During last night’s SNY telecast of the Mets game, Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez were talking about the progress Ike Davis has made with Triple-A Las Vegas. Mind you, this was before he struck out three times in an 0-for-5 night against Fresno, but Keith still didn’t seem impressed with what Davis had done since getting demoted.
Although he’s walked a lot more (16 BBs in 67 ABs) in Vegas than he had in the major leagues (19 BBs in 186 ABs), Hernandez pointed out the left-handed slugger is still striking out a lot. We all know how often he struck out in Flushing, but he’s also racked up 17 Ks in 19 games played for the 51s.
Davis made a lot of noise with back-to-back two-homer games on June 20th and 21st. It seemed as if a promotion back to the bigs was imminent, but it never came. Since that big two-day span, Davis has cooled off at the plate. In his last eight games, he’s hitting .179 (5-for-28) with five walks and eight strikeouts. Of those five hits, two are doubles and one is a homer, but he hasn’t gone deep since June 24th.
Despite this recent rough patch, is Davis ready to be promoted? I thought he was last week, but that was also on the heels of his home run stampede. Now that he’s come back down to Earth and Josh Satin has been hitting well (.395/.511/.553 in 38 ABs), he might be waiting that much longer to get back to the big leagues.
This seems like a delicate situation because I would assume there are some in the organization who still think Ike can be the first baseman of the future for New York, but he’s going to have to earn his keep, just like Ruben Tejada will have to do in Vegas. When it comes to Davis and Tejada, the situations are similar, and should be handled that way.
Omar Quintanilla has done an admirable job at shortstop, and if Tejada wants to get back to the majors, he’ll have to show he’s capable of doing so. The job won’t simply be handed back to him, especially since it’s been a pleasure to watch Q hold down the position in the meantime.
Before Ike can be re-called from Triple-A, he’ll have to show sustained success with the 51s. He got hot a couple weeks ago, but that hot streak didn’t last very long. Even once he does do that, Satin shouldn’t be sent back to the minor leagues, at least not with the way he’s been hitting of late.
If the first baseman thought getting promoted and regaining his starting spot would be reasonably easy, he was sorely mistaken. Satin has taken advantage of the opportunity he’s been given, and in turn is making life a little harder on Davis.
Now that the calendar has turned to July, I think Ike should stay in Triple-A until the MLB All-Star break. Once that date comes, the organization should the re-assess his performance to see if he’s worthy of a promotion or not. Either way, we’re getting a good look at Ike’s internal makeup while he tries to work his way back to Flushing.
I agree – I think they have to wait and see how consistent his improvement is before they decide to bring him back.
Ike needs to break it down and start over. Or at least acknowledge that his approach when he came up might have been more effective than trying to jack every ball out of the park. And a little humility before the umps wouldn´t hurt his career either.
I´d love it if Ike could turn it around quickly for 2 reasons: 1)- he could again become part of the discussion about future core of the Mets; or 2)- he could improve his trade value to bring something good back as part of a package (Miami/CO??). But the Mets can´t afford to hand an everyday job to a guy who can´t get off the interstate.
I agree with both of you guys. At this point, I would like for him to build up some trade value so we can get something in return for him. He hasn’t proven himself reliable over the last couple years…more so this year.
Is it at all possible that Valley Fever continues to affect his play. If there’s any energy drain that would explain the lazy swing, the inability to adjust to pitches out of the zone. If there’s the slightest bit of a hit to hand/eye coordination, it would also explain how awful he’s been with anything not over the plate.
It may have just been frustration, but the guy’s facial expressions and body language just looked off. There was almost a glaze in his eyes.
I have no idea. Really just asking more than anything. It would explain a lot.
I don’t think the Mets, or their network are doing Ike any favors by breaking down his numbers on a daily basis. Leave him down there, let him get a solid amount of PA’s, and then see where he’s at.
Satin has come in and earned his job at 1st base. He knows the strike zone. He takes walks when they don’t give him anything to hit, works the count and hits well with two strikes! He’s hitting doubles and has an OBP over .500!!!! Ike lost his job! The only way Ike should get a chance again is if satin starts struggling for a long time. I think Duda should get a platoon spot at 1st if satin struggles before Ike does too! I don’t want to see Duda in the outfield ever again! EY has been the spark plug we needed so leave him out there the rest of the year with lagares and Byrd. It’s nice having real defensive outfielders out there saving us runs! When u play good defense u don’t need to score as many runs. Who knew? Haha Puello should get a shot out there in September or maybe earlier if we trade Byrd. Duda and Ike should be part of a trade. There’s not room here for both of them and I think in the end they will both be platoon players for their careers. Probably in the american league! Sorry for rambling! Kinda lost topic there! Hahaha
I really feel that Ike has put some unwanted pressure on himself to succeed. What I mean is that the Mets really didn’t have a shot this year of being successful, Ike came off a solid second half of 2012, seemed to have an ok spring and then didn’t come out of the box strong. He did finish April with 4 Hr’s, but only 14 hits in 85 at bats, then of course the media in NY can be brutal, but I actually think he does need more time to get back to what he was doing when his bat was hot. He needs to feel comfortable, and I think that a decision shouldn’t be based on the fact that he had back to back two homer games, I think if he can have a string of multiple hit games, and spray the ball around the field a bit, that may warrant a promotion or even a battle with Satin at First base. From what I have seen so far from Satin, he has no pressure on his back and he is just playing baseball. Maybe Ike needs to get back to that way of thinking, but I can understand that once you have a taste of success in the majors, its very hard to change your approach and make adjustments to help your slide. Just hope he finds what is wrong and corrects it.