Pirates A-Z: With help from Roy Halladay, Austin Davis put focus on preparation

During the offseason, the Tribune-Review will offer Pirates A to Z, an alphabetical player-by-player look at the 40-man roster, from outfielder Anthony Alford to pitcher Trevor Williams. (The only MLB player with a surname that starts with Z is Detroit Tigers pitcher Jordan Zimmerman).

Austin Davis

Position: Relief pitcher

Throws: Left

Age: 27

Height: 6-foot-4

Weight: 225 pounds

2020 MLB statistics: 0-0, 10.80 ERA/1.950 WHIP in 6 2/3 innings over nine games, split between Phillies and Pirates.

Contract: Not eligible for arbitration until 2023.

Acquired: Trade from the Philadelphia Phillies for cash considerations Aug. 26.

This past season: After being designated for assignment by the Phillies, Davis joined the Pirates and finally figured out how to develop his breaking pitches and provided left-handed relief for their beleaguered bullpen.

Davis credited the late Hall of Famer pitcher Roy Halladay, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, for having a “big impact” on his career. Three years after being drafted in 2014, Davis was still pitching in Class A when Halladay gave a presentation and invited players to visit his office if they wanted to talk. Davis decided to take Halladay up on the offer and was waiting for him when the meeting ended.

“I said, ‘Yeah, I will do whatever you tell me,’” Davis said. “So I worked with him three, four times a week for probably the next six, eight, 10 weeks while I was there before I went up to Reading. Wow, what an awesome time.”

Davis has more than memories of what Halladay shared. Davis recorded their conversations in a moleskine journal he uses to keep his thoughts on pitching performances or inspirational passages.

“It actually starts with Roy Halladay, which I think is really, really cool,” Davis said. “Sometimes if I’m feeling good or if I’m feeling bad or I just want to go back and look through, I’ll look through and the first page, it just says, ‘First meeting with Roy’ and a list of things he told me.

“One of the most impactful things was, I was talking to him and I said, ‘You know, I’m excited to go up to Double-A, Triple-A and face some hitters that are better so I can see how good I am.’ And he’s like, ‘Dude. Hitters are hitters, man. It doesn’t matter if you’re in High A or in the big leagues or whatever. If your stuff plays, you’re going to be good. Be confident in yourself and be confident in what you’re doing.’ Really just took the pressure off me to go up and see if I’m good enough or not.”

That stuck with Davis through the ups and downs of the past two seasons with the Phillies. When baseball was shut down by the coronavirus, Davis reflected on Halladay’s teachings. Davis used it as motivation after he tested positive for covid-19 and missed summer camp with the Phillies.

“He was a big, ‘What comes first, success or confidence?’ Who knows the answer to that — I still don’t know — but his answer was preparation,” Davis said. “And if you prepare in a way that you think you need to, and you feel ready to go, that should give you the confidence whether you’re successful or not.”

What Davis realized is that his success feeds off his fastball, so he developed a curveball to go with his fastball, slider and changeup. He spent his downtime working to distinguish the difference between the slider and curveball so it was less “slurvy.” What was documented as a curveball on Trackman, Davis said, was actually a slider.

“We’ll see how to use all of them, and if you guys get a chance to see, hopefully we’ll get a really good distinction on the two of those,” Davis said. “Really just getting a lot more horizontal movement on the slider to work off the fastball break that I got. We’ll work on those two things and then use the changeup where I know it can be effective too.”

Davis allowed one earned run on one hit with one walk and three strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings over five games, finishing two games and earning a hold in another. Davis gave up his lone run in a 5-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 21, then earned the hold by getting one out in the sixth in a 2-1 win over the Cubs two days later.

“Our scouting informatics group had identified some traits in his stuff that we liked, and really some of it was around just using his breaking ball differently,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “Just being a little more aggressive overall with stuff. Not worrying as much about being precise with locating the fastball. Just being aggressive and using the breaking ball a lot. He was able to come in and do that and did a good job for us in the games he was in.”

The future: There is an opportunity for Davis to follow the success of Sam Howard and Nik Turley to become the Pirates’ next lefty reliever reclamation project.

“For me I think, even looking at last year, my in zone strike percentage was higher than in years past, but without the conviction and the intensity I think I needed to have,” Davis said, “and so that leads to foul ball, foul ball, foul ball, ball, walk, vs. really attacking the hitter from pitch one with my best stuff and going from there. We’ve seen that in this bullpen with the other lefties. Turley, Howard, these guys are going out there, they’re throwing their best stuff every pitch and the results are going well for them, so I’m just gonna try to follow what they’re doing and hope it works out for me also.”

Cherington has been commended for finding pitchers like Davis and Nick Tropeano to bolster a bullpen that lost Nick Burdi, Kyle Crick, Michael Feliz, Clay Holmes and Keone Kela to injuries last season. Davis should have an opportunity to compete for a middle relief role.

“He’s a left-hand pitcher with good stuff and seems like a good guy, a competitor,” Cherington said. “He’s one of those guys, we need to keep adding guys like that, to build a better, deeper pitching staff over time.”

Check out the entire Pirates A to Z series here.