Obituaries: David Ortiz

David Ortiz was a Major League Baseball player/designated hitter from 1997 until 2009. He met an ignoble end in the 2009 season, when he suffered a fatal free fall from the left field wall in Fenway Park. He was 33.

This potentially premature, irreverent obit is a well-founded fear for many in Red Sox Nation. The team's affable slugger, affectionately known as "Big Papi", is in the midst of one of the longest homerless droughts of his career; he has not homered in 158 plate appearances this year, and his last regular season homerun occurred on September 22nd, 2008 against Cleveland. Ortiz remains in Boston's all-important No. 3 hole despite his underwhelming line: .200/.318/.300; and it is clear that Sox manager Terry Francona will have to make some tough decisions regarding Ortiz's role in the lineup if his slump continues on in to June and beyond.


So, just what is wrong with Big Floppy? Has he lost his footing on the steep and slippery precipice of eternal Juan Gonzalezdom? (A player who, coincidentally, saw his ascendancy evaporate at age 33, the same age Ortiz is today) Whatever the case may be, let us do our due diligence and start with his 'death' and work our way back. As it stands, Ortiz is maintaining a healthy walk rate of 13.3%, which is equivalent to his career walk rate of 13.5%. While the selectivity is a good sign, what Papi is doing when he makes contact with the ball is most disconcerting. Ortiz has always been an extreme fly ball hitter, and this year that trend has continued unabated to an even greater degree. However his infield fly ball rate is currently twice the percentage of his career total, and with no homeruns to show for a guy who has a career HR/FB% of nearly 19 percent, the numbers tell an alarming story about what Ortiz is doing when he does hit the ball. In short, Papi is hitting a lot of weak pop flies to the infield and is not driving the ball to right or left, resulting in a lot of soft outs and weak singles.

One might point out that Papi had a similarly slow start in April of last year, before going on a Papi-like tear in the month of May and subsequently suffering a wrist injury that kept him out for six weeks. A closer look at the numbers would suggest that this year is markedly different from Ortiz's less-than-elite 2008 season. At month's end this time last year, Ortiz had 13 homeruns and slugged .617 in the month of May alone. Papi essentially played two elite months of baseball last year; two solid, if unPapi-like months; 1 month and a half on the disabled list; and one bad month of baseball, April, in which he still hit 5 homeruns. In his 2009 season hitherto, Ortiz has played a bad April and an even worse two weeks in May, resulting in Terry Francona's decision to bench Ortiz over the weekend against the Mariners, citing Ortiz's need for a "mental break". Given the fact that Ortiz is due $25 million by the Sox before his contract expires in 2010, and that he is at an age where most sluggers begin to see a decline in their skills, the Red Sox might have a Big Ugly on their hands before too long.

To be fair to Ortiz, there are a number of players with comparable skills that have been pronounced dead before, only to resurrect their careers and continue to produce into their mid to late thirties. Carlos Delgado and Jim Thome are two names that come to mind. I would be remiss, however, if I did not address the Big Elephant in the room: steroids. It is well known fact that Ortiz was a moderate run producer who never had an OPS higher than .839 or a season with more than 20 homeruns until he joined Manny and the Red Sox in 2003. It was here that he became one of the premier sluggers in all of baseball, posting career highs in homeruns and OPS, whilst helping Boston break the "Curse of the Bambino". With Manny recently outed for taking a banned substance, Ortiz has become ensnared in the performance enchancing drugs discussion as well. Did Papi's relationship with Manny extend to PEDs? Hard to say, really. It is clear, however, that his marked improvement during the Manny years is suspect, and with baseball keeping a watchful eye on its biggest stars, it will be interesting to hear what people say if Papi can no longer produce. If I had to offer a final pronouncement on Ortiz's prospects, I would say three things:

1) His days as an elite slugger in the game are over
2) The Sox should try to trade Ortiz to a desperate team, even if it means eating some of that contract a la the Tigers and Gary Sheffield
3) Steroids, which Ortiz has denied taking and called for bans against users, will begin to overshadow his achievements if he cannot find his way up the bone-jarring cliff armed only with spit-spackled batting gloves for equipment.