J.D. Davis should be the Mets Opening Day Left Fielder. While he might not be a good defensive outfielder his bat needs to be in the lineup.
Davis had a breakout year with the Mets in 2019. He hit .307 with 22 home runs and 57 RBIs in 140 games.
Davis was originally acquired by the Mets in a trade with the Houston Astros in January of 2019. The Mets sent prospects Luis Santana, Scott Manea, and Ross Adolph to Houston in the trade. Santana and Adolph are members of the Astros’ top 30 prospects as rated by MLB.com. That made this trade originally very interesting because of Davis’ limited playing time in Houston during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
In Houston, Davis played in 66 games and hit .194 with 5 home runs and 12 RBIs in 165 at-bats. Davis struggled to find playing time as Alex Bregman had established himself as Houston’s starting third basemen.
It made sense for Houston to trade him, but at the time the Mets seemed like they overpaid for Davis.
Davis seemingly proved his doubters wrong in his first season with the Mets. The Mets gave him playing time and because of that, he proved he could hit at the MLB level. Now the Mets just need to figure out where to play him.
Despite his position being listed as third base the Mets mostly used him in the outfield. The other option for Davis is that he plays third base, and Jeff McNeil plays Left Field.
His position does not matter, but having Davis’s bat in the lineup will be a huge boost to the Mets in 2020.
Baseball-Reference is predicting that Davis will hit .276 with 19 home runs and 52 RBIs in 2020. If he can provide that level of production in 2020 his bat needs to be in the lineup.
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