Khris Davis is back with the Athletics organization after signing a minor-league contract last week. He was assigned to their affiliated Arizona Complex League and then promoted to Triple-A Las Vegas on Thursday.
What would it take for him to wear the green and gold again? A’s manager Bob Melvin said it will be a process.
“It’s the bat, it’s the power and what we’ve seen from him,” Melvin said on Friday before the A’s faced the Texas Rangers in Globe Life Field. “Vegas should be a great place for him for that.”
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In his debut with Las Vegas on Thursday, Davis went 2-for-4 with a double.
“But sometimes you just need to kind of -- I don’t want to say reinvent yourself -- but get back to some of the performance that you’ve had in the past and then it kind of ignites something within you,” Melvin said. “I don’t think age really is that big of a deal with him at this point, I mean, you know he was consistent for a long period of time, and then had a period where he wasn’t and things have kind of fallen off for him as far as playing times with the new team -- all that, maybe being back with the same team and a couple of good games, and hit some balls out of the ballpark, who knows what could happen from there so there’s no timetable or plans or anything at this point, to get him here, but he wanted to play, obviously wanted to play for us again and we’re hoping that it goes well.”
Davis spent five seasons with the A’s and signed a two-year contract extension in 2019 after hitting a league-best 48 home runs in 2018. He hit .247 in four seasons, which surely will be sports bar trivia until the end of time, but toward the end of his tenure with the team, his numbers fell drastically.
Between the 2019 and 2020 seasons in Oakland, Davis hit just .217 with 25 home runs in 632 plate appearances.
Oakland Athletics
Davis always has been honest about how much he loves playing for the A’s, but when the numbers dwindled, he was traded to the Rangers on February 6 as part of the Elvis Andrus deal. Davis later was released by Texas.
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Hitting in Las Vegas and in the Triple-A West league will help boost Davis' confidence and the power numbers, but will it be enough for him return to the form the A's saw in 2017 and 2018? Time will tell.
Either way, one would imagine Davis is thrilled to get another chance with the A's.