And now for the entry that was supposed to appear yesterday…

Been getting a lot of good e-mails from you guys lately. I just want to say thanks. Sometimes when I’m doing this, I forget there are folks out there actually reading what I write. It’s quite gratifying to know that some people find what I’m doing to be worthwhile. Thanks again.

Speaking of e-mails, I received one from a fellow Padre fan out in New Jersey, of all places. Subversion at work. Infiltrate the areas where one will be least suspected. Move quietly but swiftly and with force. Dominate the world. It will happen. Oh yes, it will happen.

Anyway, this fellow — we’ll call him John, because that happens to be his name — was asking me what I thought of Ben Davis’ chances in Seattle. Specifically he was curious to see a three-year statistical projection for him. I started out with generalities, noting that I’ve been touting Davis as another Mike Lieberthal for many years, and pointing to his shortened stroke and improved plate discipline as cause for hope for future growth. I also pointed out that at least some of his second half swoon in 2001 may have been a result of overwork, as only seven players caught more innings in the big leagues last year. Davis, as you may know, is a pretty lanky kid who tends to lose a lot of weight over the course of a season. Long story short, I said I was generally pleased with Davis’ performance in his first full season and cautiously optimistic that he would show slow but steady improvement in the years to come.

As to the specifics, i.e., the three-year projection, well, I’ve given up on trying to approach this sort of thing from a scientific point of view. It’s just a little too much like practicing voodoo without really believing in it. I now rely on a less sophisticated method which is much easier to calculate and dismiss as rubbish when the numbers don’t bear fruit. It’s called WAG, which is an acronym for Wild-Assed Guess; I basically look at a guy’s batting record, try to note any significant trends, tool around Baseball-Reference.com to see how similar players developed, and make my best guess. It’s far from perfect, but it’s cheap and easy, and it’s what I do.

So, with that rather long-winded and perhaps not entirely satisfactory explanation out of the way, here is what I came up with for Davis:

Yr Age  AB   H 2B 3B HR BB  SO  BA OBP SLG
02  25 280  71 15  0  8 37  76 254 341 393
03  26 450 118 22  1 15 62 111 262 352 416
04  27 480 123 24  0 21 66 115 256 346 438

I’m guessing that Davis will split time with incumbent Dan Wilson this year, then take over full-time in 2003. I’m also leaning a bit on the conservative side with these numbers. I still believe he’s got maybe a 10-15% chance of exploding and turning into Todd Hundley, and about the same chance of stagnating and turning into, well, Dan Wilson. But most likely, he’ll end up somewhere in between, alongside such luminaries as Lieberthal, Charles Johnson, and Eddie Taubensee with an arm. Not a superstar but a solid contributor and potential occasional All-Star.