Leonard Davis has been named the Carolina League's player of the week. Some of you know who he is and some of you might never have heard of him besides in passing mention. So below is a little profile on the guy for the benefit of those on the board. I am posting for the people that don't know him (and those that maybe know very little about him) in the hopes that it will provide for some better informed discussion in the forum.
To start off, he was drafted by the Expos back in 2004 in the 8th round as part of the Bill Bray/Colin Ballester/Ian Desmond draft. He was taken out of Fresno CC (California). He is currently 24 and while he does not have the biggest frame, listed at 5'10 and 195 lbs, he can find some power and as of a late he has become more of a contact hitter. His numbers have steadily improved each year that he has been in our farm system and this year he is having a break out minor league year at Potomac as the third baseman (one of the reasons not many people have heard of him). He was an midseason all-star in the New York Penn league in 2005 and then again last year with Hagerstown in the Sally league.
Looking at his stats the improvement becomes obvious. One of the better ways to judge a player is by the RC27 stat (runs created per 27 atbats) and Davis, this year, has an RC27 of 9.57 (this is one of the tops in all of Single A baseball). While he had a rough time adjusting to Potomac last year, he is batting a whopping .342 with and OBP of .417. Strikeout s used to be a huge concern with Davis (he was about 1 to 4 on the BB:SO ratio), he has lowered his strikeouts this year and is three walks away from reaching a career high (the ratio is now down to 1:2). If you in to HRs and RBIs, Davis can produce them. He is on track to finish the season with 30 doubles, 25 HRs, and 70 RBIs (all of which would be career highs). He has also managed to find some speed on the basepaths with 7 SBs (also 1 away from a career high).
If the numbers dont mean much to you flat out, here is a little comparison to other players in the league. Davis is currently in the top 20 in the Carolina league in hits. He is the top 10 runs and total bases, tied in this category with touted prospect Matt Wieters of the Orioles with 126. He is 2nd in the league in HRs, 4th in the league in on base percentage, and third in the league for batting average. Additionally he is currently the league leader in Slugging Percentage (.624), with the next best hitter 60 points behind him. It is totally within the realm of possibility that Davis is only a good minor league player, but the opposite is true in that he may turn out to be a good MAJOR league player, only time will tell. One thing is for sure, though, we have a prospect on our hands that we did not originally intend to turn out this well. As for being named the Carolina league's player of the week, here is the release courtesy of miLB:
Carolina League
Leonard Davis, Potomac
.526 (10-19), 7 R, 2 2B, 0 3B, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 BB, 3 SO, 0 SB, .947 SLG
It isn't a wonder that Davis is hitting .342 on the year when he is having weeks like this at the plate. Davis was by far the hardest out in the P-Nats lineup this past week, as he hit .526 in 19 at-bats. The former eighth round pick of the Montreal Expos recorded at least one hit in each of the past six games, while adding four RBIs and two home runs, bringing his totals up for the season to 13 and 35, respectively. Davis' biggest game of the week came Saturday in Potomac's 6-2 win over Frederick in which he went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and a home run.
