NEWSFLASH: Rangers To Recall Chris Davis From Oklahoma City
Chris Davis's eminently successful remedial seven-week course in the art of hitting and the nigh-unprecedented collapse of Hank Blalock have prompted the Texas Rangers to take one final shot at rectifying their most destructive Achilles' heel -- the offensive black hole at first base.
Multiple local media sources, including MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan, reported on Sunday evening that the Rangers currently plan to recall Davis from Triple-A Oklahoma City before the outset of a huge three-game road series against the Yankees on Tuesday evening, with Blalock apparently preparing to play out his final 39 regular-season games in a Rangers uniform as a part-time designated hitter and/or benchwarmer as Texas undertakes a long-overdue playing time reconfiguration.
Since riding the Interstate 35 shuttle from Arlington to Oklahoma City back on July 6th after his long-expected demotion to the minors (and sounding half-relieved, half-apologetic immediately beforehand), Davis has worked extensively with RedHawks manager Bobby Jones and hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh in (a) re-establishing his confidence and (b) smoothing out the wrinkles in his hitting mechanics, reportedly entailing a slightly more open batting stance, less head-bobbing action and a cleaner swing plane that have allowed him to inflict .327/.418/.521-caliber damage against Pacific Coast League pitching.
[Incidentally, I don't know whether the dissonance in the teacher-student relationship between Davis and major league hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo has been bred by anything more troubling in nature than a lack of familiarity between the pair, and it's possible, if not probable, that the organization had already identified these glaring issues in Davis's hitting mechanics and mindset before his demotion and felt the minors were an environment more conducive to speedy correction, but whenever the minor league coaching staff fixes something with a player that the major league coaching staff apparently could not fix, you're sort of obligated to pause for a moment and wonder what's going on.]
At the time of Davis's demotion, I wrote that Blalock's "apparent inability to reach base more than 30 percent of the time essentially makes him a glorified version of Mike Jacobs circa 2008, which is suboptimal." In the time which has lapsed since that date, Blalock has hit .238/.263/.405 in 175 plate appearances and .204/.219/.352 in 146 plate appearances since the All-Star Break. That's not merely Mike Jacobs-esque; that's Ben Broussard-esque in the worst way imaginable, with nary a sign of forthcoming improvement, and in a certain respect his downfall is almost inconceivable. You can't be a part of the solution if you're part of the problem.
The single most imperative objective for any hitter is to reach base, and in that sense, Blalock -- and yes, Davis as well -- have been failures of the highest degree in 2009, particularly when taken in the offense-friendly context of their designated position. At this point, however, the 23-year-old "failure" is not only the superior defender, but has also proactively addressed his faults during his minor league stint, done everything from a performance standpoint that the Rangers could possibly ask for and productively channeled his cerebral streak in an active attempt to mold himself into a better ballplayer.
Blalock and Davis are riding adjacent escalators right now, with both steadily moving but one on the ascent and one on the descent, and I don't think it's particularly difficult to discern whom is riding in which direction.
13 Comments | in NEWSFLASH, The Season
Reader Comments (13)
they wouldn't cut Blalock would they?
Nah, I think Blalock will just be on the bench, but I don't know what the corresponding roster move would be. About time, it's time for Davis to try his revamped approach against big leaguers, and it's well past time for Blalock to sit.
Best news I’ve heard all day. Should have done this weeks ago, i bet they DFA Andruw I don’t know what use he is to us anymore. I really hope they don’t send borbon down, when they have blalock and jones sitting there and not producing.
It's funny to see how excited about this news some people are.
The grass is always greener on the other side I guess... even when that other side was last seen at the MLB level threatening to obliterate the season strikeout record and completely overmatched by MLB pitching in a way Blalock never has been (as much as he's struggled this year).
Texas_Dawg: Davis last year was better than Blalock has been in a long time, plays better defense and will walk more than Blalock. I think people are excited that the grass MIGHT be greener on the other side. This move can't hurt. Everyone is saying it could ruin team chemistry, winning creates chemistry. This move is long overdue.
I don’t know how it could ruin team chemistry, Davis is loved in the locker room and he gets along with everyone. I didn’t want to see Davis go down earlier in the year but it was necessary to get him back to hitting well (hopefully). If we must have Davis or Blalock at first and they are both going to hit terrible I’d rather have Davis because he's better defensively. Davis is still young enough to fix his hitting and I’m afraid we won’t ever see Blalock back to what he once was; it’s a shame because he was looking like a very good player.
Although Davis's homerun power decreased in OKC with his new adjustments, he greatly improved his plate discipline and OBP over his career numbers. For the longest time, I was in the camp that never wanted to see Davis sent down. There was one game maybe three weeks before he was optioned to OKC that he smashed his bat in frustration after a strikeout. At that point I felt he needed a demotion, but I was thinking more along the lines of 2-3 weeks. Well we all know that didn't happen, but there's no point second guessing their timing now. For now I would hope that Davis assumes his duties as the everyday 1B. I'm not sure who will get sent down. Part of me is hoping for a 15 day DL stint for Jennings; I feel his ineffectiveness of late stems from overuse. However, this does nothing to affect the 40 man roster, so I would say It's gotta be Andruw Jones. He has been about as worthless as Tankin' Hank lately and doesn't have as much of Michael Young's loyalty as Hank.
Davis is already (still) on the 40. Jennings ( via DL) would do.
Chris wil be a welcomed edition to the offense. But, I still think Kinsler is the key. If Ian can put up an OPS > .800 for the rest of the way, I think the Rangers can win the WC.
Texas_Dawg:
What would Blalock have to do to convince you that he HAS been overmatched at the plate? Hit .150? .100?
Is Davis going to be much better than Blalock? Maybe, maybe not. But he plays better defense, has tons more potential and is going to be in Texas beyond this season. It's an absolute no-brainer.
I've read this "... that the major league coaching staff apparently could not fix" statement a lot across the blogowebs, and I have to say I really don't understand the logic behind it.
So the minor leagues are there to develop potential ML talent, and to give young ML players a "haven" to go to when they need to regroup. That's the whole of its being. Yet, when the minors is used for the latter, somehow that means the ML coaches aren't doing their job, or are in some way to "blame" for the player not being able to work out his kinks against the best in the world?
The minor league coaches are there to help players "fix" their swings/pitching mechanics/fielding problems. It's a much less stressful environment in which to do so, and I just don't get how sending a 23 yr old kid down in order to help ease his troubled mind and fix his swing is supposed to, in any way, reflect poorly on the big league staff. But then... I'm not all that intelligent to begin with.
utb:
"Maybe, maybe not"... yet it's an "absolute no brainer" to put a player who was one of the very worst in baseball in the first half of the season into a pennant race and a level of pressure he's never seen before?
Um, OK.
Here's hoping Davis won't be the utter, colossal, record-setting embarrassment to himself and the team he was for a half season of baseball this year. Funny how fast some Rangers fans have forgotten that he was though.
Imagine CD as bad in Aug-Sept-Oct as Blalock has been, and as good or better in the field (Aside from this past weekend, I think Hank was a quick study, and a pleasant defensive surpriseat 1B)-- Heck, imagine all things being equal for the rest of the season... Then we should play CD full-time this year for the sake of the development & envisioning for next year.
Hank's been an important part of this team's comeraderie and some of it's success. I'm happy to save a place for Hank on the 40 (& the DL during the playoffs) to enjoy popping some champagne, but not at the expense of improving our chance to win that champagne, and-- all things being equal-- not at the expense of a bonus headstart on 2010.