Deep(er) Drives: Chase Davis

Continuing the Deep(er) Drives series, we’re going to focus on one player who saw a meteoric rise this season.

Arizona star outfielder Chase Davis entered the 2023 season as a notable draft prospect. A top-50 pick was not out of the question due to a rounded toolbox, however, his offensive game was feast or famine. While Davis’s swing has always drawn favorable looks due to Carlos Gonzalez's parallels, his pre-2023 performance created uncertainty as to whether he could produce at a high level in the pros.

Exorbitant swing and miss rates against secondary pitches were the cause for concern. Davis’s approach has always been above average, working counts, selectively tailoring his attack against fastballs, and working a huge share of walks. Fast forward through 2023 and those strengths remain. Amazingly, the issues with secondary pitches have seemingly dissipated without any real adjustment to his approach rather mostly mechanical alterations to his setup and swing.

With that preface in mind, let’s give a full overview of Davis as a prospect and show comparisons from his 2022 and 2023 campaigns.

Swing mechanics

Davis has always excelled at elevating the baseball because of his bat path and ability to strike the lower half of the baseball. However, that is the main carryover from last year to this one.

In 2022, Davis’s setup and swing actually look pretty unrecognizable from where it stands now. Last year, he deployed a closed stance with his hands set just above his head compared to now where he sets up extremely wide and lowered his hands to roughly head level.

Davis’s 2022 stance and swing

In action, this has allowed Davis’s stride to create most of the potential energy and torque when he brings his front foot from the wide position to his swing launch, focusing most of the movement in his core and lower body. In the past, with his closed stance, Davis’s load involved upper body movement to try and create impact which caused his hands to move more wildly as he initiated his swing.

Davis’s 2023 stance and swing

Quiet hands typically allow for more precise swings and consistency in controlling the barrel. Which is exactly what we saw this year. Not only can that precision reduce swings and misses but increase contact quality. As with every player, there are still some lingering imperfections and there is still some hand waggle at times but the improvement has allowed Davis’s patience and premium raw power to play at elite levels.

The Results

Last year, Davis ran a 31% whiff rate—on the much higher end of the spectrum before overall production becomes hard to sustain. His zone whiff rate was 22%, also much higher than average for quality draft prospects.

This year his overall whiff rate dropped to 20% and his zone whiff rate was halved to 11%. Subsequently, his strikeout rate dropped from 22.8% to 14%. These contact rate improvements are shocking on a year-to-year basis and much of it has to deal with quieting the hands and creating a springier core-based load. Those contact rates are also in very positive territory where Davis can enter the pros without swing-and-miss concerns.

Digging deeper, Davis saw his breaking ball whiff rate drop from 50% down to just 25% and his offspeed whiff rate from 38% to 19%. As a prodigious fastball hitter coming into the year, Davis narrowly improved his whiff rate against heaters from 20% to 18%.

In terms of OPS, his overall OPS ballooned from .997 to 1.231. His OPS against fastballs jumped from 1.116 to 1.324, against offspeed from .958 to 1.510, and against breaking balls from .767 to .917.

Coming into the year, Davis deserved a below-average 40-grade hit tool. His approach was very sound with just a 19% chase rate but the swing-and-miss issues would have been prohibitive of even average on-base production. After remarkable improvements, I’d make the case that Davis’s hit tool grades out above average, if not even plus. He’s patient and now handles all pitch types well with above-average contact rates. Mix in the typical quality of his contact and proclivity to elevate the baseball and there will be walks and extra-base hits galore in Davis’s pro future.

Davis has always had double-plus raw power and these refinements to his bat will allow the mid-110s max EVs to play more frequently. This creates an extremely rare blend of power and contact that few players in college baseball can boast.

In the field

Obviously, Davis is a premier offensive talent in this year’s draft but his potential as a 5-tool player drives the hype of being taken in the top half of round one.

First, Davis can notch times slightly below 4.2 up the line, not burner speed but it’s at least average speed and Davis covers ground a little faster than that once accelerated. Davis has plenty of center field experience from his time on the Cape but has almost exclusively slotted in left field with Arizona.

Davis doesn’t look the part of a plus center fielder but he makes sound reads, gets quick jumps, and takes efficient routes, allowing him to maximize average speed and be a quality outfielder. The athletic profile isn’t a lot different from Tennessee’s Jordan Beck last year. Beck mostly played right field for the Vols but was fundamentally strong and a tick above average speed-wise. Now in the pros, Beck has played roughly a quarter of his games in center and I expect a similar path for Davis.

Unquestionably, Davis possesses plus arm strength and consistent accuracy. As a result, whoever drafts Davis will end up with a plus corner outfielder but they’ll likely juice out his potential to hang in center field where Davis could end up average.

Final thoughts

Frankly, Davis is a special talent and a now refined skillset to back it. The tangible improvements Davis made year-to-year should be viewed in their own light as evidence he can adapt and make adjustments as necessary, a capability that can make or break careers. Davis won’t hang on the board very long and it would not shock me if he turned into a top-10 underslot selection.