Orioles first baseman Chris Davis has lost his role as a regular, at least for now, Joe Trezza of MLB.com writes. Manager Brandon Hyde said he’ll “continue to pick my spots” when it comes to playing Davis, who’s nearing the conclusion of a second straight horrific campaign and the end of the fourth season of a seven-year, $161MM contract. The rebuilding Orioles are aiming to give more at-bats to young players and a possibly returning Mark Trumbo than Davis, owner of a .179/.270/.312 line in 300 plate appearances this season. Notably, the 33-year-old Davis got into a dugout altercation with Hyde on Aug. 7, and has started just five games since. But Hyde complimented Davis on Thursday, saying that “he’s been a pro the entire way — 100% pro. He understands. He’s been in the dugout supporting our guys. He’s been real great in the clubhouse and he’s handled this situation really well.”
More from the AL…
- After re-signing with the Yankees on a two-year, $34MM contract last winter, left-hander J.A. Happ has trudged through a rough season. The Athletics pummeled the 36-year-old on Wednesday over four innings, scoring five runs on four hits (including two homers) and a pair of walks. Factoring in that performance, Happ has pitched to a sky-high 5.58 ERA/5.69 FIP over 129 innings this season. “I haven’t struggled like this in a while,” Happ admitted after the Oakland loss, though he and manager Aaron Boone expressed hope the hurler will be able to right the ship this season (via Ken Davidoff of the New York Post). Even though Happ has been undependable, the World Series-contending Yankees have no choice but to run him out there, as they’re lacking better alternatives, Davidoff observes. Happ’s woes are among the reasons New York appears set to enter the playoffs with an iffy-looking rotation.
- Angels righty Keynan Middleton is nearing a return to their bullpen, Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Middleton hasn’t pitched in the majors since May 2018, when he underwent Tommy John surgery, and has dealt with multiple setbacks during his recovery process. Just last month, mild ulnar neuritis forced Middleton to temporarily shut down his rehab. When healthy from 2017-18, Middleton looked like a potential building block for the Halos’ bullpen. The hard-throwing 24-year-old owns a 3.43 ERA/4.24 FIP with 9.36 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 in 76 major league innings.
- Meanwhile, injured Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons could rejoin the club for its weekend series in Houston, though he’s not a lock to be activated then, Torres reports. A left ankle sprain and a bone bruise have prevented Simmons from playing since Aug. 2. He also missed a little over a month earlier this season with a sprain in that ankle, but the nature of the injury isn’t the same this time. While Simmons was durable from 2017-18 – arguably the two best offensive seasons of the defensive master’s career – his production at the plate has gone backward during this injury-plagued year. Simmons will try to improve on the .274/.315/.382 line he has put up across 305 PA when he returns.
Yanks starting pitching has been unbelievably atrocious. We let Corbin go.. and Kuechel. We will do well in playoffs. But next year has to be Gerrit Cole and Zack Wheeler. No questions asked. Got it Brian??
This is the team that Hal built…you go cheap and you’ll get cheap rewards…if not for the hitting the Yankees would be behind Boston. Come playoff time…it will be one and done! The World Series will be in LA and Houston this October!
You have no idea where the World Series is going to be in October or when the Yankees will go home. Astros have their own injury questions and the dodgers pen has been looking a little shaky. Let’s see who the wild card teams are since we don’t even know who they’ll be facing off against. What if the yanks play the twin round one (who have the same pitching concerns and they’ve taken 2 series against)? Then all the sudden your changing your story to they’ll win 1 and go home. I’ve seen much crazier things than 1 team getting hot at the right time and another getting cold at the wrong time. Let’s see how the playoffs fall before we crown a winner who might not even be one of these 3 teams…
It’ll be the Astros who are one and done, they are one dumb, selfish baseball team!
“they are one dumb, selfish baseball team!” Stop embarrassing Yankees fans by posting garbage like this!
Hal made a business decision to not go over the Lux Tax and dictated that Cashman stick to it.
Every pitcher or player that he might have gone after that he didn’t/couldn’t was way, way overvalued by the rest of the league or the team that controlled him to a ridiculous degree. A good example was the kid in Detroit…..promoted by the Tigers to be a mix of Verlander/Cole so how do you make a trade with a team like that. Another good example was Corbin….roll the dice and figure he’ll be worth it or gamble and pay huge money and hope he isn’t another Paxton so far. Remember Hindsight is easy to predict!
These are tough decisions and VALUE of players around the league and by competing teams have thrown all way out of wack. Not defending the Yankee ownership, just trying to point out the tough decisions governed by payroll.
So far the Yankees have put a pretty good product out there for all there faults have one of the best record in baseball. Hold on because in the playoffs, each team starts at 0-0.
Is that a serious statement… if not for hitting they would be behind the Red Sox? That’s like saying without his offense Kobe would have been a mediocre Laker. Or without their offense the Greatest show on turf would have never won a super bowl. The red Sox won this last year with an iffy rotation. The yanks have a few pieces that if they can pitch at least a little in the playoffs this offense will carry them. Remember in sports there are two sides. Being great on one side can offset being “iffy” on the other.
You can’t let go of what you never had.
Seriously. Yankee fans and their sense of entitlement never goes away… even only being able to eek out 1 (Arod PED fueled) title in the last 20 years.
vs 3 PED Ortiz fueled titles for the Red Sox.
Lol. Ok pal. Put down the crack.
Almost forgot about his tainted running mate Manny!
Another Yankee hater spews his hate! Go in another room and let the grownups talk please!
Not to mention the current Sox team with Chavis and Wright is on their way to not even making the playoffs. But yes let’s talk about the Yankees and steroids like they were the only offenders…
They were/are the BIGGEST offenders.
Seriously, Yankee haters never stop whining and crying
Explain how they are the biggest offender? Who in the team right now has failed a PED test? Because I just gave you 2 examples on Boston and that not even taking account they signed Jennry Maija this off season. So idk how you say Boston is any less of an offender than NY. I’m not saying the Yankees are innocent here but it’s a little crazy you think they are worse than the rest of the league. And please don’t bother replying with your speculation of this guy and that guy MUST be doing it… if you don’t have proof you have no clue. And we could guess about several guys on every team.
It was never proved, not even close, with Ortiz, so you need to realize Ortiz isn’t why the Redsox won it was pitching!
Ortiz did fail a test actually. It was the mlb was looking to see if they need to test more so he wasn’t suspended for it but it was proved. I also never said that’s why the Sox won, I said it’s as much why they won as any Yankee team.
Agreed. Yankees need some star pitching. Still can’t believe they didn’t try for Keuchel
That tight wad Steinbrenner is to blame! I guess a 300 million dollar profit last year isn’t enough!! Sell Yankees fans don’t want you!!
I’m guessing davis contract looks worst then pujols contract?
Yes
Side-by-side. Yes. At least Pujols isn’t a negative WAR player. However, I feel the Angels would be closer to playoff contention if they weren’t saddled by that contract and playing him everyday. It’s a sunk cost.
And Sonny Gray is Killing en the Reds
With an awsome era and a good
Record screwyou cashman and I am a Yankke fan but they, have being disrespectful with Gray
Sonny Gray’s current pitching coach in Cincinnati was his coach at Vanderbilt. He corrected his mechanical flaws and Gray looks more like the pitcher he was with the Athletics.
@julio1221
How were the Yanks or Cashman disrespectful towards Gray? Cashman acquired him hoping for him to be the same productive pitcher he was in Oakland. Can’t fault Cashman for that.
And to @scjohn92
I don’t think mechanics had anything to do with it. He pitched well on the road and was horrible at home. I doubt he changed his mechanics depending upon where the game was played.
It certainly wasn’t Cashman’s fault that Gray couldn’t handle pitching in NY. He is definitely better off with a smaller market team.
Get the feeling the Orioles are going to lose someone big that they have to package with Chris Davis. Wonder if teams will want Rutschman to relieve them of that contract.
Yeah Rutschman is not getting packaged w Davis. They’ll eat the money eventually. Should be soon. Don’t see him making it very long next year if not when trumbo gets activated.
No one is going to take back Davis contract no matter what. Not only is it the $ but he’s basically as bad as putting a random guy off the street in your lineup. Even if the ate 90% of the $ and included a prospect to ‘sweeten the deal’ I think they’d have a really hard time moving him.
90% and last years number 1 pick would get it done.
Of course it would for the team taking the contract. But the orioles would never NEVER move their best prospect to save 10 million bucks. That’s flies in the face of everything they are trying to do right now.
What motivation do the Orioles have in trading Davis while giving up a prospect? A rebuilding team like the Orioles should be looking to take on bad contracts with good prospects attached not give them away. They aren’t going to contend in the next 3 years, they have practicality no money on the books and still not a great system, kind of middle of the pack, they can afford to sit Davis, heck they could afford a couple of those types of contracts.
^ This. The Orioles should be looking to pick up contracts like Pujols and Cabrera with prospects attached. Not only that if they really wanted Davis off the team they could just release him. It would be the same as trading him anyways. Either way, they are paying all the money.
Highly doubt any team would willingly eat $80-100 million dollars for prospects. The prospects a team would have to give up for the other team to consider that is ridiculous.That’d take a gut job. Eating 100 million dollars isn’t a small ask. The orioles certainly would never do that. Don’t believe you’ll ever see another deal with that much bad cash going in one direction.
There is no scenario possible that the O’s trade this year’s #1 pick, or find a taker for Davis, regardless of how much of his ABSURD contract they pay. Not one, doofus. Unfortunately for fans and Rutschman the Orioles are stuck with both.
Yea no way in hell they give up Rutschman. When you are in a rebuild, you don’t give up your #1 pick lol. They know they aren’t winning anytime soon so they are content with sitting Davis and he understands the direction the team is going and knows he is struggling and that the best option for him is to come off the bench and let younger plsyers get more chances
They’d just keep him over moving a big prospect just to rid themselves of the money. Rutschman was just rated # 8 overall be BA. they aren’t going to give him away just to save money.
@Brave in nebraska
I think that’s the worst thing a rebuilding team could possibly do. Eat the Davis contract and keep your #1 pick.
Wheeler will be in New York next year….. Just in a Mets uniform. Here likes it there and they will extend him. Sonny Gray just didn’t like being in New York….some players just can’t play in New York. Chris Davis’ career is likely over after this year unless someone takes a flyer on him in the off-season…. I don’t know if he’ll get many offers as a free agent.
Chris Davis is under contract for three more years. Trumbo is the free agent.
Another team will throw more money at Wheeler than the Mets will be willing to give him, on top of the fact that I don’t see him having much leverage with them as they have a very strong rotation going into next season regardless of whether or not Wheeler is back.
Wheeler will be hit with the Qualifying offer and would probably be better off extending or accepting that offer the way the free agent market has gone over the last couple of years.
In all seriousness how is Chris Davis this bad? Like he was once a star – or at least close to it. I don’t really remember a player of his caliber just totally falling off the face of the earth like this in recent memory. I mean guys fall off and wind up in the minors or retired, etc all the time I guess but I mean really this guy can’t hit at all and just a few years ago was hitting 50 HRs. The only thing to me that really can explain a complete drop off like this is that his eye sight has gone… really quickly and badly… otherwise you would think he could at least hit like .220 with SOME power… this is just astonishing – in a bad way – I mean nothing against the guy personally but he is historically terrible at this point. But really – if anyone knows/has a theory as to a legitimate root cause of the issues I’d be interested to hear it. It just seems unfathomable that he could go from what he was to, quite possibly the worst player in all of baseball. Obviously if not for the $ he’d be long gone by now but even so — I just don’t get how he can actually be ‘this’ bad!?
One thing that always pops in my mind is that he is unable to hit the high heat. Teams have figured that out and have pitched him accordingly. Im sure thats just one of many reasons though. Yips, loss of motivation after inking the big contract, who knows.
Ryan Howard…. last one I remember just falling off a cliff like that. Not nearly as bad as Crush. But close
Roids
Dan Uggla fell off the table like this too. Dude was a beast and then nothing. Turned out to be his eyes.
Ryan Howard comes to mind. Teams no longer like to spend on slow, three outcome players (HR-K-BB) with terrible defense. Davis’ batspeed is gone and he’s chasing out of the zone too much. Sadly, Miguel Cabrera isn’t much different but he’s not trying to hit dingers every at-bat.
Pitchers have found his weakness and he hasn’t been able to make the proper adjustments. And I’m sure his confidence is gone as well.
It’s time the Yankees trade some of those prized prospects for Kershaw… Bird and Frazier should get er done.
-Yankee Homer-
LA would have to throw in Bellinger, Buehler and cash.
Prospects? This is Bird’s 4th ML season, or was until he was transferred to the 60 Day DL. I’m sure the Dodgers are itching to replace Max Muncy with him. Clint Frazier, also not a prospect. “Hey Dodgers, here’s some stuff you don’t need. Can richest team in baseball have your generational great for it please?”
He was being facetious. Besides, no one can swap major leaguers till the offseason so i dont know why youre even running hypotheticals
Somebody missed the joke.
Somebody has spent too much time on this website to ever give a post purportedly by a Yankee fan the benefit of the doubt.
The self-described “Yankee homer” should’ve been a clue. Sarcasm is a lost are.
Why is Clint Frazier not a prospect? Do you have info that nobody else knows about….Oh, forgot your pipeline directly into the Yankee/Scranton coaches room.
@OntariGro
Did you feel that gust of wind over your head? He was joking.
Davis lost his role
..dang at 23 kill a season I was expecting more..haha
If the Astros lockdown home field for the playoffs it’s gonna be a quicker series ending for the Yankees. The Yankees predominantly right handed lineup works good in Yankee stadium, but facing Houston’s Verlander-Cole on the road twice spells the Yanks doom. Everyone sees how facing good right handed pitching is their kripotonite, and let’s not get into into that rotation. God I wish these things weren’t so. Patrick, and Charlie we would of loved to get to know you..oh well.
@PopeMarley
There really isn’t a significant split RH vs LH for the Yanks. .821 OPS vs RH pitching and a .856 OPS vs LH.
I said versus Cole and Verlander on the road…hence good RH pitching.
at this point i dont see why they play Davis at all. he holds a 40 man and 25 man spot regardless, just send him home and accept youve already punted a roster spot.
With that shift Davis sees every time he walks up to the plate, he should learn to bunt. He’d be a legitimate .300 hitter. It’s obvious he can no longer hit home runs, just try to get on base somehow for the next guy.
Davis should retire and the Orioles should donate all the money they owe Davis to charity.
the genius cashman will continue to screw the pooch with his inability and really unwillingness to pay the price for quality starting pitchers. so in cash’s world of never taking any risks and not making deals that are not so obviously in his favor, we sign a 36 year old to a 3 year 17 mil per year deal (unless he cuts bait next year), instead of signing a 29 year old to a 6 year 23 mil a year contract b/c he doesn’t want to pay a pitcher in his mid 30’s 23 mil a year???
btw I’ll bet anyone here if teh genius is still around in 4 years Boston wins another WS before we do and he signs an aging #4/5 pitcher to at least 20 mil a year to solidify an overrated the rotation
so lets review and haters need to stop denying fact and making excuses for this false genius.
Scherzer- too pricey
sale- we are not ready to part with prospects
Verlander- too pricey and risky
Cole- they asked for equal value and cash can’t make a deal that isn’t guaranteed not to be in his favor
Corbin- Happless and the fat man are all we need b/c we face toronto and baltimore 36 times a year,
How about this year’s trade deadline??
Stop praising this guy
How dare you second guess Cash Ninja.
@geeson this is not in defense of Cash but the way you look at things is very one-sided.
You trade for Verlander, Cole, Sale then there is no Judge, Severino, Torres, Andujar or Sanchez. Why? Because in all of those trades those were the prospects being asked for. And not just 1. They wanted multiples. as they should.
It made perfect sense to resign Happ. He was very successful last year and I don’t think anyone would suggest they knew he would fall off of a cliff this year. People want to kill him for the result of Gray and Happ but that’s hindsight. Both were above average pitchers when they were acquired..
Saying Cashman has failed to piece together a good rotation over the years would be somewhat fair to say. Saying he isn’t a good GM considering all the great position players he’s acquired via the farm, trades and FA wouldn’t be fair at all. And again, he acquired a bunch of good pitchers that have struggled to perform in NY. No way can or should we assume that a guy like Cole would blossom from a 4 ERA in Pittsburgh to a true #1 in NY as opposed to Houston. Not all things are equal. Maybe having Verlander as a mentor is what made him as successful as he is today.
bully- you are my point. What I presented is fact and not one sided.
I would have given up andujar in a NY minute for cole- why? because pitching costs a lot and good pitching beats good hitting nearly every time. when you ar echeap- you get Happless, you get a well over the hill CC, a sonny gray, a javier vazquez, a lance lynn, etc….
Here is more fact- forget about the homegrown prospects many of whom i love individually. They have won nothing. Houston and Boston have traded prospects and guess what? they have had parades. sorry not everyone is the core 4. sometimes you need to deal them.
Cash- won’t make a deal unless he has 90% chance of winning it or can spin it as we came out ahead.
How is it the reds can get bauer? years ago KC got cueto, houston got verlander and then cole????? b/c they took a chance. in a year where we are poised to ascend the mountain- who did the genius get?
lastly- you never recognize that he has more resources everywhere than any other team.
Its just time to go- since 04- the sox have 4 rings, the giants 3, houston 1 and working on another. even KC has one.
I can’t say this enough – winning matters- he has failed. so, next man up.
If you believe not signing Corbin was good idea I feel sorry for you.
Patrick Corbin
10-5 A
3.17 Era A+
innings 162 A+
K’s 184 A+
Nuff said. Yankees leaving bad tastes in fans now.
Not rocky bengi and bully. Maybe they are right and we win the WS. I’d be happily shocked and apologetic, but am so pessimistic with this staff and guys who don’t hit in the clutch….