One of the more surprising trades the Mets made this off-season was for J.D. Davis who the Mets gave up Luis Santana and Ross Adolph. Then the Mets turned around and signed Jed Lowrie. Plus, there’s TJ Rivera in camp looking to get people to remember why were excited about him. All of this is to say, there’s a lot working against JD right now.
2018: 113 PA, 103 BA, 1 HR, .175/.248/.223, -0.7 WAR, 68 DRC+
Career: .194/.260/.321/72 DRC+
Career: Minors: .292/.362/.521
His numbers in the minors are phenomenal, he just hasn’t had enough time and consistent time in the majors. But even if he gets, that can he reach these numbers?
(Citations: Baseball Prospectus (BP) projections are from the Baseball Prospectus annual which can you can get here. It’s highly recommended. ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )
For a player like JD, looking a ZiPS might be our best bet since ZiPS doesn’t try to figure out playing time. a .297 OBP would be a significant improvement over his career numbers and the OPS of .700, which is right around average, is 100 points better than his career also.
Even before the Lowerie signing, JD Davis was projected as a major league bat off the bench, that’s it. Now he just provides another level of depth for a club that had so little depth in the infield the last couple of years that they ran d’Arnaud out once to play third base.
