzy, way to do it is to take the projections for all his players, add them up, and if the batters, and, as many WAR as the team's batters are above or below their projections, prorated for the point in the season they're at, credit to the pitching coach.



Yeah, there isn't a lot of blame you can put on him if a young healthy guy gets hurt, but as these likelihoods are factored into most projection models, such anecdotal occurrences should get increasingly canceled out, the more data you have, and Davis is a guy who has built up a lot of data.



You can even retroactively give a a coach long-term credit, only projecting the player from the point at which he joined the coach. So if a player get's 2.5 WAR in seasons A, B, and C. You not only continue measuring the coach through season D based on the modest projections of A, B, and C, but if the player gets 4.5 WAR in season D, creating new expectations for seasons E and F, it doesn't matter, because those new expectations are adjusted based on data from the player's time with the coach, so as you go forward, the expectations from seasons D, E, and F would all be based on the trajectory established during seasons A, B, and C.



That doesn't make as much sense as I want it to, does it?

[G-Fafif]

Tom Verducci celebrates Chili Davis, misspells Brodie Van Wagenen, explains Mets' revolutionary “don't hit it here, hit it there” philosophy and how it helped them solve Citi Field before this weekend.



https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/08/26/new-york-mets-offense-citi-field-home-statshttps://www.si.com/mlb/2019/08/26/new-york-mets-offense-citi-field-home-stats

[G-Fafif]

For years the Mets had loaded their offense with too many of the same type of hitter: high launch angle, pull hitters. Beginning in 2015, the Mets ranked fourth, second, second and sixth in average launch angle. Van Wagonen had these issues in mind when he searched for a hitting coach. “We did interview a number of hitting coaches,” he said. “Chili was a target because of how he communicated to us during his interview that he valued situational hitting. I don't want to say he rejected the ideas of strikeouts, home runs and launch angles, but he was a switch hitter who used the whole field. That appealed to us.” Translation: Davis is not a big believer in launch angle or the acceptance of a Three True Outcome approach (strikeouts, home runs, walks). The Mets also hired Tom Slater, 51, as the assistant hitting coach. Slater spent nine years coaching in the Yankees system and 17 years coaching in college baseball.

[Ceetar]

Verducci did not convince me that it's "solved", but I guess that was somewhat enlightening.

[smg58]

There was a thread here a couple of months ago about an article stating how Citi was killing the Mets with no obvious explanation for it -- even though the article itself said that the Mets were putting the ball in the air more than any other team in the NL (mostly by design), and playing home games in the park that was least likely to reward putting the ball in the air (also mostly by design). We haven't cured all of our offensive woes, but at least we seem to have taken "comically self-defeating philosophy" out of the equation.