Berg on Chris Davis
But is $23M enough to endure booing?
Orioles first baseman Chris Davis has set an ignominious record.
The 33-year-old went 0-for-5 Monday night in Baltimore’s 12-4 victory against the Athletics to extend his hitless streak to 49 at-bats, shattering the record of 46 established by former Giants and Dodgers utility man Eugenio Velez in 2011.
Where Velez’s value was always wrapped up in his defensive versatility, Davis is a first baseman, the position normally expected to provide the most offensive pop. Because he signed a seven-year, $161 million contract extension before the 2016 season, Davis occupies a huge portion of the no-name Orioles’ payroll at $23 million a year. The team owes him another $69 million after this season and has no real aspirations toward contending this year or next, which means he’s going to keep getting opportunities to right himself at the plate.
But that means, unless and until something changes, he’s going to keep failing. He’ll get a hit eventually — going into Tuesday, Davis had put balls in play in 13 of his first 28 at-bats this season, and some portion of balls in play will always wind up finding holes in the defense. But Davis struck out a lot even at his best, and now he’s whiffing at an ugly rate even by his own standards. He put some pretty good swings on balls Monday night, but he mostly looks lost at the plate, as he did for the bulk of a woeful 2018 season as well.
Orioles fans have had enough, which is unfortunate but understandable. If you’re trying to find reason for hope in Baltimore baseball, it’s in the young players who might emerge as contributors on the next good Orioles team, whenever that comes. That’s not Davis. And so the most recognizable and longest-tenured and best-paid player gets booed mercilessly by the same fans he once thrilled with mighty long balls.
There are a lot of people who will insist they can never feel sorry for a guy getting paid so much to play baseball. And probably Chris Davis doesn’t want anyone’s pity. Still, it can’t be much fun being Chris Davis right now. I don’t know what it’s like to get paid $23 million a year to do anything and, sadly, I can’t imagine I ever will. But money is only worth so much.
My For The Win colleague Charles Curtis posed this question to me the other day, and I still can’t come up with a good answer: Would you switch places with Chris Davis right now? Would you put on a brave face and flail at major league breaking balls, and swallow your pride and endure the constant booing and mockery of thousands of angry fans in exchange for tons of money?
Part of me wants to say “Oh hell yes” and insist that I could go out every night, whiff wildly in every at-bat and wear my golden sombrero without shame due to the knowledge that I could afford an actual golden sombrero. Maybe I’d even make the John Manziel “Money” gesture on my walk back to the dugout amid thunderous boos.
But I’m a fairly competitive guy, it’s hard to figure how difficult it would be to perform so poorly and so publicly in any arena in which I once achieved such remarkable success.
Chris Davis knows what it feels like to be great at baseball, and I have to guess that makes it significantly harder to stomach being bad at baseball.
I can practically guarantee the overwhelming majority of readers will say they would happily switch places with Chris Davis. It’s baseball, after all. It’s meaningless. It’s not like you’re taking $23 million a year to commit massacres. I’m just saying I bet it sucks far harder than most of us assume.
Some misguided fools have and will continue to argue that Davis simply does not care, that he checked out after his extension because he knew his performance did not matter anymore as the money is guaranteed.
I don’t know Chris Davis personally, but I can practically promise you that’s not the case. Professional athletes, for the most part, simply aren’t wired like that. If they were, MLB teams wouldn’t be handing out long-term, nine-figure contract extensions to all of the sport’s brightest stars, and guys who’ve already secured massive paychecks wouldn’t so frequently get popped for performingenhancing drugs.
Davis is definitely trying. Maybe he’s even trying too hard. Whatever the case, it’s not working.
It’s a brutal thing to watch, and no matter how much money he’s making, it can’t be an easy thing to endure.