The Unexciting Rajai Davis

At a glance the 2014 season for Rajai Davis is mostly interchangeable with many of his previous years. He ranked as the 32nd best outfielder in Zach Sanders’ End of Season rankings, a nice surprise for his owners given his preseason rating of 81st. Davis stole a good number of bases, 36 on 47 attempts a 76.5% success rate, and posted a .320 on-base percentage, similar to his .317 career OBP. One outlier was his .282 batting average — Davis’ best since 2010 and what really drove up his value — this past season against his .270 lifetime average. While 12 points of batting average isn’t astronomical by any means, when placed against his recent seasons rather than career, .282 represents a massive jump.

	AVG	BABIP	OBP	wRC+
2010	.284	.322	.320	92
2011	.238	.292	.273	66
2012	.257	.314	.309	84
2013	.260	.308	.312	87
2014	.282	.320	.320	102

After not hitting above .260 for three straight years, Davis’ BA jumped over 20 points despite only a minor change in BABIP — other than the 2011 season. Without hitting more home runs or a significant shift in batted ball fortune, there were two big keys to Davis’ success this year.

For the first time in his career, Davis posted a ground ball rate north of 50% this season. Again going back to his similar 2010 campaign, that was Davis’ second best career mark at 47.6%, his previous high being 48.2% back in 2008. Now before we consider the 50% ground ball rate as some magical arbitrary number, consider Davis’ most notable skill: he is fast. Putting the ball on the ground more often represents a great way to beat out grounders for infield hits. Davis and his 50.1% GB rate ranked 26th highest in baseball (minimum 450 plate appearances) and his 26 infield hits rated him tied for fifth most. Even in seasons where he had more PAs, Davis’ previous high was 25 IFH. The four players in front of him posted many more PAs than Davis’ 494. The fourth most infield hits belonged to Hunter Pence with 27 IFH coming in 708 PAs, third was Adam Eaton with 29 IFH in 538 PAs and we had a tie between Dee Gordon and Jose Altuve with 31 infield hits each, in 650 and 707 PAs respectively. Given the other four leaders were almost exclusively leadoff or two-hole hitters, it makes sense to see them receive more PAs than Davis, who spend the season mostly splitting time between leadoff and hitting ninth.

Probably the biggest reason Davis was shuffled up and down the lineup was due to his platoon issues. A lifetime .304/.358/.446 hitter against southpaws, Davis’ struggles against fellow righties to the tune of a .253/.299/,334 line. Other than a 15 PA go back in 2006, Davis hasn’t made an attempt to become a switch hitter, thus 99.995% of his plate appearances have come from the right side. Factor in him sitting out entirely against tough right-handed pitchers and we see the gap in his PA’s against other IFH leaders.

In addition to the damage he inflicted on infield hits thanks to a higher ground ball rate, Davis’ batted ball fortunes shifted considerably in one area.

	Opposite%	Opposite BABIP
2010	20%	.208
2011	21.2%	.176
2012	19.6%	.227
2013	23.2%	.208
2014	23.2%	.299

Ahh, there it is. Rather than pummel you over the head with more tables, know that Davis’ Pull% and Center% — as well as their respective BABIP’s — didn’t change nearly as significantly this season as his Opposite BABIP. Given how fickle BABIP is on its own in a single season, to claim Davis’ opposite field specific BABIP magically jumped by almost 30% would be silly. Fun fact (or maybe just to me), Davis’ AVG, OBP and BABIP to the opposite field this year was .299 across the board. In case you were wondering, he had five doubles and a triple the other way to boost his oppo slugging all the way to .364.

Despite an increase in his batting average, I can’t help but think it was a one-year aberration. That being said, Davis should still provide steals at a strong rate and he should be seeing plenty of playing time next season. Even with the recent acquisition of Anthony Gose, both Torii Hunter and Andy Dirks are no longer on the team, clearing the way for steady playing time in left field for Davis. He’s basically what we thought he is, a useful piece to own but shouldn’t be counted on to be a top-40 outfielder again.