Fielder or Davis?

[Yoda]

1. yes, Davis destroyed in the minors. obviously thats why flew through the minors and was playing big league ball last year. regardless, there is no need to argue Davis' future, thats something we'll just have to wait and see. we'll know if he capable of a 40 HR season after this year..

He is capable of 40 HR if he already did it. Clearly, even if he sucks for the rest of his career he is still capable of hitting 40 HR.

2. read my prevous posts and you will note that I said prince would fall off sharply after he is 30.. but thats still a ways a way.

No one knows when the decline will start. He might be fine well into his 40's. But given his weight issues and looking at his dad, it seems that the decline will start sooner than later.

Prince v. Cecil comparison

1. Cecil was never as good of a hitter as prince. way more strikeouts, worse avg./obp, not even close to as many doubles/extra base hits

Not sure what this has to do with anything. I don't think anyone is arguing this at all.

2. Cecil's 2 best seasons were when he was 27 and 28.. so if you are gonna say their career's will follow a similar path, then you've gotta believe the best is yet to come for prince.

Possibly but anything can happen so no one really knows when Prince will have peaked. He may already have.

3. Cecil really fell off in 95/96 when he was 32/33 years old... and this was following his injury in 94 when he was on pace to have one of his best power seasons.. he came back in '95 weighing way more than when he left in '94 and looking much worse.

Cecil's decline started the season after he put up 51 HRs at age 26.

4. mind you Cecil was only a .250-.260 hitter for most of his career so once the power started to tail off their really wasn't much left.. he was never the all-around hitter that his son is..

No one is arguing that Prince isn't the better hitter.

[Ender]

Fielder should be fine into his early 30s so I still think you have to go with him for now.

I'm not sure if I would bet on Fielder being fine into his 30s. Looking at his father, the decline started well before that.

He'll have to really work extra harder than most athletes to keep in shape.

Cecil Fielder hit 39 HR at age 32, so yeah if he ages like his dad he'll be fine into his early 30s just like I said...

[Yoda]

Fielder should be fine into his early 30s so I still think you have to go with him for now.

I'm not sure if I would bet on Fielder being fine into his 30s. Looking at his father, the decline started well before that.

He'll have to really work extra harder than most athletes to keep in shape.

Cecil Fielder hit 39 HR at age 32, so yeah if he ages like his dad he'll be fine into his early 30s just like I said...

Well if you only want to use HR as the basis of your argument then you are right.

Personally I don't think a DH/1B who can't run, field or do anything else while posting a 108+ OPS is fine but anyway.

[Ender]

We are talking fantasy baseball right? At age 32 he still put up 39 HR, 117 RBI. At 31 with a little missed time he put up 31 HR, 82 RBI. His drop off the cliff age was 33. If fielder drops off the cliff at 33 he still gets 8 good seasons out of him. So you are leveraging fielder only having 8-9 good seasons in him to the fact that we have no clue how good a hitter Chris Davis will be yet.

For this year I have to go with Fielder. If Davis comes out and hits 35+ HR this year and keeps his AVG over .250(I have my doubts) then next year the answer might be different. Gotta see him do it at least once first before I'm worried about 9 years from now.

[lastingsgriller]

the fact the prince is a much better all around hitter says a great deal about the fact that he will most likely last longer than his dad. better hitters simply last longer than swing for the fences only power hitters like Cecil.

cecil followed his '90 51 HR season with an equally as good season the next year. he had 44 HR and and more RBI in '91. there was no fall off that year.

those two were definetely his most dominant years.. but then following that he was no slouch in '92 and '93. he was still an all-star level player.

in '94 he was having easily one of his best seasons of his career before suffering a season ending injury after 104 games. there had been no serious decline in his game up until this point.

it was from the time he got injured in '94 until spring training in '95 when he became out of shape and less of a baseball player. he still hit 31HR in in '95 but was clearly doing noting but swing for the fences and did so with a .243 avg..

the decline in Cecil's career can clearly be pinpointed back to the injury in '94.

so if you want to say cecil ate his way out of baseball so be it, but I think he did it after you think he did and I think there were extenuating circumstances surrounding it..

[lastingsgriller]

Cecil Fielder hit 39 HR at age 32, so yeah if he ages like his dad he'll be fine into his early 30s just like I said...

i'm sorry.. even though this statement helps my point I have to point out that this did not happen. when cecil was 32 he hit 31 HR and was not a very good baseball player. he had the fewest extra base hits in his career since 1990 and batted .243. he was pretty much a liability that happend to hit the ball over the fence every now and again..

[Ender]

Those are his age 31 stats and it was in only 136 games. his 32 year old stats are 39 HR, 117 RBI, .252 AVG and .834 OPS which was higher than his career OPS. Fielder was never a great hitter, he just hit a lot of HRs.

[Yoda]

For the record, there is no question about Fielder over Davis right now. That could change depending on what Davis does.

Cecil's decline started after his 51 HR season. The following year he maintained his production somewhat but the decline had already begun.

[lastingsgriller]

Those are his age 31 stats and it was in only 136 games. his 32 year old stats are 39 HR, 117 RBI, .252 AVG and .834 OPS which was higher than his career OPS. Fielder was never a great hitter, he just hit a lot of HRs.

ok.. the age he is can get confusing, especially since his birthday was during the season..

in '94 he turned 31 during the season. that was the season he got hurt after 104 games. had 28 HR adn 90 RBI up until that point. playing very well. (note: this was also the strike year)

in '95 (turned 32 during the season) he came back fat and immobile and batted .243 with 31 HR and only 18 doubles and missed many games due to nagging leg injuries.

in '96 (turning 33 during the season) he made somewhat of a comeback numbers wise, but still was not a very good player. had a solid first 100 games with detroit and there were able to sell high to the yankees (did hit 39 total HR that year) but was way overweight and pretty bad at baseball.

[fezzik]

For the record, there is no question about Fielder over Davis right now. That could change depending on what Davis does.

Cecil's decline started after his 51 HR season. The following year he maintained his production somewhat but the decline had already begun.

You guys seem to be pretty much in agreement and only arguing over specifics, but I don't think it's fair to say C. Fielder's decline began after his 51 HR season. He had a career year and it happened to be his first productive season. So while you are technically correct that his numbers declined from that point, it wasn't a steady decline. It just seemed like he regressed back to something more normal (his BABIP in his 51 HR season was markedly higher than any others where he saw significant ABs). He just started hitting 30+ HRs and batting .250-.260...and actually saw an improvement in his K/BB ratio.

You could argue the same for many players. If Quentin never has quite the year he did last year, but instead hits 30HR and bats .270 for the rest of his career...would you say his decline began after his 2008 season? I don't think that would be fair, although using the strictest definition of the word "decline" you would be correct.