Is There Any MLB Player Hurting Their Team More Than Baltimore’s Chris Davis?

We all know the Baltimore Orioles are a crummy team this year, and that’s fine. But it’s not like they don’t have talent — at least in their batting order. Manny Machado is a legit MVP candidate, Adam Jones is still solid, and Jonathan Schoop is one of the most underrated players in the game. Even Tim Beckham — while on the DL now — deserves credit for his 50-game, .306 performance in 2017. But Chris Davis? Well, Davis was bad last year and it’s only gotten worse this year. The worst part, though, is that he’s pulling down $17 million per year and is the highest-paid player on the team.

Davis has always been an all-or-nothing guy, leading the MLB in strikeouts in 2015 and 2016, but lately there’s been no ‘all’ to balance out the whiffs. Last year, he hit just .215 with a negative WAR and 195 strikeouts. And while his 26 home runs seemed solid on the surface, 2017 was the first season since 2011 that fell out of the Top 10 in AB per HR. From 2012-2016, his glory years with Baltimore, he had a plus-18.5 WAR with no season in the negative.

This year, however, he’s gone from trending negatively to flat-out bad. In Baltimore’s last game, a 6-3 loss to Boston, Davis earned a ‘golden sombrero‘ with four strikeouts in four at-bats. It was the final straw, at least for me, in terms of thinking Davis would turn his season around. He’s a gaping hole in the O’s lineup and is hurting his team more than any other position player I can think of. Get this, he’s had 162 plate appearances so far but has only scored eight runs. This stat is, of course, the worst among qualified hitters in the MLB.

Now, I understand that scoring runs isn’t why he earned his big contract, but he’s not doing anything well. He has only four home runs, 13 RBIs, a .170 batting average, and an embarrassing .279 slugging percentage. Strikeouts? Yeah, he’s tied for second-worst in the MLB with 60 of those jammies and the two guys he’s sandwiched between (Joey Gallo, 66; Paul Goldschmidt, 60) have 25, and 27 runs scored, respectively.

The season is already lost for the Orioles. It’s probably time to see if there is someone out there willing to take Davis’ contract. I mean, if someone was willing to take Carl Crawford’s deal, someone could potentially take his.

They’ve already benched him a few times, but it’s now time to let some prospect get all his reps at first. The run is over in Baltimore, as sad as it is to say. Not just for Chris Davis, but for Manny, and Adam, too. The only logical thing is to try and get what you can for these guys.