I warned you.
Repeatedly.
In the 2014 Fantasy Alarm Draft Guide our cover story was an extensive Player Profile on Chris Davis that pointed out, in crazy detail, why Davis would fail to repeat his 2013 effort, and why the fantasy universe was wildly over-drafting the slugger. Can't say I expected him to be as bad as he was in 2014, but the fact is that my prediction for across the board reduction in performance was born out in painful detail for those that didn't listen to my advice. Where does that horrific effort leave Chris Davis for 2015 - is he worth going back to since he represents a nice bargain after such a horrible season, or is he someone to just stay away from?
THE MINORS
2006: Drafted by the Rangers in the 5th round.
2008: Ranked as the 65th best prospect in baseball by Baseball America and 74th by Baseball Prospectus.
TOTALS: .315/.375/.594 with 125 homers, 427 RBIs, 350 runs and 16 SBs in 502 games.
THE MAJORS
2008: He hit 17 homers with 55 RBIs, 51 runs scored and batted .285 over 80 games for the Rangers.
2009: Appeared in 113 games with 21 big flies, 59 RBIs, 48 runs scored an a .238 batting average.
2010: Spent time with the Rangers and Orioles appearing in 45 games. He hit a sickly .192 with a homer and four RBIs over 120 at-bats. A lost season.
2011: Saw the field 59 times hitting five homers with a .707 OPS over 199 at-bats.
2012: Finally, it happened. Davis hit .270 with 33 homers, 85 RBIs and 75 runs scored over 139 games.
2013: Exploded all over pitchers for one of the best power seasons of the 21st century. Davis hit a career best .286. He socked 53 homers and drove in 138 runners. He also scored 103 times and had a 1.004 OPS.
2014: Oh no. Awful. Davis saw action in 127 games hitting .196 with 26 homers, 72 RBIs and 65 runs scored. He was also suspended 25 games for drug use (for more information see below). 
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REVIEW OF THE 2014 SEASON
I get bashed all the time for taking a stand on a player that isn't popular. In 2013 I warned of a potential pullback with Mike Trout. I was wrong. It didn't happen in 2013 it happened in 2014. Last season I warned about Chris Davis and his pullback. People balked, just as they are with my Jose Abreu call this season (see his Player Profile). Was I right about Davis? The answer to that is I was 100 percent right. Here are some quotes from the 2014 Fantasy Alarm Draft Guide that I penned last season.
*** Quotes in italics are from the 2014 Draft Guide. My current comments are in bold.
(1) "... you should be very leery of building your fantasy squad around Davis who is a flawed fantasy player."
Don't need to say anything here.
(2) "Davis' HR/F was a league leading 29.6 percent. That's a huge number that no one in baseball has matched since Ryan Howard in 2008 when he posted a mark of 31.8 percent. That should cause you some pause. From 2009-13, a span of five years, no one in baseball who qualified for the batting title was able to match Davis' HR/F ratio... What if Davis sees his HR/F rate drop to 25.3 percent? That would still be the second best mark of his career. What if instead of being a 37 percent fly ball guy, like he was from 2010-12, he reverts to a 40 percent mark"
Davis saw his HR/F ratio recede to 22.6 percent in 2014. His career mark is 22.5.
(3) "Each season from 2010 to 2012 Davis had a fly ball rate under 38 percent. To reiterate, 3-straight years under 38 percent. In 2013 that number swelled to 45.7 percent."
The number regressed to 40.9 percent in 2014. His career mark is 41.1.
(4) "In 2013 he hit 40 homers in 367 at-bats against righties (13 in 217 at-bats versus lefties). Come on now. That's a homer every 9.2 at-bats against righties in 2013. For his career that mark is one every 15 at-bats."
In 2014 he hit 17 homers against righties in 301 at-bats. That's a homer every 17.7 at-bats.
(5) "Davis had a .343 batting average with 1.192 OPS with runners in scoring position in 2013. Davis had a .362 average and 1.259 OPS with RISP and two outs in 2013. You've been huffing some serious paint if you think it's reasonable for Davis to replicate any one of those four numbers in 2013"
Here are the numbers Davis posted in 2014.
RISP: .237/.361/.474 a .835 OPS
RISP 2 outs: .226/.359/.340 with a .699 OPS
(6) "Davis hit .315 in the first half. He hit .245 in the second half... He batted .252 over the last four months."
Well, we know what happened don't we? If we remove the first half of 2013 Davis has hit .244 for his career.
(7) "There were 13 men in baseball who struck out at least 150 times in 2013. Other than Davis, do you know how many of them batted .270? The answer is zero, not a one."
Davis struck out 173 times and hit .196.
Now let us move on to previewing the 2015 season for Davis.
THE SKILLS
It all went to pot for Davis in 2014. What does it mean for his 2015 outlook?
AVERAGE
The last three seasons - and those are his only full seasons at the big league level - Davis has hit .270, .286 and .196. Overall he hit .254 the last three years against the league average of .259. Davis isn't a .286 hitter or a .196 bat. Split the effort the last two seasons and we're at .241. His career mark is .253 by the way.
It's more complicated than this, but it's also pretty evident what happened last year if we look at Davis' BABIP. Here are the marks of the career .320 man the last four seasons: .366, .335, .336 and .242. So he must have hit fewer line drives then in 2014, right? Wrong. Davis had a 24.6 percent line drive rate in 2014, the 16th best mark in baseball.
So Davis must have been impatient then?. Nope. His 11.4 percent walk rate (BB/PA) was the best of his career.
So Davis must have struck out more? Yep. He struck out more for sure. Davis owns a 31 percent career K-rate (K/PA) and that mark was 33.0 percent last season as he struck out 173 times in 127 games. That's just horrible.
What about the role of defensive positioning with Davis. Yeah, he's one of those guys that faces "the shift" as teams know he is all about pulling the ball. Here's what he told Rock Kubatko "I remember when Texas came in, I hit something like three or four balls on a line in the four hole, which is right over the first baseman's right shoulder. These are balls that most of the time are going to be singles, if not doubles, and the second baseman caught them at his chest on a line." So will he bunt in 2015 to beat the shift? "If it's a one-run game, I'm probably not going to lay one down, but there are situations where unselfishly it's probably the best thing to do. It's definitely a weapon I can use against other teams."
To sum it up...
Davis is a career .253 hitter who has batted at least .266 in three of the last four seasons. There are no obvious reasons to suggest that he couldn't reach his career level in 2015, even with all the strikeouts.
HOMERS
(1) Davis hit 26 homers last season.
(2) Davis has hit at least 26 homers the past three seasons.
(3) Davis has averaged 37 homers the past three seasons.
(4) Davis has hit 112 homers the past three seasons. Only one man has hit more, Miguel Cabrera with 113.
You would be wise to recognize the above with Davis. He's one of the best power hitting options in the game. The problem, as I wrote about before last season began, is/was the expectations game. Davis was never going to hit 53 homers again, ever. Seeing the number cut in half in 2014 was a bit surprising though, I will admit that. Still, a three year average of 37 homers is pretty impressive is it not? Giancarlo Stanton hit 37 homers in 2015 by the way.
Davis had a 0.84 GB/FB ratio last year.
His career mark is 0.87.
Davis had a 40.9 percent fly ball ratio last year.
His career mark is 41.1 percent.
Davis had a 22.6 percent HR/F ratio last year.
His career mark is 22.5 percent.
HE WAS THE SAME GUY LAST YEAR HE HAD ALWAYS BEEN. It's just that you were expecting him to lead the league in homers again.
Furthermore, he only played in 127 games last season. We'll get to why that happened in a second. But if he had kept up the pace he post last season in let's say 150 games, know how many homers he would have hit? How about 31. Remember back to 2012 when he hit 33?
Expectations.
RUN PRODUCTION
Here are the runs scored and RBI marks of Davis the last three years.
* PAs = plate appearances
2012: Run every 7.5 PAs, RBI every 6.6 PAs
2013: Run every 6.5 PAs, RBI every 4.9 PAs
2014: Run every 8.1 PAs, RBI every 7.3 PAs
Now his career marks:
A run every 7.6 plate appearances.
An RBI 6.6 every plate appearances.
Compare those two sets of numbers to his '12 and '14 efforts. Dead on right?
DRUG USE
I'm so sick of all the PED talk in baseball. Just overflowing with it are we. But here's what you need to know about what the dealio is with Davis and drug use.
Davis was suspended for 25 games last season for Adderall use.
What is Adderall? It's a prescription drug, an amphetamine, that is used to treat ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
Davis had a prescription for the drug in the past.
He was denied an exemption to use the drug in 2013.
He was denied an exemption to use the drug in 2014.
It's unclear why Davis was denied in 2013 and 2014.
He tested positive twice for the drug in 2014 resulting in a 25 game suspension.
A third suspension for drug use would result in an 80 game.
Davis has received an exception to take Vyvanse in 2015.
Vyvanse is less likely to be abused for non-therapeutic reasons.
“The problem with the stimulant ADHD medications is that they can be used as a performance enhancer and they also can have therapeutic uses,” said Dr. Gary Green, who is baseball's medical director. “Every drug-testing program in the world has to have a therapeutic-use exemption policy in order to allow people with a legitimate need for taking the medication to be able to take it.”
Davis is eligible to play right off the hop, and he should be fine for the 2015 season, though the potential for an 80 game suspension is a wee bit unnerving.
PLAYING TIME CONSIDERATIONS
With the return of Manny Machado, Davis will return to man the first base position. Does he qualify at third base or just first base this season in your fantasy league? That's a question you must explore. It comes down to whether your league requires games started or games played to be eligible at a position. In 2014 Davis appeared in 21 games at third base but he only started 19 games there. The traditional rule is 20 games played... but you need to be aware if it's games played or started in your league. The added flexibility would certainly boost Davis' outlook a tad.
CONCLUSION
Davis has as legit a shot as any man in the game to hit 30 big flies in the coming season if he can simply maintain his health. The ever increasing strikeout rate is a concern, but in addition to seeing his homer total improve in 2014 it's also an extremely likely outcome to think that Davis will be closer to his career batting average (.253) than his number from last season (.196) when the 2015 campaign is complete. In those leagues where Davis does indeed qualify at first and third base, there's no quantifiable reason why anyone should be leery of rostering Davis, even if he never gets back to his 2013 levels. Heck, even if he's only first base eligible this is still one of the elite power bats in the game.
10 team lg: With no speed and a potentially poor batting average, I'm not at all confident in anyone making an argument that he deserves to be starting at first base in this format.
12 team lg: I'm also not in love with starting Davis in this format, but as a corner infield option you are picking up a ton of power and likely run production.
15 team lg: No we're talking about a spot in which Davis can start at first base. His power outlook is so seriously intriguing that targeting Davis in this format as your starter at first base, given the draft day cost, isn't at all a bad idea.
AL-only: Of the 11 men who hit at least 30 homers last season six played in the AL, and of the 26 that hit at least 25 homers 16 appeared in the AL. Davis is at least those fellas equal. Toss in first and third eligibility raises the outlook of Davis significantly.