The aging curve is supposed to be a given in baseball. From Ruth to Mays to Jeter, when stars get old, they decline. Ruth hitting six home runs for the 1935 Boston Braves, Mays languishing in the outfield for the 1973 Mets and Jeter hanging on by a thread during his retirement tour are all images we’d like to forget but we also get it. After you get to a certain age, it becomes a lot harder to get around on a major league fastball.
Even in the rare instance of a player defying the aging curve, we can usually see why. Mariano Rivera had one of the best singular pitches in Major League history and that didn’t change too much as he got older. Barry Bonds had a .480 on base percentage with 28 home runs at age 42 because he’s the best hitter of all-time and he had some chemical help. Same goes for Roger Clemens winning four Cy Young Awards after hitting age 34.
The thing about David Ortiz being as good as he’s been this late in his career is that there isn’t really an explanation for it. Based on him already having been caught for steroids and vehemently denying years ago and increased drug testing now, he’s probably not using any PEDs. He’s not in good shape, he can’t run and he hasn’t played over 200 innings in the field since 2004 because of both those reasons. When his case is brought before the BBWAA, he’ll probably get into Cooperstown eventually but it probably won’t be on the first ballot either because of a combination of the steroids, Ortiz being a DH and his career numbers being on the borderline of entrance anyway[1].
Ortiz is an outlier in a game that so often gets boiled down to a line of best fit. What he’d done this year, unsustainable as it may be, is practically unprecedented for a 40-year old this side of Bonds. He’s hitting .340/.423/.708, leading the league in doubles, on base, slugging and OPS. Even more than that; as a Yankee fan, Ortiz still scares the hell out of me.
Since I’ve been watching baseball, no player has consistently made me as nervous as David Ortiz[2]. Even before anyone tells you “Hey, this guy is really good and he also destroys the Yankees with regularity”, you know it just because of his demeanor. Even through a television screen, Ortiz is physically imposing when he steps in the box to the point where you almost don’t want to go inside on him. He hits the ball low exceptionally well with his sweet spot being low and away (where he’s hitting .370 since 2007 according to Brooks Baseball). A full chart of his batting average by pitch location shows that Ortiz hits the best when the ball is thrown to places pitchers like it the most.
He’s seen more pitches in the three zones where he has the highest batting average (low and away, low middle and outside middle) than anyplace else. Unless you can get him to chase somewhere, which is unlikely considering his surprisingly good plate discipline [3], there isn’t really a safe spot unless you’re comfortable leaving the ball up.
It doesn’t help that, of all teams, he does the best against the Yankees. Among American League teams[4], Ortiz has a higher batting average against the Yankees than any team except one. His career line against New York is .307/.395/.576 with 52 home runs. Obviously he was the 2004 ALCS MVP as well with a 1.199 OPS in the series and the two most important hits in Boston’s franchise history.
He’s in that rare class of players that performs twice as well when it counts. He’s got three World Series rings and plays at his highest level in October. In high leverage situations, Ortiz has a career .940 OPS. With 2 outs and runners in scoring position, he has a .950 OPS, in late and close games he has an .875 OPS and in tie games he has a .965 OPS. If you ask someone to pick a player from the last 15 years to bat in a pivotal moment during a Game 7, there’s a damn good chance they’d answer Ortiz.
As he’s gotten older, Yankee fans have been waiting for that inevitable decline so we can point and laugh when the Red Sox insist on hitting Ortiz cleanup just like the Boston fans did when the Yankees insisted on having Derek Jeter’s corpse at the top of the order. Instead, at age 40, Ortiz is going to be intentionally walked this postseason so opposing teams can face Hanley Ramirez instead. That makes his Hall of Fame argument better than any number can.
All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted.
[1] According to Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system, Ortiz falls well short of the average benchmarks for a first baseman to make the Hall of Fame. Of course there are no reference points for a full-time DH as Ortiz is, Frank Thomas had a significantly higher JAWS score than Ortiz and made the Hall of Fame as did Edgar Martinez who has not yet made the Hall of Fame.
[2] Other players who came close: Kyle Farnsworth, Manny Ramirez, Jaret Wright, Cliff Lee, A-Rod during the postseason, Javier Vazquez and Kyle Farnsworth a second time. The guy on the complete opposite of the spectrum: Tim Wakefield.
[3] He has a 12.2 percent career walk rate which is high for any player, let alone a power-hitting DH.
[4] Not including the Astros because they were in the National League for the vast majority of Ortiz’s career.
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