Welcome to the off-season. Once again, since the Mets are not one of the ten participants in the post-season, it’s time instead for some post-mortem. In this, the first edition of a new series, the Mets360 staff will take a look back at our pre-season previews and see how they played out. Just a fun little ongoing exercise to while away the days until mid-March, when the focus turns again to Port St. Lucie, hot rookies, veterans seeking rejuvenation and who’s “in the best shape of his life.”
The first player we’ll look at had a doozy of a year: first baseman Ike Davis.
Back in January, the consensus among the Mets360 family was that Davis would build on his strong second half of 2012 and post solid numbers all year long. As you might recall, Davis started 2012 horribly, but rebounded just before the All-Star break to notch 30 HR and 90 RBI, despite a sub-.230 AVG. We all thought he would put some solid numbers on the board. Here’s what we saw happening, overall:
PA – 576
AVG – .265
OBP – .345
SLG – .500
HR – 31
RBIs – 95
Ks – 136
What happened was far different.
Ike Davis hit a long homerun into the Pepsi Porch at Citi Field in the 5th inning of game #2 of the season. Met fandom let out a collective “HE’S BACK!” yelp, never minding that it was his first hit of the year and he’d finish the game with a .111 batting average. It never got better from that point on. He finished April with a slash line of .161/.265/.318 – good for a whopping OPS of .583. The next two-and-a-half months were spent trying to get his batting average over .200, a feat not accomplished until August 10. And for those of us who disdain batting average as an overall talent evaluator – as I do – Davis’ other two final slash line components don’t look any better: a .326 OBP and a .334 SLG, resulting in a putrid OPS of .661. Many theories were bandied about, from “he doesn’t take enough walks” to “his stance is messed up” to “he’s been enjoying the New York nightlife too much.” Nothing fit, no adjustment successful. Even a trip to the minors for a month in mid-June couldn’t shake his funk, which naturally bled over into his defense, once so exciting. Adding injury to insult, Davis missed the last month of the year with a severely strained oblique muscle – thus eliminating a shot at redemption in September. At this moment, there’s some real talk about who is better suited to be the everyday first baseman, Davis or Lucas Duda. In short, to characterize Ike Davis’s truncated season as “disappointing” would be the understatement of the year.
Here’s the final tally:
PA – 377
AVG – .203
OBP – .326
SLG – .334
HR – 9
RBIs – 33
Ks – 101
You can safely say that Mets360 missed the boat. While no one could have predicted such an epochal slump, our friend Chris Walendin came “closest to the pin,” with a predicted slash line of .241/.339/.474.
The rest of us weren’t even in the ballpark.
Follow me on Twitter @CharlieHangley
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I forget what my exact prediction was, but I know that I was WAY off with what Davis ended up doing. Very disappointing.
Joe, you predicted .270/.345/.500, 32 HR , 95 RBI
And he’s coming back next year? Maybe we should predict a terrible year and hope we’re just always wrong.
Ahh yes, a calssic Seinfeldian “The Opposite”!
I hate giving up on him but this year was a disaster…I still would rather see him than Duda if we can’t find a bat..maybe the Cuban guy?…(Forgot his name)
Abreu
The Cuban guy? Ricky Ricardo, who would be perfect for Port St Lucie…dontcha think? A real veteran, not afraid of the spotlight.
They need to send him elsewhere. Maybe he gets an arbitration raise to 3.375 from 3.125 but I say move on. And the same goes for Tejada. You simply cannot have these two guys be question marks again in spring training. Just “man up” and send them off. Just because they didn’t produce and then got hurt doesn’t mean you should feel the need to waste another six to eight months and then cry when we’re in May and they’re hitting a buck eighty five.
Actually it looks like McWilliams had the closest prediction.
He had the lowest and closest BA, a close OBP, and also the lowest and closest SLG and HR (not that anyone was really truly close)
I was bullish on Davis for 2013 and thought the Mets360 prediction to be good. Boy, we were all wrong. I now could not tolerate another season with the inconsistant Ike on the team. Trade him before arbitration.
Just talking about Ike Davis makes me cringe. The thought of him in the lineup next year makes me sick.
Before doing anything get rid of Wilpon and company. The saying that the fish stinks from the head is so true with the mets.
[…] Wright entered 2013 as the mirror opposite of Ike Davis. Where Davis had a dismal first half and an extremely strong second half of 2012, […]
Without bias, who was the mets best clutch hitter? David wright or Murphy.