Was definitely a struggle to own Ike Davis in 2012. Was uncomfortable like the air in the room when you find out on Christmas Eve that your crazy aunt is going to jail for seven years. Take it from me, for Christmas, don’t buy her a nail file or black and white striped pajamas. Or when she says she was railroaded, don’t comment that’s ironic because now you’re going to be working on the railroad. Looks like I’m gonna need to update Who Is Grey Albright? for my jailbird aunt. Thankfully, criminality skips a generation! If you didn’t outright drop Davis in the first two months, you never appreciated when he turned his season around. And, if you did drop him in the first two months, you really didn’t appreciate it. For hitters with more than 175 plate appearances in the 1st half, he had the 12th worst average at .201 and the 2nd worst case of Valley Fever since Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. Other than Rickie Weeks and Carlos Pena, Davis had the most ABs (268) from the bottom of the batting average charts pre-All-Star break, so he was causing a considerable amount of pain. At the end of May, he was hitting .154…Shoot, he ended July hitting .208. He only ended the season hitting .227, so it wasn’t like he Ichiro-slap-chopped balls for cheap hits at any point last year. His career BABIP (after this horrendous year) is .292. That would put his average in the .260 range with neutral luck. For April through September, he had two months that were in that BABIP range. In June, his BABIP was .288 and in August it was .294. In those two months, he hit .264 and .287, respectively. It wasn’t like he was super lucky to hit .287 one month. He just wasn’t unlucky. The reason why we’re not talking about anything except average is because everything else was absolutely fine last year. So, what can we expect from Ike Davis in 2013 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
He had the fifth most homers in the 2nd half with 20, and off Miggy’s 26 homer pace by justthatmuch. His homers per at-bat was fourth in the league after the break, just behind Giancarlo, Miggy and Edwin Encarnacion. His 1st half wasn’t even that bad for power (12 HRs, 49 RBIs, and the third best RBI total for anyone with an average under .240). After the All-Star break, he had a top twenty OPS and near-40 homer pace if prorate his 2nd half numbers out over a full season. If you go back to June (when his BABIP turned around briefly), he had a near-45 homer pace. The one problem, and why he still isn’t an elite 1st baseman with neutral luck, his splits look like Molly Shannon’s from her SNL days. Davis can’t hit lefties. With or without luck…Well, unless his luck really turns and a leprechaun runs on the field to distract the fielders. But all things being fair and less like a bad acid trip, he can’t hit southpaws. Facing lefties in his career, he has a .277 BABIP (so not that unlucky) and a .217 average. For 2013, I give him the overall line of 76/34/102/.259. As mentioned above, he could hit 40+ bombs and make you want to adopt him as your new step daddy. “Ike, tell me again how you’re coming cheaper than you should in 2013 fantasy baseball drafts…. Okay, will you tell me if I call you Mr. Davis and promise not to make up lies about you to Mom?”
