SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — J.D. Davis hopes to contribute to several winning streaks for the San Francisco Giants this season. But first, the right-handed hitting third baseman is thrilled that he ended one.
Davis beat the Giants in a salary arbitration hearing on Thursday. A three-person panel listened to arguments before choosing his $6.9 million filing figure instead of the team’s $6.55 million offer. The narrow gap between the two figures amounted to a rounding error for the Giants, who have committed roughly $140 million to player salaries this season. The $350,000 difference isn’t exactly life-changing for Davis, either. His career earnings will approach $18 million when the year is through. If not for the Giants’ relatively recent adoption of a rigid “file and trial” policy, in which all negotiations cease once an arbitration process reaches the filing stage, then the five-hour hearing wouldn’t have been necessary at all. Davis sheepishly admitted he would have taken the Giants’ number if they had offered it before the Jan. 12 filing deadline or had been willing to negotiate anytime thereafter.
But the hearing was instructive. The victory was symbolic. And it was a little bit historic, too. The Giants hadn’t lost an arbitration hearing since 2004, when their impasse with newly acquired catcher A.J. Pierzynski couldn’t be resolved before an arbitration panel decided it.
Davis had heard all about how stressful and destructive the arbitration process can be for players, how it can be demeaning to hear your employer criticize your performance and diminish your value, how it’s a personal affront to be told all the reasons why you aren’t worth what you believe you are worth. Maybe he’s wired a bit differently. But he didn’t take it that way.
In fact, he enjoyed the sport of it.
“I was ready for it,” Davis said, smiling. “I’d just watched five seasons of ‘Suits.’ It played out just like the TV show.”
J.D. Davis says he learned more about how his defense is evaluated during the arbitration hearing. (John Hefti / USA Today)
Everyone was suited up for the proceedings at the Hyatt Regency Resort at Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale, including Davis, who had to make a trip to the dry cleaners and remember how to knot a necktie. For all the ways the hearing resembled a courtroom drama, it also felt like watching a grueling, five-set tennis match — replete with back-and-forth action and swerves in momentum.
“Just the energy of it,” said Davis, whose previous arbitration hearing with the Mets after the 2020 season was held on a Zoom call because of COVID-19 provisions. “Hearing the rebuttals and opening statements, hearing people’s side and dissecting it, and seeing my guys, my agent and lawyer, how they choreographed it and organized everything and how on the spot and deliberate they were, and how they executed it and got the win, it was pretty cool.”
Tim Clarke, partner and general counsel for ALIGND Sports Agency, was lead presenter for Davis, flanked by Matt and Brian Hannaford. The Giants were represented by Jose Bonilla, the Giants’ director of international operations and baseball administration. It came as a surprise when Davis entered the chamber and shook hands with a club employee whom he’d never met before. That was by design. Farhan Zaidi, the Giants’ president of baseball operations, keeps himself mostly detached from the arbitration process. To better maintain bonhomie, the Giants prefer their presenter to be a front-office executive who doesn’t interface with players or spend time in the clubhouse.
The Giants’ two-decade winning streak in arbitration wasn’t a matter of racking up victories in the hearing room. It was more a function of their success in coming to terms with players. In fact, they’d gone to trial just one other time since the Pierzynski hearing, when they beat infielder Donovan Solano before the 2021 season. They avoided arbitration with their other three eligible players this offseason, reaching agreements with second baseman Thairo Estrada ($4.7 million), right-hander Tyler Rogers ($1.53 million) and first baseman LaMonte Wade, Jr. ($3.5 million). They’ve made it to the doorstep of the chamber several other times, most notably in 2010 with Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum before hammering out a two-year contract as the hearing was minutes from starting.
But “file and trial” has become the industry standard. And Zaidi favors the policy.
“In a perfect world we settle all our cases and don’t wind up in a hearing room and by and large we’ve achieved that, but once in a while it happens,” Zaidi said via text message. “Having a ‘file to go’ policy probably narrows the range of filing numbers and that’s a bit of a silver lining with J.D.’s experience going to hearing that there wasn’t a huge spread. The policy is meant as a hearing deterrent and is overall pretty effective. At the same time, when you have a small spread, it seems illogical not to just split the difference and call it a day. But obviously that would undermine the entire policy.”
Said Davis: “I don’t want to be a distraction but … we could have gotten a deal done without a hearing. We tried to reach out, but they were strict about it. Deep down I’m thinking we didn’t need to go. But it’s part of the business.”
As a result, Davis got to hear all the ways he wasn’t worth $6.9 million. Just before the proceedings, his representatives reminded him what MLB Players Association officials had advised him: Greet the arbitrators. Shake their hands. Shake the hand of the opposing lawyer. Sit down. Take everything with a grain of salt. Don’t show any emotion. Don’t smile. Don’t shake your head. Don’t do anything. Just listen and try your best to be Mount Rushmore for five hours.
“There’s a lot of things that I knew were going to be said and what kind of evidence they were going to bring and what points that they were going to make against me,” Davis said. “So it was like water over a rock. A lot of people get emotional because they’re hearing it from their organization, from their employer, and that can strike a nerve. But having gone through it that first time around (with the Mets), I saw it more as what I need to work on and what questions to ask.”
Davis will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. He is gearing up for what he hopes will be a platform season. So he considered the information he gleaned from the hearing to be almost as valuable as the $350,000 spread. He took note of what metrics the club used to critique his value on the field. He spent time thinking about the components that go into Defensive Runs Saved and how teams evaluate baserunning.
“You can sit there and stew on it or you can learn,” Davis said. “I can come in here this spring and ask the coaches, ask Farhan, ‘How do I get better at this?’ Because it’s information on a tee. You can be shortsighted and emotional about it. But they’re giving you the answers for what you need to work on.”
Davis agreed with the suggestion that players of his generation might be less likely to be insulted by the proceedings than they once were. Players nowadays are exposed to so much data and objective analysis even before signing their first pro contract. They understand better than ever how their value will be quantified.
Asked what advice he would give a first-year arbitration-eligible player about boosting their value, Davis pondered the question for a moment before delivering a three-pronged answer.
“Take the extra 90 feet whenever you can,” he said. “Hustle out of the box. Stretch a double. Or stretch a double to a triple. Beat out the infield singles. Those types of plays are kind of a cheat code. I’m not saying go crazy, but play hard and that’ll get you paid a little more.
“Then there’s the defensive part. The formula for DRS can be tricky, but whatever position you play, work on your range and how many hits you can take away. For me last season, a lot of that had to do with pre-pitch routine and positioning. That’s all it was. I got my pre-pitch in order and my footwork cleaned up tremendously.
“And I was surprised that a lot of (the hearing) had to do with execution in the clutch, batting average in run-producing opportunities. The money lies in the RBIs. So if you hammer those three, you’ll be in a good position.”
What do you know? This is an industry that still values the good ol’ RBI.
Any way you evaluate it, Davis’ 2023 season was a tale of two halves. He was arguably an All-Star snub after posting a 119 OPS+ in the first half while ranking among the NL’s top defensive third basemen. But a sprained right ankle June 14 stopped his momentum and he cratered (76 OPS+) along with the rest of the lineup after the All-Star break. He batted .185 with four home runs and 51 strikeouts in 146 at-bats over a 43-game span from July 14 to Sept. 4 before beginning to pick it up again.
“The arbitration process really educated me on how to define my season,” Davis said. “I’m a tough critic on myself, but when you break it down in arbitration, it wasn’t the entire second half that I was truly in a slump. There were 32 to 35 games when I played like s—. I own that. I’ll be accountable for that. I was also reminded that I got out of the slump and was having better at-bats.”
But Davis’ second-half struggles were acute enough to make the 30-year-old less than a lock to be the Giants’ opening-day third baseman this season. The club continues to evaluate alternatives and has been linked to Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman, a free-agent holdout, for the better part of the offseason. The Chapman rumors grew so loud in December that Giants manager Bob Melvin, an unabashed Chapman fan from their time together in Oakland, dialed up Davis to assuage any anxiety that he might be feeling.
Melvin’s message, as Davis relayed it: “Hey, I know you’re probably hearing these rumors, but we’ve got other areas of needs and other positions that we need to work on, too. And you know, I believe in you and you’ve been a pain in my butt playing against you for the last couple of years. You’ve gotten the best of us when I was with the Padres. I’m very much confident in you and very much leaning on you as a third baseman.”
Melvin also mentioned to Davis that nothing is guaranteed in this game and the front office is always looking for ways to improve the roster. So he advised Davis to feel good about the strides he’s made and try not to worry about things he cannot control.
“I really appreciated that phone call,” Davis said. “I know there’s been a lot of rumors. But with the year I had last year, coming off an injury, to produce and prove to myself that I can play third base, whatever team it comes for, I’ll be fine. “And if I’m still on the team and Matt Chapman signs with the team, well, we’re back to college and I’m trying to beat his butt every day catching more ground balls.”
Yes, it would be déjà vu if Davis finds himself yielding a place to Chapman on the infield. That’s what happened when they played together at Cal State, Fullerton. Davis only played third base on his summer league team. For the Titans, he was a designated hitter and first baseman. And that’d be a difficult role to squeeze Davis into this season now that the Giants are poised to announce their three-year, $42 million agreement with Jorge Soler to serve as a right-handed DH. It’ll be tough as it is for Melvin to find everyday at-bats for another right-handed hitting infielder, Wilmer Flores, who was the Giants’ top offensive player last season. So if the Giants sign Chapman, it would appear to make Davis a trade candidate.
Davis said his first choice is to stay with the Giants and be a stabilizing presence to a team that will feature plenty of youth on the roster. But if his future happens to be somewhere else, he said he would maintain his best Mount Rushmore impression. He’s seen enough in this game to understand it’s a business.
For now, he’s happy to celebrate a victory that came six weeks before Opening Day. And although the arbitration hearing focused on him, he was happiest to win for his buttoned-up teammates.
“I finally got to see my agents in their element and for them to win was the cherry on top,” said Davis, who lost his Zoom hearing with the Mets three years ago. “You could see their enthusiasm and how much it mattered to them. They didn’t cut corners. They owned it. I’ve stuck it out with them since 2012 and this was like completing the circle. I’d never gotten to see how they actually negotiate. I was blown away. Like, ‘Holy s—, these guys are badass.’
“It was just like ‘Suits.’”
(Top photo of J.D. Davis after a home run: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)
