Picked in the seventh round of the 2019 draft, Davis Daniel beat the odds by even making it to the major leagues.
Beginning his career with the Los Angeles Angels, he sped through the minors in 2021 after
everyone spent the 2020 season doing whatever it was that they were doing in the minors. He was striking out a ton, not walking a ton, and looked like a steal. The right-hander was called up a year later, but he never debuted. Then in February of 2023, he hurt his shoulder and spent most of the year on the sidelines.
Daniel recovered well enough to debut in 2023, but it wasn’t pretty. 2024 saw an improvement, and he pitched fairly solid innings for the Angels.
He’s a strike-thrower, and there was some production there.
How acquired
In a sort of bizarre trade, the Atlanta Braves acquired him for Mitch Farris during the offseason. In many ways, the Braves traded the 23/24-year-old version for the 27/28 year-old version. While it wasn’t exactly a WTF trade, it wasn’t really one that got anyone excited.
What were the expectations?
If you saw this, what would you think?
That’s Daniel in 2024. He clearly avoids walks, and he’s able to get some weird swings. In 30ish innings (all starts), he struck out a little more than 20 percent of batters faced, and he limited walks to a teeny 4.5 percent rate. His 4.16 FIP perfectly matched his xFIP, which was much better than his 6.23 ERA. As you can see above, Statcast was less of a believer, but it wasn’t exactly saying he was awful.
The year before, he had a few long relief appearances with a much, much worse FIP and xFIP. All in all, heading into 2025, he had 0.4 fWAR in 42 2/3 career innings, with a 123/105/113 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-). Basically, a fifth starter profile, which made sense given that the Braves gave up little to get him.
This is all a roundabout way of saying that Daniel was brought in to be depth. I imagine there was probably some hope that he could maintain or improve on his 2024 season, and the results would regress in the pleasant way. The Braves were looking for options last offseason, and he is certainly an option. Not sure it was with giving up a decent(ish) prospect, but it was fine.
2025 results
Daniel got a whole three appearances in Atlanta. He still struck out right around 20 percent of batters, but the walks spiked to over 15 percent of batters faced. It’s a small sample size, so whatever.
The first appearance was at the end of April, and it was his lone bullpen showing. He got two starts in July, and they were … fine. He pitched four innings against the Cardinals and five against the Giants. The Cardinals start was okay, with a 5/3 K/BB ratio. The Giants start was not okay, with a 3/4 K/BB ratio and a homer allowed. After he got lit up by the Giants, Davis got sent back down to Triple-A for the rest of the year.
Our friend made a number of starts for Gwinnett, and he pitched noticeably worse there than he did at any level in 2024, with an ERA, FIP, and xFIP all over 5.00 across 100ish innings.
It’s not good. But again, we’re not talking a huge sample above, but it’s backed up by the 100ish innings in AAA.
Meanwhile, Farris has a perfectly fine season in Double-A, made his MLB debut because the Angels don’t think players should be in the minors, and did okayish, replacement-level work in 5 MLB starts. That’s also what Davis managed in his ten innings of 128/124/142 ball.
What went right?
It’s hard to find much, honestly.
The MLB games weren’t exactly good, the Triple-A ones were not exactly inspiring, and the velocity (already bad) went backwards, giving him less margin for error than he already had.
Throwing strikes is good. Throwing strikes people are going to hit well is not.
His start against the Cardinals probably qualifies as “something going right” given that it was a fine outing, but the Braves lost the game late thanks to a Jesse Chavez meltdown.
What went wrong?
Basically everything, honestly.
There’s very little to look favorably at. His Stuff+ worsened on every pitch, and his Location+ went south as well. Previously a notably good thrower of strikes, he seems very average at that now, and with a lack of velocity and bat-missing stuff, you’re not going to last long.
His outing against the Giants was a low point (and came in a 9-0 rout). It included this weird play, which might be the most memorable part of his 2025 performance:
2026 outlook
Daniel has already been outrighted and chosen free agency, so he’s not even in the organization anymore.
He is a healthy, experienced (?) pitcher who is only (?) 28, so he’s going to get more chances (derogatory), though they’ll all be on minor league deals unless he really has a career turnaround. The key is whether or not anyone thinks they can regain his control while getting his stuff to play up out of the bullpen or just see if they can get 2024 Daniel back. Neither seem particularly likely, and that’s probably why the Braves let him walk.
Steamer projects his ERA out to a smidge below 5.00, and the peripherals look a lot like this year, with both walks and strikeouts down. It’s not pretty. He can provide replacement-level work for some team somewhere, sure, but so can lots of other guys, by definition.
