Prospect Davidson not quite a chip off his father’s block
MESA, Ariz. — Logan Davidson has been switchhitting for so long that he doesn’t know whether he’s a natural righthanded hitter or lefthanded hitter.
“I’ve been both since I was old enough to hold a baseball bat,” Davidson said. “I really don’t know how to answer that.”
Davidson is a highly touted A’s shortstop prospect, the 29th overall pick in the 2019 draft. He’s neither on the 40man roster nor the nonroster list,
but he’s among 10 youngsters in minicamp who are squeezed into Cactus League games.
So far, so good. Davidson is 3for7 with a homer, a double and five RBIs.
More than that, he’s getting a chance to hang out with big
leaguers and hone his craft, including batting from both sides of the plate, an attribute that can take far more time to get in a groove than for someone hitting from one side.
Davidson has videos of him as a young boy hitting Wiffle balls off a tee in front of his house. Lefthanded and righthanded, he’s driving the ball.
The evolution of Davidson switchhitting is easy to trace. His father, Mark, played six seasons for the Twins and Astros and, as a righthanded hitter, found himself pinchhitting against lefty pitchers.
As a switchhitter, Mark Davidson’s son would reap benefits that he did not.
“You’ll never have a leftylefty matchup,” explained the elder Davidson in a phone interview, “and you’ll never have a breaking ball breaking away from you, unless you’re facing Fernando Valenzuela.”
Fernando’s screwball isn’t exactly a common pitch today, so the beauty of switchhitting, theoretically, is not getting replaced by a pinchhitter. Or, if a switchhitter is the one pinchhitting, being able to face either a lefty or righty.
Mark Davidson was a Twins teammate of Billy Beane and was on Minnesota’s 1987 World Series championship team. He recalls how accomplished lefty hitters such as Kent Hrbek would struggle against the likes of John Candelaria and other lefties.
It’s a disadvantage he didn’t want for his son.
“He kind of saw the value of switchhitting early on,” Logan Davidson said, “and had me switchhit since I was a little boy in the driveway.”
While Logan is BSTR (bats switch, throws right), Mark was BRTR. It doesn’t stop there. Logan’s grandfather and Mark’s father also played pro ball and was BLTR.
Max Davidson, 92, played minorleague ball from 194754, mostly in the New York Giants’ system.
“It took three generations to figure it out,” quipped Mark Davidson, pleased there’s finally a switchhitter in the family.
In this world of matchups and platooning and teams making decisions based on leftright splits, Davidson would seem to hold an advantage so long as he succeeds as a hitter from both sides.
Before games, switchhitters generally get the same amount of time in the onfield batting cage as nonswitchhitters. They usually focus on hitting from one side depending on the opposing pitcher, and if they want more reps to feel rhythm from both sides, they’d need to work on their own.
“It’s like two people,” Mark Davidson said. “It can take an extra 40 minutes of work a day.”
The youngest Davidson is making it happen. He says he feels more natural from the left side because he has had far more lefthanded atbats, thanks to the fact most pitchers are righthanded.
That especially was true in high school when he took plenty of righthanded batting practice even though he got few righthanded atbats. It’s still a lopsided
ratio in pro ball. After the 2019 draft, Davidson played 54 games at Class A Vermont and had 165 lefthanded atbats and 40 righthanded.
Through it all, Davidson built enough experience and confidence that he feels good swinging either way.
“Usually, switchhitters at a young age have a side they like better,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I asked him one day, ‘Are you a better lefthanded hitter or righthanded hitter?’ He said, ‘Both.’ So he’s confident both ways. He’s going to hit for power and always going to get your matchup.”
With no minorleague season in 2020, Davidson spent the summer at the team’s alternate site in San Jose. The A’s are eager to see what he does in a full pro season after he hit 15 homers in each of his last two seasons at Clemson.
Melvin has raved about how Davidson is bigger and stronger this year. He’s 6foot3 and 210 pounds, up from his college weight of 190195.
Speaking of college, Davidson had a familiar school mate with him. Mark Davidson, an old Clemson man himself, went back to school to finish his degree in history with a minor in education.
Furthermore, he served an assistant baseball coach.
“You’re talking about cheating life,” Mark Davidson said. “I got to go back and be with my son. What a truly neat experience. My GPA was so bad the first time around, I barely got back in, but I made straight A’s when I went back, to raise my GPA to 3.0.”
Logan completed college a little more quickly. He needed just three years to earn his management degree and was named the ACC’s Baseball Scholar Athlete of the Year, with a spot on the AllACC Academic Team.
His sister, Taylor, graduated from Stanford, where she not only earned a science, technology and society degree but was a member of the 2016 national championship tennis team, and her victory in the final singles match of the day clinched the title over Oklahoma State 43.
It goes without saying that Mark and Linda Davidson emphasized education at an early age. Athletics has worked out well, too.
The A’s have just one switchhitter on the 40man roster, outfielder Skye Bolt. Second baseman Jed Lowrie, a nonroster invitee, is an accomplished switchhitter who has spent time discussing his own experiences with Davidson.
“Jed Lowrie’s swing is pretty similar from both sides,” Davidson said. “Almost identical, which is very impressive. As a switchhitter myself, that’s pretty hard to do. I kind of separate them as two different people, so to speak.”