Best Season from Eric Davis

Fans who remember watching the 1986 and 1987 seasons will remember the promise of Eric Davis. At the time people might have described him as another Willie Mays, except that he stole bases far more often than Mays ever did. Sadly, Eric dealt with a lot of injuries in his career, preventing him from playing full seasons and hurting his effectiveness when he did play. In 1994 he hit only .183 over 37 games for the Tigers, and at age 32 he looked done. He didn't play at all in 1995. The year off allowed him to recover a bit, and in 1996 he returned to the Reds and had a remarkable comeback year, hitting 26 homers and stealing 23 bases. He earned a 2 year contract with the Orioles and played very well (145 OPS+) when on the field, but his playing time was limited as he was found to have cancer, and played through chemotherapy sessions.

His 1987 season stands out as his best in the record books, and it was a great year, but that does not represent his best season. The season that people dreamed about from Eric Davis did happen, and over a full calendar year, but not a calendar year that coincides with the start and finish of a major league season.

His greatest year started in June 1986. He had struggled as a part time player, up and down from the minors, in 1984 and 1985. His beginning to 1986 looked like more of the same. After the first 2 months he was only hitting .200, with 4 homers and 12 RBI. From then on, he figured things out and was amazing for the rest of that year. Over the last 4 months, he hit .299 with a .400 OBP, bashed 23 homers, and stole bases at a 100 SB pace if he had done it over a full season, 66 steals in 75 tries.

In his autobiography, Eric gives a lot of credit to manager Pete Rose for helping his development. The book includes an all-time great quote about this, something to the effect of "Pete Rose was like a Yoda to me."

In the first 2 months of 1987, Eric was on an insane pace. He was hitting .346 with a .786 slugging percentage, 19 homers, 20 steals. He was making great catches, many of the HR-saving variety. A year later Jose Canseco became the first player to have a 40-40 season, but in May 1987 some of us wondered if Eric would not only beat him to it, but become the first 50-50 player.

Adding up the end of 1986 and the start of 1987 produces this season for Eric:

	Games	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS+
Stats	141	564	484	123	152	25	3	42	111	76	119	3	86	11	0.314	0.406	0.638	176

	rBAT	rBSR	rDP	rField	rPos	RAA	rREP	RAR	WAR
Value	52	14	2	8	1	77	19	96	9.6

This season only gives Eric 141 games played, and a similar amount of plate appearances to what he actually had in 1987. I calculated the rBat and OPS+ be creating a weighted average of the 1986-1987 batting environment. His baserunning runs are mostly based on his 86/97 base stealing, but also includes an extra run for non-SB baserunning. He actually grounded into 6 DP in both years, and comes out at a total of +1 runs there. The combined season of Davis has only 3 GIDP, so he gets an extra 3 * .44 runs, plus the half run per year he actually earned, for +2 runs. I used his actual 1987 defensive stats, since in 1986 he was playing more in left field. This is to his benefit in the value stats, but from observation +8 is a very conservative defensive run total for him. He comes out at negative runs for most of the other years, which may be plain wrong, or might also reflect the negative impacts of injuries. From late 1986 to early 1987 by observation nothing was holding him back defensively and I would expect, if a time machine brought back accurate statcast measurements, he would rate better than +8. If this year had actually happened within a single season, 9.6 WAR would have been the 4th best total of the 1980s, after seasons by Yount, Ripken, and Rickey Henderson.

Two plays stand out for me where Eric Davis redefined what I understood to be possible on a baseball field.

• In late 1983, Eric joined the Indianapolis Indians AAA team. He had played most of that year in AA. They were playing against my hometown team, the Louisville Redbirds. Davis had already had a good series, probably hit a few homers and stole a few bases. But at that point in my life, I had never seen a straight steal of home. Davis took a good lead off third but went nowhere. The catcher lobbed the ball back to the mound. Davis took off. The pitcher, in a panic, tried to throw the ball back but it was too late, Davis was safe.
• On June 25, 1987, the Reds were playing the Giants in San Francisco. The game was tied in the bottom of the 9th, there was one out and bases were loaded. Will Clark came up to bat. He hit what Retrosheet describes as a flyball to center field. I watched the game, my memory was it might have been more of a line drive. Unfortunately I can't find it on YouTube. Davis did not catch the ball on a fly. He must have been playing shallow, enough to allow him to throw Chris Brown out at the plate if he caught it on a fly, but it was not a 5 man infield situation. The game should have been over, but Davis raced in, scooped up the ball, and touched second before Robby Thompson could get there. Then he looked to throw to first for a double play, which if turned would have kept the game tied and sent them to extra innings. Unfortunately, Dave Parker, the first baseman, did not have the same imagination Davis did. He saw the ball go up the middle and started walking off the field.

This page was last modified 02/21/2022