‘A career, not a year’: How Cubs’ Brennen Davis hopes to use injury to improve hitting

DES MOINES, Iowa — Cubs outfield prospect Brennen Davis was widely expected to make his major-league debut this year. Instead, after undergoing back surgery in June, he spent the last week of the MLB regular season in the Arizona Fall League, salvaging what he can from a mostly lost year of baseball.

“Kind of upset it happened this year because I had big goals,” Davis said in a conversation with the Sun-Times during the final weeks of the Triple-A season. “But it’s part of life. It’s part of the game. And how you overcome these obstacles is what dictates [what kind of player you’ll be].”

Davis has had to shift his thinking on how he defines success. Limited by pain in the first month of the season, then sidelined for three months, Davis had a .258 batting average in Triple-A with 10 extra-base hits.

“I have these opportunities to get at-bats, and I’m really looking forward to trying to detach myself from results,” he said. “[I want to look] at the bigger picture and work on what’s going to make me the best player moving forward, and [pinpoint] the deficiencies I have as a player and put in the stepping stones to have a great offseason and be ready to succeed next year.”

Barring trades or signings, the Cubs have an opening at Davis’ position. Manager David Ross said this week that left and right field are accounted for by Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki, but “there’s an open spot, and it’s in center field.”

Could Davis claim that spot?

“It’s hard to go into spring training giving somebody a job with the adversity he’s been through,” Ross said.

But Ross didn’t rule out Davis playing himself into that role, perhaps after beginning the season in Iowa.

The adversity Ross alluded to started last spring, when Davis felt back discomfort after a lifting session. Davis brushed it off as normal soreness. But by the time he’d played a few weeks into the Triple-A season, the red-hot pain had traveled down his leg and was so intense that he’d start his day already limping around in his hotel room.

“I started getting numbness in my foot,” he said, “and that’s when I was like, I should probably say something and shut it down.”

Doctors originally diagnosed Davis with a herniated disk, and, before turning to surgery, they tried an epidural injection in May. It didn’t work, and his back operation in early June revealed why. A vascular malformation pushing on the sciatic nerve was the source of his pain.

“It’s a very relieving feeling because there was nothing wrong with my spine,” Davis said. “And that would have been a much longer rehab process, and it could have lingered down the road.”

The surgery immediately alleviated some of his pain. Since then, building back his strength and managing soreness has been a gradual process. Davis said doctors told him the sciatic nerve would take months to heal completely.

“After my first year, power was part of my game, and right now it’s just not,” he said. “So I think this is going to make me a better hitter, having to grind for my hits. I can’t just go out there and muscle one out. I have to square baseballs up and hit them the right way, with true backspin and stuff like that, and pick pitches that I can do damage on.”

He expects to get back his old strength and power, and pair them with his new refined approach.

“It’s going to pay off for him in the long run,” Iowa hitting coach Desi Wilson said. “Why? Because in the big leagues, that’s what all the good hitters do: They have a plan, they have an approach every at-bat — against the starters, relievers — and they don’t get away from that.”

Davis already has made a splash in the Arizona Fall League, launching a homer in the Mesa Solar Sox’ second game.

“It’s hard because you have expectations for yourself,” Davis said. “But it’s about a career, not a year. And I’m happy. I was really happy watching all my friends get opportunities this year, and I wish I was there with them. But I’m sure I will be in the future.”