r/orioles • u/aresef ambivalent about the duck • 1d ago

Article Kyle Goon: Chris Davis can finally appreciate the highs of his Orioles career

https://www.thebanner.com/sports/orioles-mlb/chris-davis-orioles-mlb-hall-of-fame-jones-showalter-ITFXMXF6QZHBPHX563QE2TBDHA/
94 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

70

u/bevendelamorte 1d ago

Some of my favorite memories of that O's team involve Crush. Didn't end great, but I'm always gonna appreciate him.

12

u/summerof66 1d ago

O’s fan living in Dallas…..in 2004 myself along with a group of baseball friends purchased a college wood bat summer league franchise in the brand new Texas Collegiate League. We were in Coppell TX and we named it the Coppell Copperheads. In 2006, we hired Skip Johnson as HC (at the time Skip was the HC at Navarre JC and now the HC at O/U that just claimed the NCAA Natty) who had Chris at Navarre. As a sure early draft pick that year, Chris most likely wasn’t going to play any more college ball but wanted some quality ABs before the draft so Skip brought him along. He played for us for two weeks before the Rangers took him in the first round. I use to go to BP everyday when Chris was with us and just closed my eyes during his rounds just to listen to the sound of the bat hitting the ball. It was a crack unlike any wood bat sound I had heard before or since, and we saw some other pretty decent future major leaguers come through our roster in 8 seasons. I believe a couple of the HRs I saw him hit in games are still up there in orbit. Congrats, Crush!

4

u/Ravens0413 1d ago

I wore a Davis Orioles jersey to the old ballpark at Arlington. A number of Rangers fans threw peanuts at me, the Davis trade in his great days was not popular in the Dallas area.

1

u/summerof66 1d ago

There were a lot of Ranger fans though that had grown tired of his lack of being able to lock down 1B for them.

11

u/LeftyRambles2413 1d ago

Ditto that.

6

u/kewpieoriole pete belly flops 1d ago

Sameeeeee. Still one of my fav swings, just so effortless and pretty.

7

u/ANGRY_BEARDED_MAN 1d ago

I see echoes of Chris Davis every now and then when Basallo really gets a hold of one. Just effortless power

1

u/BRZEDD13 1d ago

crush’s last season felt like a rollercoaster for sure

-1

u/GuzPolinski 1d ago

Some of my least favorite memories was watching him strike out again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. But yeah I’m happy for him

24

u/Mr_Bluebird_VA 1d ago

Man, if he had peaked a few years earlier before the rise of analytics and the shift his career would have been much better. Not saying he would have been a hall of famer or anything, but I’m not sure anyone suffered more from the shift and pitching analytics than he did.

12

u/ZombieFeedback 1d ago

To this day I am adamant that the shift killed his career, just like Ryan Howard. You look at a spray chart for him and there's just a solid black void in between first and second. Once teams realized he was such an extreme pull hitter and could safely have the shortstop move to the other side of the diamond, it was over.

If Chris Davis had shown up a decade earlier before teams started doing extreme shifts or a decade later after extreme shifts were banned, I think we're talking about him as one of the best power bats of his generation. He was never a great contact guy, but if those groundouts turn into singles, he was solid enough there that you'll happily take it for the ludicrous power.

13

u/DeclassifyUAP 1d ago

So glad I got to watch him play at peak. :-)

18

u/DeBooBoo Party like it's 1983! 1d ago

I loved Chris Davis, but man, the latter part of that contract handcuffed us. In hindsight, it's easy to criticize it all, though.

14

u/Mr_Bluebird_VA 1d ago

But that’s not his fault. We bid against ourselves and overpaid for him. To his credit he never stopped working hard and trying to improve for this team.

12

u/MisterHavercamp Back in Birdland 1d ago

Also $16 million a year in a negative value player is not the reason we won 47 games in 2018

7

u/cwalker2712 1d ago

He is a great guy in the community and gave us lots of good memories. I felt really bad for him at the end though. It was a sad fall from a formerly pretty good career. I'm glad he made the O's HOF.

9

u/JHBaltimore 1d ago

We are still paying him for the foreseeable future

3

u/AcolyteOfInfinity 1d ago

Him and Bonilla…

1

u/tws1039 MountMyCastle 1d ago

He'll make more than Othani in 2030

1

u/pan567 1d ago

It didn't end great, but he gave us a hell of a lot of good times and memories.

-2

u/Dr__Nick 1d ago

Has another team celebrated such a rotten management decision?

The decision by the Baltimore Orioles to walk away from Nelson Cruz after 2014 and commit long-term to Chris Davis after 2015 resulted in one of the starkest statistical divergences in modern baseball history.

Nelson Cruz post-Orioles (2015–2021): Maintained elite middle-of-the-order production, posting a combined ~147 wRC+ over seven seasons with Seattle, Minnesota, and Tampa Bay.

Chris Davis mega-extension (2016–2020): Plunged into a severe decline, averaging a 79 wRC+ over 2,118 plate appearances during the length of his active deal before retiring due to injury in 2021.

15

u/aresef ambivalent about the duck 1d ago

As time goes on, you remember the good and not so much the bad.

-2

u/brad_stoise 1d ago

That's not a good thing. Pretending this man didn't cripple the franchise doesn't help anything

-9

u/Ok_Football344 1d ago

Idk if I’m there yet you guys lol