Below are the top three hitters in the league by barrels per PA. “Good” is subjective to the Lords of Statcast, but just stick with me. This metric measures exactly what it says it does: the amount of “good” contact a hitter makes every time he comes to bat. There are plenty of metrics via Statcast that you can play around with using Baseball Savant, but one that I find particularly interesting is the barrels per plate appearance metric. They haven’t had any issues finding barrels. Thanks in large part to Davis’s contributions at the plate during this hot stretch, the Athletics have featured baseball’s 6th best wRC+ (116) in the past month. Louis Cardinals, who can’t even explain what he’s been doing recently, has more home runs than Davis. Here are the top 5 home run hitters in baseball over the last month: Narrowing the scope a bit to the last 30 days, Davis has been one of the hottest hitters in the MLB. While baseball people would acknowledge that Davis has been a valuable hitter I think few realize the type of power numbers he has been putting up on a consistent basis. Khris Davis has hit more homeruns over other past three years than any other player in baseball, ahead of players like Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Trout. Since joining the A’s in 2016, here’s the top 10 home run hitters in baseball over the past three seasons: By and large, he’s been one of the best power hitters in the majors. He’s put up back to back 40-homerun seasons in 20 and is on pace to do so again in 2018. Not to mention, the Brewers have never had an issue finding capable outfielders.ĭavis has somewhat flown under the radar since taking his talents to Oakland. One could say the A’s were obvious winners of this trade, however I will note that Davis has always graded out as a subpar defender and was always better suited for an AL club where he could DH. Following a 27-homer campaign in 2015, the Brewers dealt Davis to the Athletics for two minor league prospects: Bowdien Derby and Jacob Nottingham. Following his stellar debut in 2013, Davis hasn’t looked back, solidifying himself as one of the best power hitters in the game today. After slugging 63 homeruns in his first three and a half seasons of professional baseball, the Brewers called Davis up in the second half of the 2013 season where he would go on to hit 11 home runs in 56 games (a 32-homer pace over a full season). Khris Davis, not to be confused with Chris Davis of the Baltimore Orioles (he’s having possibly one of the worst seasons of all time), was drafted out of Cal State Fullerton in the 7th round of the 2009 MLB Draft. There is one last piece missing from what is driving the A’s success this year: Khris Davis. Jeff Sullivan at FanGraphs, one of the best baseball analysts out there, already touched on the elite bullpen of the Athletics earlier this year, which I highly recommend reading. One of the keys to the Athletics’ success so far has been their star third baseman Matt Chapman and an elite bullpen that just got stronger over the weekend by adding arrow-slinging closer Fernando Rodney from the Twins. A crucial series begins tonight between Seattle and Oakland, where the A’s will look to separate themselves from Seattle and the rest of the wild card pack. Not only are they in the hunt for a wild card spot, but after the Mariners sweep of the Astros in Houston over the weekend the A’s now find themselves only 2.5 games back for first place in the AL West. Oakland has ridden an unbelievable hot streak this summer to take a 1.5 game lead for the second wild card over the Seattle Mariners, a team currently running the longest post season drought in North American sports (ouch). If the season ended today, they would currently be on a flight to New York to play the Yankees in the Wild Card Game. I don’t have to tell you that the A’s have been a surprise this year. Life happened, and I wasn’t able to finish yesterday, so thankfully Khris is an avid reader of the blog and homered again last night in the A’s 7-0 win over Los Angeles, sparing me from having to think of a new way to open the post. I originally started writing this post Saturday morning and opened with a remark about Davis’s home run against the Angels in a 4-3 loss the night before and how lately it’s seemed like he has been going yard every other night.
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