The A’s are designating corner infielder J.D. Davis for assignment, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN (X link). Oakland hasn’t announced the move, which will likely be made official tomorrow with the A’s off tonight. MLB.com’s Martín Gallegos reports (on X) that the A’s are recalling outfielder Lawrence Butler from Triple-A Las Vegas in what is presumably the corresponding move.
It’ll end a brief stint in Oakland. Davis landed with the A’s in somewhat controversial fashion. He and the Giants went to an arbitration hearing over the offseason. Davis won that hearing and was set for a $6.9MM salary. Arbitration salaries aren’t fully guaranteed until Opening Day unless the team and player agree to terms before the hearing, though. The Giants signed Matt Chapman a couple weeks into Spring Training. Rather than push Davis to the bench, the Giants released him to get out from under most of the salary.
San Francisco paid him 30 days termination pay, around $1.1MM, and sent him to the open market. Davis’ extremely late entry into the market didn’t do him any favors. He signed with the A’s on a $2.5MM free agent deal that contained an additional $1MM in possible incentives.
His run in green and gold didn’t go especially well. Davis lost a couple weeks to an adductor strain and appeared in 39 games. He hit .236/.304/.366 with four homers in 135 trips to the plate. That’s essentially league average production in a pitcher-friendly home park and a down overall run environment. Yet Davis needs to be an above-average hitter to provide much overall value. He’s a limited baserunner and defender who has spent the majority of his time at first base this season.
Davis has tallied 97 innings at the hot corner and logged 148 frames at first base. His defensive grades haven’t been great at either spot. While this year’s workload is an exceedingly small sample, that’s in line with Davis’ overall track record as a middling defensive third baseman.
Nevertheless, the Fullerton product has been a solid regular at points in his career. He was an above-average hitter each season from 2019-22, running a cumulative .276/.363/.457 slash in more than 1200 plate appearances between the Mets and Giants. Over that stretch, Davis walked at a strong 10.5% clip and showed above-average power to offset a 27.3% strikeout rate. He had a league average .248/.325/.413 line with 18 homers in a career-high 144 games in his final season with the Giants.
More to come.