Ike Davis Hits a Grand Slam in AFL opener

First off, I Like Ike, and I will continue to say that until I no longer like him. Second, he hit it off a left handed pitcher. And third, I love having Gameday for minor league games

In what is likely to be his final line on the day:
4-6 with 2 doubles, 1 home run, 1 single, no walks, no strikeouts, not even a single swing and miss in his 6 at bats.

5 months ago Evan_S 35 comments 0 recs |

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"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Oct 13, 2009 4:26 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I was literally just about to post about this

Here’s the link to the gameday, which awesomely enough has pitch f/x data:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2009_10_13_surwin_perwin_1

by Balagast on Oct 13, 2009 4:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Davis>Murphy

Like, right now.
And Tejada has a hit. Woot!
Go Surprise!

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 13, 2009 4:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Not that I'm not a big fan of Ike,

but as we go through this AFL season, remember Murphy hit .397/.487/.619 last year. It’s a big hitters enviroment that causes a lot of ruff outings for pitchers.

by Sokojoe on Oct 14, 2009 9:27 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

oh, clearly.

I’m not basing it on the AFL results per se.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 14, 2009 10:01 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Word,

I just don’t want a blistering AFL campaign to cause a push that Davis should be the starter next season. I think some time in AAA will do him good even if he is our best option.

by Sokojoe on Oct 14, 2009 11:05 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree

Regardless of how he looks they should start him at AAA. If he does look impressive then we know we shouldn’t go out signing a stopgap 1B and should concentrate our funds on LF and SP. I f it looks like Davis could take over after a month or 2 of seasoning at AAA, Murphy would be a adequate fill in.

by Balagast on Oct 14, 2009 11:33 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah I agree

There are some pretty specific things to look for with Davis. You’d really hate to see his K% jump at all, and anything coming off lefties is always going to be a good sign. I still have some reservations about Ike in some ways, especially the improvements he made in Double-A. The fact that he was going from an extreme pitcher’s environment to one much more conducive to hitting is certainly worth noting, but then again the Eastern League was crazy deep this year. I like to use the example of Lars Anderson as an instructive reference point for putting to much weight on one breakout season from a player of the same ilk as Davis. But at the same time, Lars’ struggles this year could simply indicate just how much better the level of pitching in the EL was this year than last year. Bumgarner, Drabek, Rondon, Lincoln, Arrieta, Matusz, McAllister, were all pretty awesome, not to mention Mejia. The R/G of the league dropped to 4.2 after sitting at 4.6 the last two seasons, and it was not by any means a shallower offensive league than last year.

Still, his power and his patience have both come along, and they seem to go hand in hand, and his approach seems to be geared towards that direction. It looks very possible that he could be better than any of the current free agent first basemen in the not-too-distant future.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Oct 14, 2009 2:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Murphy also played almost every day in the major leagues in his rookie year so while he’s not a superstar, he’s a success story.

by TheBigStapler on Oct 14, 2009 10:04 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

you guys are fast

I just mentioned this in the applesauce and hadn’t seen the fanpost already up about it.

The lefty is Andrew Oliver, supplemental first rounder of the Tigers. He didn’t pitch in the minors at all yet. But Ike Davis owns him.

by wobatus on Oct 13, 2009 4:59 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

4/6 with 6 RBI's

And I know, 6 RBI’s really doesn’t meant that much
but 4/6!

"We're investigating the investigative procedure of the investigation of Tony Bernazard"---Omar Minaya (he really didn't say it but he would"

by firejerrynow on Oct 13, 2009 6:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

More Significantly

4/6 with 2 doubles and a HR :)

by Balagast on Oct 13, 2009 6:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

facing total scrubs

but that’s what you wanna see him do to the scrubs in that league. Nice opening day for Yitzhak.

by wobatus on Oct 13, 2009 6:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

How do we know they are all scrubs?

I realize that everyone on the team unleashed today, and they score 17 runs, but the AFL isn’t a scrub winter ball league. A lot of teams send their top prospects there.

Now I don’t personally have enough knowledge of the individual pitchers he hit against, but I would just assume they are scrubs off the bat. Perhaps they are, but its not like its common knowledge that they would be which the tone of that post kind of infers.

by Balagast on Oct 13, 2009 6:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I looked them up

Scrubs. The grand slam was off a first round draft pick, but his first “pro” inning, I think. The doubles were against non-descript guys with mediocre minor league numbers. But Ike has been raking all comers.

by wobatus on Oct 13, 2009 9:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Santos and Krebs

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=435045

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=459424

by wobatus on Oct 13, 2009 10:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Gameday said Santos threw hard

He threw some 96 mhp heaters to Ike, who caught him on an 86 mph changeup.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Oct 13, 2009 10:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

I know Santos can throw hard. Not great control though, and that minor league line is pretty abysmal, although both he and krebs get their share of Ks.

Not meaning to throw cold water on Ike. He has just kept performing, A, AA, World games and now this little opener in AFL. Huge season for him. he even made it to number 21 in the rotowire top 100.

BA’s IL top 20 just came out. Fernando 12, Niese 16. Fernando’s rank a little low to me. Behind Reid Brignac and Jake Arrieta. Austin jackson. Not the tool belt that jackson is but much more power. Much much more. Surprising his slugging at his age didn’t get him higher on that list.

by wobatus on Oct 14, 2009 12:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, I'm sure its come up over there

But I am no fan of Jax. I just don’t see a guy who strikes out 150 times a year and tops off at 10, maybe 15 homers most, as being a viable everyday outfielder unless his defense is Endy-like. But he’s consistently ranked pretty parallel to Fernando for a couple years now on a lot of these lists, and it always shocks me.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Oct 14, 2009 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ya I always seem to think Jackson gets overrated

His OBP this year wasn’t really anything to be singing praises over, especially when you consider he doesn’t really have any power.

by Balagast on Oct 14, 2009 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

And strikes out a ton

and had a BABIP over .400 most of the year, when his AVG was like .330. I think he sucks to be quite honest. He looks like a 4th outfielder to me.

"We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people."

by Evan_S on Oct 14, 2009 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

But he's a Yankee prospect

So he will always be good

by Balagast on Oct 14, 2009 11:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I edited the post to include his line

"We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people."

by Evan_S on Oct 13, 2009 6:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Pretty much all of them had good days

Duda: 2/5 with a double and a walk
Tejada 2/5 with a double (but 2 K’s)

Sadly no pitchers today.

by Balagast on Oct 13, 2009 6:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You all missed the important part

he hit it off a lefty

by Sam Page on Oct 13, 2009 7:41 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

lefty

Evan mentioned that. He seems to be improving in that area.

by wobatus on Oct 13, 2009 9:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

He definitely has as the year went on

If you compare his AA splits to his A+ splits you’ll see he was much better against lefty’s in the second part of the year. He was still much better against RHP’s in AA, but the difference wasn’t as significant as it was when he was in A+.

by Balagast on Oct 13, 2009 10:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Seeing that final line...

that is damn impressive.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 13, 2009 9:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

SURPRISE!

Sorry…sorry…

by The 'Ropolitans on Oct 13, 2009 9:43 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

what

by Sam Page on Oct 13, 2009 10:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

that's the team they're on.

they’re based in Surprise, Arizona.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 13, 2009 10:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh dear

by Sam Page on Oct 13, 2009 10:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I can just see the headlines.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 13, 2009 10:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If the NY Post was in Arizona...

SLAM SURPRISE

SMASHING SURPRISE

SURPRISE SURPRISE

…et cetera…

by The 'Ropolitans on Oct 13, 2009 11:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Scarsdale Surprise

That keeps popping in my head. The muscial about the Scarsdale diet doctor murder for which Kramer claims the Tony under false pretences and has to fire Raquel Welch in order to keep it, because she doesn’t move her arms when she dances. Remember?

by wobatus on Oct 15, 2009 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs