28
2011
Ike Davis: A Natural Born Leader
An article by 
“I don’t think I’ve seen a guy, pound for pound, with more pop than he’s got…It’s just a matter of him getting his reps in, seeing the league a couple times, and getting comfortable. He showed me enough last year to impress me. He’s very slick at first, a well-rounded ballplayer. If he connects, the ball will hit the Grand Canyon.” ~ Chipper Jones
When a future Hall of Famer like Chipper Jones, says something like that about any young player, you must take note of it. Guys like Chipper don’t regularly throw compliments like that around, especially for players on a division rival like the Mets. It speaks volumes.
Ike Davis was one of the few surprises in an otherwise forgettable season in 2010. He had a good, but very inconsistent rookie season that might have been great if it weren’t for a horrendous two-month slump that wreaked havoc on his overall numbers. He started last season off with a bang hitting .324 in April, and finished with a bang hitting .330 in September. It was what happened in between that worried me about Ike; May .235, June .264, July .214, August .250.
The one thing that gives me hope was that by the time the season ended, it looked like Ike Davis had started to figure things out. He saved his best month for last as his .427 OBP, .527 SLG and .954 OPS can attest. Another thing to note about his final month of the season was that his strikeout rate was the lowest of the season striking out in 20% of his at-bats rather than an appalling 30% in previous months.
Ike Davis is a throwback to when players like George Brett and Keith Hernandez patrolled the diamonds. He’s as intense a players as they were, and always demands more of himself as a player. Guys like this have a need to want to be better.
Bill Madden of the Daily News caught up with Ike Davis on Sunday, and some of the things Ike had to say show just how focused he is on improving his overall approach offensively. While commenting on his play in yesterday’s game, Davis said:
“I felt like I did okay. But at the same time, I’d like to play better than I did. It’s not easy hitting home runs in our stadium and I’m not going to think about that. I see myself as a guy who can hit at least 20 homers. But I need to concentrate on hitting for a higher average and being more consistent, with a better approach. In particular, I want to be a better two-strike hitter.”
I mentioned Hernandez and Brett earlier because during their primes they were both lethal two strike hitters – a quality I always admire in a ballplayer. I remember how they would choke up and shorten their swing and exploit what was supposed to be a pitcher’s count into their favor.
One of the things Davis is working on this spring is shortening his swing, which he hopes will result in more hits if not home runs.
“The idea,” he said, “is to have better at-bats … put the ball in play more … put some pressure on the other team. Ground balls have a tendency to go through where fly balls get caught.”
He speaks more like a seasoned and savvy veteran than a sophomore who’s trying to avoid a second year slump. Even last season, rumors abounded that it was he who was vocally frustrated that some Mets players had given up late last season. For years we have been waiting for David Wright to take on a strong and vocal leadership role with the Mets, but it hasn’t really materialized. But with Ike Davis, you saw a player who demanded excellence from himself as well as his teammates. There is no quit in this kid, and he may eventually become the on-field and clubhouse leader this team has needed for the better part of a decade. I guess it’s true what they say, leaders are born, not made.
I expect a great season from Ike in 2011. My guess is that he will hit about 25 homeruns, but I’d also look for about 35-40 doubles as well. He should easily top 100 RBI’s if the rest of the team remains healthy and do what they’re capable of.
While it’s very fashionable to rail against Omar Minaya these days, Ike Davis is one of many young and solid Mets players I will remember him most for. The old core players of Wright, Beltran and Reyes are now in their final season together with no rings on their fingers to show for it.
Davis is now part of the new core of players that includes guys like Josh Thole, Bobby Parnell, Jon Niese and Mike Pelfrey. And unlike the former core, this one has a natural born leader in its midst. The Ike-Man Cometh.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 23 | 18 | .561 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 19 | .548 | 0.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 22 | .476 | 3.5 |
| Mets | 16 | 23 | .410 | 6.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 31 | .262 | 12.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
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I’ve watched Ike this year and his swing seems more compact. That’s all to the good. It may help him cut down on his strikeouts.
Last year, the word was out that Ike’s intensity was matched by his stubbornness. Maybe this year he’ll be more relaxed and not resistant to Keith’s advice.
Thanks for the comment Des. Did I miss something regarding Ike and Keith’s advice? I don’t recall reading or hearing something like that until you mentioned it.
Joe, I’m on an emergency repair job at my house so I’m not following every post. Sorry I overlooked yours. My response follows.
I live out of town in the boonies, so I get a lot of my info on MMO and by Ronnie, Gary and Keith on MLB during the Mets games. In the summer of 2010, Keith raised the issue of Ike’s stubbornness after commenting on some of his work with Daniel Murphy at 1B. As I recall, Gary mostly was mum on the issue and Keith did not directly compare the defensive baseball talents of Murphy and Davis. It was about attitude.
Ronnie picked up on Keith’s on-air comments and during the following week, he and Keith went back and forth several times regarding the attitude and resistance to advice by Ike. Both were somewhat circumspect and kept going to the edge without going over it. As Mete employees, both Keith and Ronnie chose their words carefully. I think I mentioned it as an MMO post at that time.
Some MMO folks don’t think the dialog happened but we can’t go back to the tapes. So I did a quick search of some forums to determine if other fans remembered it. Here is a sampling of what’s out on the net. I have chosen not to identify the individual sites but a Google search and an hour or two will surface the evidence. (Sorry to all who get bored by long posts, but I don’t know how to make it shorter.) All of these are taken verbatim.
Rep Power
So apparently Keith Hernandez called Ike Davis a “know-it-all” during the game yesterday. Hernandez claimed that Ike does not take advice. Haha…
JERRY
What is the story with Ike Davis. He doesnt want to go to winter ball and during the season Keith Hernandez said he was hard to talk to and wants to do things his way at hitting. Is he a Prima Donna ? Maybe because his father was a major league player he feels he is elite.
Tolerance
Not that long ago, on-air, Keith Hernandez repeatedly called him stubborn for refusing to change his ways at the plate.
Here’s another issue that both Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez have repeatedly mentioned about his bad attitude when he strikes out looking. They say that attitude will quickly make umps dislike him and not give him close calls.
joedabum
Youth can be stubborn.
Hernandez mentioned on air that he has a lot of motion in his swing before the actual swing: taking the hands back, lifting up, etc.
Whatever. It’s his triggering mechanism.
And he’s going to stick to it until it really betrays him.
As was said by either Darling or Wayne H. on air, he got off to a great start, the league adjusted to him, and now it’s his turn to adjust to the adjustments.
Time will tell. So far, don’t think he’s made the adjustment.
Maybe he’ll ponder things over the winter.
JERRY
What is the story with Ike Davis. He doesnt want to go to winter ball and during the season Keith Hernandez said he was hard to talk to and wants to do things his way at hitting. Is he a Prima Donna? Maybe because his father was a major league player he feels he is elite.
Lucky
Hey Ike! Although your hand hitch doesn’t deter you from getting them up in time to trigger, your balance is significantly flawed as a result and draws your weight toward the proverbial bucket. Hence pitchers will consistently zone in on the outer half of the plate knowing you cannot cover it.
Keith Hernandez said it best. A pitch on the inside half is right down broadway to this kid. If Ike thinks his exploits earlier in the season will eventually return on a regular basis without change on his part,he is sadly mistaken. Major league pitchers learn and adjust. Successful major league hitters hold serve and counter. While it will be near impossible for Ike to ‘ditch the hitch’,he can change his stance and weight distribution,allowing him to escape the ‘bucket’ and cover the outer half of the plate. Of course doing so will inevitably result in pitchers busting him inside. That is when Ike must be quick and turn.
Des I’m going to back you up on the essence of the on air banter but I think you may have interpreted it a bit differently than I did and maybe the context was not quite as emphatic as your suggesting.
Yes they said similar things and your quote about the called third strikes was DEAD ON! They claimed he looked like he was trying to show up the Umps and a rookie will only get called out more when you do that I believe was the point they were trying to make. A rookie will never get away showing attitude like that to an umpire…
On that situation you were dead on!
As for the batting help. they were talking about more than just Ike, Bay was included in that conversation and you may have attributed some of what they said about Bay to Ike. Bay refused to take any help from Hernandez around the same time and the reason was because so many people were giving him advice that he would then try, it only messed up his approach at the plate even more. Even Wright made some comment about that recently.
Ike was resistant to change his style because thats what got him there. The issue was the Hitch we talked about endlessly here.
I don’t remember Keith saying he tried to help Ike, his mention of being stubborn was not related to something keith tried to do but instead seemed to be talking about something Hojo had said to him.
But I could be wrong. I don’t think attitude was the main discussion of the batting issue it wasn’t really the focus until the called third strikes were the problem. In that case the attitude was the topic, in the other it was merely his reluctance to get rid of his hitch. He was not comfortable with it.
Last year is Last year, Ike will have to work out his issues this year. He WILL have another slump because every player has at least one or two a season.
How long it lasts is the key to how successful his approach is.
With a new batting coach we will see how pliable Ike is this year.
Keith spoke of both fielding and hitting at various times. Ronnie, as I remember it, was less emphatic. Gary was a witness.
Regarding emphasis, I gave verbatim quotes. Most of the views were not mine, but rather what others said. They were offered to sample a variety of viewpoints within the hour or two I spent on the search. I had several more but chose not to post them because I felt they were inflammatory and not directly pertinent. Ike’s father, Ron, came in for his share of strong criticism to say the least, but the connection to Ike was tenuous so I didn’t send it along.
He’s getting Ike confused with Daniel Murphy.
Joe, I was a tad astounded that u chose Brett & Mex as your compares; however during my many tilts with my NYY fan cousin this offseason I’ve personally come to the realization Davis is a hybrid Straw/Mex similarities to Staws’ innaugral season(based only on actuals) is astonishing while we ALL see the defensive similarity to Mex NB these freshman season production #s”
STRAW IKE EQUALIZED @ 523AB EACH INCR STRAW # TO multiplier of 1.245238:
G 122 147
AB 420 523 523
R 63 73 78
H 108 138 134
TB 215 230 268
2B 15 33 19
3B 7 1 9
HR 26 19 32
RBI 74 71 92
BB 47 72 58
K 128 138 159
AVG .257 .264 .319 RECALCULATED BASED ON INCR BH & AB
OBP .336 .351
SLG .512 .440
OPS .848 .791
Joe I don’t know about u; but this certainly suprised my newly opened eyes, once u equalize them mathematically Straw certainly outperforms(but I’m reluctant to count on anything produced on paper only) raw # similarities are obvious & promising.
He seems more like an Olerud if you ask me.
Only better glove than him
Des has a habit of mentioning a lot of things that we don’t read or hear about anywhere else. But as he’s stated before it doesn’t matter if these things are true or not or actually happened, it’s just the thought that counts.
Who is the ‘we’, kimosabe? If Bayonne doesn’t read it, it doesn’t exist. Is that what your point is? Pathetic.
Why did you answer me before Joe D?
Just answer Joe D’s question, ok?
You gonna bring this inconsequential thing up that is of no interest to anyone except yourself….again. Something that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the team, the roster, the organization, decisions made or not made, baseball or anything else, WOW.
I don’t want to get into any message board fights, but i do remember the exchanges that Des speaks of. I remember thinking that keith had a sour grapes type of attitude towards it since fans love Ike and were looking toward keith as a comparable on the defensive side of things at least.
I’m glad to hear he’s making imporvements like all ball players should. But I’m not ready to give up on my “old core” guys of Wright and Reyes. Put me square in the camp that this club should have already locked up the left side of its infield for years to come. And Ike can be a keystone on the other side!
Des may not have given a word by word quote but those TOPICS were talked about on air I can vouch for that!
Read my post above.
Very good article. Ike Davis is a thinking player who will continue to develop because his mind will supplement and control his physical attributes and capabilities. He should be a key corenerstone of the future Mets team. We need more like him to bring this team back to competitiveness. Hopefully, he will pick up the slack and become the recognized leader of the team in future yers. With Ike at 1B, I can put some real belief into saying LGM!
leaders are not necessary in baseball. its not like basketball or football where everyone is involved in plays together.
Tell that to the Phillies!
You mean the team that shored up the best pitching staff in the league? The team that signed a 40 HR guy to long term deal?
Ya, they all love each other and the only bad guy in that club house was the emrcanery Werth. Uh-huh. Isn’t everybody happy when they are winning?
Yeah the team that suffered almost as many injuries as we did yet managed to keep winning despite it because they had Rollins motivating them and getting the lesser player to play like Phillies as opposed to the triple A team they came from!
About Ike – you could see when he first showed up the fact that he comes from a baseball family – both his Dad and his Grandfather played. In fact his Dad pitched for the Yankees at one time. I was very glad to see him here – he can only make this team better in so many ways.
It should be noted that his slump coincided with the entire team slumping and when Beltran and Wright came back to hitting so did Ike.
His only big mistake was taking too many called third strikes where he should be fouling off unhittable pitches that are close enough to call a strike and hope to force the pitcher into a mistake pitch.
other than that I can find no real problems with what Ike did last season.
When everyone around you is hitting mendoza your not going to get anything to hit and once they have two strikes, you can’t sit there and try to draw the walk. You have to get aggressive and foul off pitches. Otherwise some Stevie Wonder in Black suit will punch you out on a borderline pitch!
Ike’s skill set aside, as much as Chipper has been an absolute Met killer throughout his career I’ve had nothing but respect and admiration for him because he does his talking with his bat and not with his mouth like some other guys do. He deserves a standing O from Mets fans his last game in NY.
How about we give him a Golden Rasberry!