Archive for Ike Davis

J.D. Martin, Nationals (Owned in one percent of Yahoo Leagues)

While Washington’s non-Strasburg starters have been lackluster this season, with a collective 4.68 xFIP that ranks 15th in the NL, Martin’s solid performance so far might not buy him much job security. Scott Olsen (shoulder inflammation) could be back next month, as could Chien-Ming Wang (shoulder). Jordan Zimmermann (Tommy John surgery) is another possibility to pitch in August or September. Returns for Jason Marquis (elbow) and Ross Detwiler (hip) are less certain.

In the meantime, however, NL-only players could do worse. Martin, 27, was a supplemental first-round pick of the Cleveland Indians in the 2001 draft. The 6-4, 200 pound righty once rated prominently on prospect lists, cracking Baseball America’s top 100 prior to 2002. Sadly, injury derailed his ascent to the majors — Martin underwent Tommy John surgery in 2005. His standing in Cleveland’s system slipped, as he was shifted mostly to relief work in 2008, and he then signed as a minor league free agent with the Nationals prior to 2009.

Martin’s a soft-tosser — he features an 87-88 MPH fastball, a mid-80’s cutter, a low-70’s curve and a low-80’s changeup — but he has a quality minor league track record and exceptional control. Last season at Triple-A Syracuse, Martin had 6.44 K/9, 1.02 BB/9, 0.41 HR/9 and a 2.77 FIP in 88 innings pitched. Prior to his late-May call-up in 2010, he whiffed 5.5 per nine, walked 1.8 per nine, surrendered 0.7 HR/9 and held a 3.75 FIP in 41 IP.

Logging 102.1 big league frames over the past two years, Martin has 4.84 K/9, 2.2 BB/9 and a 5.09 xFIP. There’s no guarantee that he’ll succeed — Martin won’t miss many bats, and he’s a fly ball pitcher (37.4 GB%) who has experienced problems with the long ball (1.67 HR/9) — but he could be a decent mid-to-back-end starter. ZiPS projects 5.63 K/9, 2.09 BB/9, 1.29 HR/9 and a 4.44 FIP for the rest of 2010.

Ike Davis, Mets (16%)

The 18th overall pick in the 2008 draft experienced a famous power outage after signing (.256/.326/.326, 0 HR in 239 New York-Penn League PA), causing some Mets fans to rashly wonder if the team made a mistake. Since then, Davis has raked. He batted a combined .298/.381/.524 in 488 PA between the High-A Florida State League and the Double-A Eastern League last season, walking 11.7 percent of the time, punching out 26.1 percent and posting a .226 ISO while going yard 20 times.

After a productive Arizona Fall League stint and a week-plus at the Triple-A level, Davis was bumped up to the majors early in 2010. Davis, 23, has made a seamless transition. The 6-5 lefty hitter has a .261/.345/.447 triple-slash in 226 PA, with a .346 wOBA. He’s showing decent pop, with a .186 ISO, and he’s walking in 11.1 percent of his trips to the plate. Plus, those dugout flips are so freakin’ cool.

Davis has been a fairly aggressive batter, swinging at 29.4% of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone (28.2% MLB average this season), but he holds that double-digit walk rate as a result of seeing very few offerings over the plate. Pitchers are giving Isaac Benjamin an in-zone pitch just 38.3 percent of the time, the lowest rate among qualified MLB hitters (47.3% MLB average). On a related note, opponents are reluctant to give him fastballs — Davis is getting a fastball under 50% of the time, eighth-lowest among big league batsmen. So far, the opposition’s strategy against Ike seems to be, “feed him off-speed stuff off the plate and hope for a chase.” It’ll be interesting to see if that approach shifts in the months to come.

Welcome to our first installment of the Deep Keepers series at RotoGraphs. Today, we’ll take a quick peek at four prospects who had impressive minor league Opening Day performances last night.

Mike Montgomery | LHP | Kansas City Royals: With young pitchers Zack Greinke and Luke Hochevar rolling along in Kansas City right now, Montgomery has the next highest ceiling in the organization (sorry, Aaron Crow). The left-hander had a dazzling 2010 debut against Atlanta’s high-A affiliate and he allowed just two hits and one walk in 5.0 innings of work. He struck out six batters and induced six ground-ball outs.

Randall Delgado | RHP | Atlanta Braves: Montgomery’s opponent on Thursday night, Delgado was equally as impressive and he allowed just three hits and did not walk a batter in 5.0 innings. He struck out five hitters and saw seven balls scooped up his infield defense. Just 20, Delgado has good fastball velo, solid control for his age, and does a good job of getting ground-ball outs. There is some thought that Delgado may be destined for a bullpen job at the MLB level, but I think he can stick in the starting rotation.

Ike Davis | 1B | New York Mets: As we mentioned in our most recent Podcast on the FanGraphs side (available today), Mike Jacobs and Daniel Murphy are not the long-term answers at first base for the New York Mets. They’re just not first division first basemen. Davis, though, could be… especially if he keeps tapping into his power. After failing to hit a home run in his ’08 debut, he slammed 20 last season split between high-A and double-A. The former No. 1 draft pick also just missed ending the season with a .300 batting average. While his teammates struggled during Opening Night 2010, Davis went 3-for-4 and slugged two doubles. He represented 50% of the team’s hits and he was the only Buffalo player that got an extra-base hit.

Brad Emaus | 2B/3B | Toronto Blue Jays: Emaus opened a lot of eyes this spring and actually stuck around camp longer than expected. He’s opening the 2010 season back in double-A, which is where he spent all of ’09. Emaus is being asked to play more third base this season because of the much clearer opening at the MLB level (Aaron Hill is at second, signed to a long-term deal). The infielder does not have more than 15-homer power, but he should hit for a good average with gap power and can even steal five to 10 bases. He also has some versatility that could help out a fantasy roster.

When the season is over and people start producing Top Prospect rankings, Ike Davis will likely be in the middle of a top 100 list. That is not surprising for someone of his pedigree, a first-round pick in 2008, but it is nothing short of remarkable considering the start that Davis got off to in his professional debut.

On April 28th, of this season, Davis hit the first home run of his pro career. Up until that point he had been considered a bust. The Mets’ top draft pick last year, part of their reward for the Braves signing free agent Tom Glavine, they selected Davis for his power. Unfortunately, he went all 58 games he played last year and then 17 more in 2009 without putting a ball over the fence.

The lack of power was disturbing but the Mets remained bullish on Davis, no one more so than former Vice President of Player Development Tony Bernazard, who told Baseball America, “He’s coming along well for a player in his first full year. He’s a great defender and we believe he’ll hit for power. You can see it in how he’s hit a lot of doubles. And the best part is, he’s kept up while playing in every game.”

Starting on April 29th, Davis has hit 15 HR in 79 games. He started the year at St. Lucie in the Hi-A Florida State League and was promoted to Double-A (where you really want to see a collegiate first-round pick in his first full season in the minors) after he posted a .288/.376/.486 line in 59 games.

Facing more advanced pitching has not slowed Davis down any. After 40 games in the Double-A Eastern League, Davis has a .299/.379/.519 mark, with 8 HR in 154 at-bats. However, here we must remember park and league tendencies.

The Florida State League is a pitcher-friendly loop. Currently Chris Parmelee leads the league with 14 HR and Dominic Brown’s .517 is the top slugging mark. In the Eastern League Brennan Boesch has 24 HR and Brian Dopirak leads with a .576 slugging percentage. Furthermore, Binghamton is a good hitter’s park. From 2006-2008, Dan Szymborski had Binghamton with a 1.05 HR multiplier. Szymborski says, “when I use the term ‘multiplier’ I’m already taking into account road games, so the number does not have to sent hurdling halfway to 1.00 in order to apply to various minor league stats.”

Davis is playing better at his home park, but not to an alarming degree. Here are his home/road splits:

H – .308/.386/.538 with 4 HR in 78 ABs
R – .289/.372/.500 with 4 HR in 76 ABs

The lefty-swinging Davis does have a significant left/right split. This year at Binghamton it breaks down as follows:

LHP – .241/.317/.296 in 54 ABs
RHP – .330/.412/.640 in 100 ABs

Additionally, all eight of his HR have come versus RHP.

Davis also has both a high K% and an elevated BABIP. His 30.1 K percentage ranks 14th among all Eastern League players with at least 100 ABs and his .383 BABIP ranks eighth.

But after he put up a .652 OPS in rookie ball, these are welcome concerns. Coming into the year, Davis could not crack Baseball America’s Top 10 prospect list for the Mets (interestingly compiled by Adam Rubin), finishing behind Eddie Kunz, whose upside is seventh-inning set-up man. It was a scathing indictment of Davis’ pro debut.

But in a season where everything has gone wrong on the major league level, the Mets can at least take solace in the development of Davis. The 22-year old now has to be considered as a potential replacement for Carlos Delgado at first base, giving hope that the club can avoid the free agent route when they opt to replace their aging slugger.