David Ortiz: An Obvious Hall of Famer

Usually, when I write about a Hall of Fame candidate, I render my final verdict about the player’s Hall-worthiness at the end of the piece. With respect to David Ortiz, I have put my opinion in the title. This January, Big Papi was elected to receive a plaque in Cooperstown by the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America). Ortiz got a “yes” vote from 77.9% of the 405 writers tasked with selecting up to 10 Hall of Famers out of 30 eligible candidates.

Ortiz was inducted into the Hall today in Cooperstown, New York. After the introduction of the living Hall of Famers onto the stage, his daughter Alex Veda Ortiz delivered a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem. Ortiz was the final speaker in the seven-man Hall of Fame Class of 2022. Thousands of fans were on hand to celebrate Big Papi’s acceptance speech, in which he seamlessly moved from paragraph to paragraph in English and Spanish.

Ortiz is best known for his 13 years with the Boston Red Sox, but he spent parts of six seasons with the Minnesota Twins, who were also represented today by two stars from the 1960s and 1970s, Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva. Four others were elected posthumously today: Gil Hodges, Minnie Minoso, and Negro League pioneers Buck O’Neil and Bud Fowler. Big Papi is the fourth native of the Dominican Republic to get a plaque in the Hall of Fame. The other three (Juan Marichal, Ortiz’s Red Sox teammate Pedro Martinez, and Vladimir Guerrero) were on hand in Cooperstown today to welcome their Dominican brother into the Hall.

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Ortiz, to this writer, was an obvious choice for Cooperstown for one key reason: he is the greatest clutch postseason hitter in the LDS era (since 1995) and one of the very best in the history of baseball. The Boston Red Sox slugger also surpassed one of the traditional Hall of Fame milestones (500 home runs), giving him the requisite body of regular-season work to be qualified for the Hall of Fame. Still, strictly as a regular-season performer, he’s in the second tier of Hall of Fame candidates. But the postseason does exist, and it’s in October that legends are made. Since the playoffs expanded to include the Division Series (in 1995), no position player has had a greater impact on his teams’ winning World Series championships than Big Papi.

David Ortiz puts the word “fame” in the Hall of Fame, and few players were more beloved by his fellow players than the Dominican native. His election to receive a plaque in the baseball shrine in Cooperstown has been celebrated throughout the sport. There have been a couple of snipes about a failed test for Performance Enhancing Drugs in 2003 (more on this later), but unlike the players who have been kept outside the Hall of Fame for the use of PEDs, Ortiz was tested in each of the final twelve seasons of his Major League Baseball career and never failed a test.

On the field, many players in the Hall of Fame had career-defining moments in the postseason, but none had moments more central to their legacy than Ortiz. Big Papi was not only the #1 contributor to the breaking of an 86-year-old championship drought (the BoSox’s World Series title in ’04), he was an indispensable member of two more championship squads in 2007 and 2013. Although famous Red Sox Hall of Famers like Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams, Wade Boggs, and Martinez had greater overall careers, only one (Pedro, once) ever tasted World Champion bubbly as a member of the Sox.

This is an appreciation for the memorable career of David Ortiz, a man with a big body, a big heart, and a penchant for the big hit, many of which you can re-live in the YouTube links throughout the piece. If fellow Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson was Mr. October, Big Papi was Señor Octubre.

Cooperstown Cred: David Ortiz (DH)

• Twins (1997-2002), Red Sox (2003-16)
• Career: .286 BA, 541 HR, 1,768 RBI, 2,472 Hits
• Career: 141 OPS+, 55.3 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 632 career doubles (12th most all-time)
• 1,192 career extra-base hits (8th most all-time, behind Aaron, Bonds, Musial, Ruth, Mays, Pujols, A. Rodriguez)
• Member of 2004, 2007 & 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox
• 10-time All-Star
• 2004 ALCS MVP: .387 BA, 1.199 OPS, 3 HR, 11 RBI
• 2013 World Series MVP: .688 BA, .760 OBP, 1,188 SLG, 2 HR, 6 RBI

(cover photo: The Sporting News/AP)

David Ortiz: Before the Majors

David Americo Ortiz Arias was born on November 18th, 1975, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. His father Enrique, a former semipro baseball player, worked at automotive repair. His mother (Angela Rosa Arias) worked as a secretary at the Department of Agriculture and traveled around to the Caribbean to sell clothes from the Dominican Republic to citizens of other nations. When Ortiz was about 14 years old, the family moved to Haina, dubbed the “Dominican Chernobyl,” polluted with lead contamination from a battery plant. Ortiz and his friends improvised to play baseball, their favorite sport, using broken-off doll’s heads, socks, and bottle caps as a “ball.”

“Have you ever tried to hit a bottle cap? It’s not easy, bro, I’ll tell you that… I think back to some of those games now, at how I learned to hit, and I have to believe it helped me develop my hand-eye coordination… I’ve always been able to hit a curveball, and I think one of the big reasons is because I learned how to hit a bottle cap with a broomstick when I was growing up… I mean, if you can hit a bottle cap with a broomstick, you can hit pretty much anything, right?”

— David Ortiz (Big Papi, 2007)

Ortiz’s parents divorced a few years after the move to Haina, but Enrique continued to play a positive influence in David’s life. At 16, Ortiz worked out in a camp run in the Dominican by the expansion Florida Marlins, who had yet to field a major league team. A scout for the Marlins told the tall, left-handed-hitting power hitter that he could be the next Fred McGriff. However, Ortiz developed a painful sore elbow during that time and was sent home. Ortiz thought his dreams of a Major League Baseball career were over, but Enrique gave him a pep talk: “You are going to play in the major leagues someday. Maybe it won’t be the Marlins, but that is their mistake.”

Shortly after his 17th birthday, in November 1992, Ortiz signed a minor-league amateur contract for $7,500 with the Seattle Mariners. David took his mother’s maiden name upon turning pro, so he was known for a few years as David Arias.

In his first year as a member of the Mariners organization, Arias played in the Dominican summer league. He made his professional debut in the United States at the age of 18, in 1994, in the rookie league in Peoria, Arizona. He hit only .246 with just 2 home runs in 188 plate appearances, so the M’s sent Arias back to Peoria in 1995; he hit .332 with 4 HR in 211 times to the plate.

In 1996, Arias was assigned to Appleton to play for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in Class A (the Midwest League). In Appleton, Arias became a real prospect. He hit .322 with 18 HR and 93 RBI. He was also named the league’s defensive player of the year at first base.

In September, he was the “player to be named later” in a trade from the Mariners to the Minnesota Twins for third baseman Dave Hollins. The Twins asked Arias to take back his father’s name to comply with the standard for Dominican players with respect to paperwork. And, so, David Arias became David Ortiz again before the 1997 season.

Ortiz blitzed through three stops in the minor leagues for the Twins in 1997, hitting .317 with 31 HR and 124 RBI. Ortiz’s performance earned him a September callup to the Twins. He hit .327 in 51 plate appearances and hit his first MLB home run at the Ballpark in Arlington, a three-run shot to deep right field off the Rangers Julio Santana. Baseball America rated Ortiz the Twins’ #2 prospect heading into 1998.

1998: Rookie Campaign

The 1997 Twins, playing in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome under two-time World Series-winning skipper Tom Kelly, won only 68 games. Nobody hit more than 15 home runs, and the first base position was manned by a platoon of Scott Stahoviak (10 HR, 82 OPS+) and Greg Colbrunn (5 HR, 87 OPS+). Needless to say, there was an opening for a power hitter at the position. And so, at the age of 22, David Ortiz started the 1998 season as the starting first baseman for the Twins.

Ortiz got off to a great start, hitting .413 with 2 HR and 14 RBI in his first 11 games. He was still hitting .306 as of May 9th (with a robust .531 slugging percentage) when he broke his right wrist, causing him to miss two months. As it often is with players who suffer wrist injuries, Ortiz’s power suffered upon returning. He slashed .261/.369/.400 in his final 58 games with 5 HR and 26 RBI in 214 PA.

It didn’t help Ortiz’s cause that he clashed with Kelly. The Twins, as an organization, preached hitting the ball the other way.

“I can’t tell you how many times I got yelled at from the dugout because TK (Kelly) didn’t like what I was doing. The Twins wanted us to hit the ball to the opposite field because that was the best way to hit for average… They wanted us to give up power to get a single to the opposite field, and that didn’t make sense to a guy like me. I’d hit home runs all my life, dude. I’m a big man… So I started changing my swing and approach, and I had trouble being the same hitter I was in the minors. I didn’t have a year in the big leagues and I was already getting messed up.”

— David Ortiz (Big Papi, 2007)

For the season, Ortiz hit .277 with 9 HR and 46 RBI (111 OPS+). Considering that he missed two months due to wrist surgery, it wasn’t a bad season for a rookie, but the Twins expected more, both offensively and defensively.

1999: Back to the Minors

In spring training 1999, David Ortiz hit just .137 and lost the first-base job to slick-fielding Doug Mientkiewicz. Although there was an opening at designated hitter (future Hall of Famer Paul Molitor had retired), the Twins decided to send Ortiz back to AAA Salt Lake City, giving the DH job to veteran Marty Cordova. Ortiz was devastated, “pissed” (in his words), and considered quitting the game, but his father flew to Miami and drove to the Twins’ spring training site (Fort Myers, Florida) to give him another pep talk.

The Twins won only 63 games in 1999, and Mientkiewicz showed he wasn’t ready for prime time. He slashed a woeful .229/.324/.391 (89 OPS+) and, ironically, had poor defensive metrics also, leading to a -1.7 WAR. Meanwhile, in Utah, Ortiz slashed .315/.412/.590 with 30 HR and 110 RBI. That prodigious output earned Ortiz another September callup, but he went 0-for-20 with five walks in 10 games.

2000-01: Platoon DH

Cordova left the Twins as a free agent after the 1999 season, and Ortiz became the team’s primary designated hitter in 2000, at least against right-handed pitchers (he was in the lineup just 15 times in the team’s 40 games against southpaws). Ortiz did OK but was still far from the hitter he would become in Boston. In 130 games, he slashed .282/.364/.446 (101 OPS+) with just 10 HR and 63 RBI. The highlight of the year for Ortiz was in September (at Fenway Park) when he hit the first grand slam of his career off Ramon Martinez (Pedro’s brother). Ramon had been one of Ortiz’s favorite players growing up in the Dominican.

For the 2000 Twins, Mientkiewicz had been sent back to the minors while Ron Coomer got most of the starts at first base. Ortiz was frustrated that he was pigeon-holed as a DH; he would never again in his career get the opportunity to get better defensively at first. Overall, it was another weak season for the Twins, who won just 69 games.

Minnesota was significantly improved in 2001, thanks to breakout years from several players, but Ortiz was not among them. The season started in a promising fashion, however, for the 25-year-old slugger. Ortiz hit an Opening Day home run in Detroit to lead the Twins to a 3-2 victory. In his first 16 games, Ortiz slashed .389/.476/.815 with 5 taters and 15 RBI. After that, he cooled off a little bit but still had a .997 OPS as of May 4th when he broke his right wrist on a slide at home plate. Amazingly, Ortiz stayed in the game as his wrist started to swell and even hit a two-run homer off the Royals’ Brian Meadows, with the broken wrist, before being removed from the game.

Ortiz needed surgery and missed nearly half the season (70 team games). As it was in 1998, Ortiz struggled upon his return from the wrist surgery. He slashed just .202/.298/.418 (12 HR, 30 RBI) in his final 63 games. Still, for the first time in his MLB career, Ortiz was on a winning club; the Twins won 85 games to finish six games behind the Cleveland Indians in the A.L. Central.

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2003: First Postseason for David Ortiz

Though just 51 years old, Tom Kelly decided to retire after the 2002 season, a decision that pleased Ortiz because “I always thought he didn’t like me very much.” Third-base coach Ron Gardenhire took over the reins of the Twins and led the team to 94 wins, the A.L. Central title, and the team’s first postseason appearance since the 1991 World Series.

Ortiz homered in his first at bat of the 2002 campaign. Although he hit just .236 in his first 16 games, he drove in 14 runs and had a .527 slugging percentage. Then, another injury put him back on the disabled list. This time it was his left knee, requiring arthroscopic surgery. Ortiz returned after three weeks, but he went into a massive power slump, going 42 consecutive games without hitting a home run.

Ortiz finally hit a homer on the Saturday before the All-Star break and then went on a tear in the second half of the season. Overall, Ortiz slashed .300/.368/.588 in his final 67 games, with 16 HR and 43 RBI. In September, Ortiz had the first of his 11 career regular-season walk-off home runs, a two-run blast off Cleveland’s Dave Maurer.

The Twins were matched up against the Oakland Athletics in the American League Division Series. The teams split the first two games, with Ortiz going 0 for 8. In Game 3, Ortiz had his first postseason RBI, a game-tying double in the 3rd inning off Oakland’s Tim Hudson. The Twins’ DH added a run-scoring double in Game 4; the Twins won both games to advance to the ALCS against the Anaheim Angels. The Angels dispatched the Twins in just 5 games, with the future October legend hitting .313 with 2 RBI.

Leaving Minnesota

Because of the economics of the game, David Ortiz knew that he might not be back with the Minnesota Twins in 2003 but never expected to simply be let go. Ortiz was eligible for salary arbitration for the second time, and the small-market Twins were always careful about their payroll. Ortiz had made $950,000 in 2002 and was likely to earn $2 million in 2003; the Twins decided he wasn’t worth it. Ultimately it was a terrible baseball decision by Twins’ General Manager Terry Ryan, but, in fairness, Ortiz was a 27-year-old platoon oft-injured designated hitter who had yet to blossom into a premier slugger.

In 2002, his best season, he hit 272 with 20 HR and 75 RBI but only hit .203 against left-handed pitchers. If you go to Baseball-Reference and search for first basemen or designated hitters in the American League in 2002, his numbers are in the same class as luminaries such as Brad Fullmer, Aubrey Huff, and Scott Hatteberg. Ryan tried to trade the left-handed-hitting slugger but found no takers. As a result, Ortiz was released on December 16th.

Shortly thereafter, at home in Santo Domingo, Ortiz had the good fortune of running into Boston’s Pedro Martinez, who had recalled Ortiz hitting a home run off him on what Pedro described as a “perfect cutter.” Based on the recommendation of Martinez and Red Sox scout Dave Jauss (who had managed Ortiz in the Dominican League), Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein signed Ortiz to a one-year, $1.25 million deal.

2003: Hints of an October Legend

When Epstein signed David Ortiz for the 2003 season, he was a part of a portfolio of 1B/DH options, including veterans Kevin Millar, Shea Hillenbrand, and Jeremy Giambi (the younger brother of Jason). Ortiz got off to a slow start in Boston, hitting just .188 in his first 14 games. With so many others competing for playing time, Ortiz only started 13 of the team’s first 25 contests. However, in his 15th game (the 25th for the Red Sox), Ortiz endeared himself to Red Sox Nation by hitting a go-ahead opposite-field solo home run to lead off the top of the 14th inning in a game against the Angels in Anaheim. It was Ortiz’s first home run in a Boston uniform.

It was as if a switch had flipped for Ortiz: he slashed .327/.406/.613 in his final 49 games before the All-Star break (including four home runs in two games at Yankee Stadium) and had settled in as the Bosox full-time DH. For Ortiz, everything about Boston was an upgrade from his time in Minnesota. Although Ortiz missed his Twins’ teammates (in particular Torii Hunter), he quickly became popular in the Red Sox clubhouse. Ortiz’s locker was next to another Dominican slugger, Manny Ramirez. In his first year with the Red Sox, Ortiz was dubbed “Big Papi” by longtime team announcer Jerry Remy.

Big Papi’s emergence was also aided by some tweaks to his swing urged by hitting coach Ron Jackson and by the Red Sox differing from Minnesota with respect to what they wanted out of their hitters. Jackson spent countless hours in the batting cage with Ortiz, encouraging him to finish his swing with his hand level high. The classic Ortiz swing that’s likely emblazoned in your mind was a 2003 collaboration between Big Papi and Papa Jack. As for the organizational philosophy, Ortiz explained it this way:

“I felt like I just got out of jail, bro… The Twins didn’t have many home run hitters, so they tried to score runs by bunting, stealing bases, things like that. And when they got a big dude like me who could hit home runs, who could drive the ball out of the park, they wanted me to play the same way. It didn’t make sense to me… But the Red Sox? They wanted us to hack, bro.”

— David Ortiz (Big Papi, 2007)

Ortiz kept mashing after the All-Star break and continued to plant the seeds of clutch hitting that would define his career. On July 26th at Fenway Park, against the Yankees, Ortiz didn’t start but came off the bench in the bottom of the 9th to deliver a walk-off RBI single off the Green Monster. In another signature game (on September 3rd in Chicago), Ortiz hit a two-run tater in the top of the 8th to give Boston a 4-3 lead and, then, after the White Sox tied the game in the bottom of the frame, he hit a solo blast off Tom Gordon in the top of the 10th to give the Sox a 5-4 win. Twenty days later, Big Papi hit his first walk-off home run as a member of the Red Sox with a towering home run over the Green Monster.

Ortiz finished the regular season with a slash line of .288/.369/.592 (144 OPS+) with 31 HR and 101 RBI. After the season, he was recognized with a 5th place finish in the A.L. MVP vote, best on the BoSox. The Red Sox won 95 games, which was good enough to be the American League’s Wild Card entrant.

In the ALDS (against Oakland), Ortiz was hitless in his first 18 plate appearances (with two walks). He made the 19th time at bat count, however. In Game 4, with the Sox needing a victory to advance to Game 5, Boston was trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the 8th. With runners on the corners, Ortiz hit a two-run double to plate both runners and deliver the BoSox a 5-4 victory. The next night, the Sox closed out the A’s to advance to the ALCS against the New York Yankees.

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Big Papi set the pace in Game 1 of the ALCS, drilling an upper-deck, two-run home run off future Hall of Famer Mike Mussina to lead Boston to a 5-2 victory. After the Yankees won three of the next four contests, it was a must-win game for Boston in Game 6 at Yankee Stadium. Ortiz went 2 for 5 with a game-tying two-run single in the 3rd and another game-tying single in the 7th (the Red Sox went on to win 9-6).

As all Red Sox fans know, of course, the way the 2003 season ended was uniquely cruel. In Game 7, the Sox had a 5-2 lead entering the bottom of the 8th inning. It’s not as well remembered in BoSox lore as his 2004 exploits, but Ortiz clubbed an 8th inning solo home run off David Wells to extend the team’s lead from 4-2 to 5-2.

With the future Hall of Famer Martinez on the hill, victory seemed certain. But the 170-pound Pedro was not a workhorse in the mold of a Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens. He was a 7 inning pitcher, a brilliant 7 inning pitcher but not someone you could count on to finish a full 9 innings. Many observers (including this one) were surprised when, at 100 pitches, he came out to pitch the 8th.

More surprising was that manager Grady Little left him in to get tagged with three doubles, a single, and a 3-run lead that evaporated. Three innings later, Aaron Boone did his best Bucky Dent impersonation with a walk-off solo home run to send the Yankees to the Fall Classic and the Sox back home.

2004: David Ortiz is Finally an All-Star

So now we arrive at 2004, the year in which David Ortiz achieved folklore status. The Red Sox had a new manager (Terry Francona), and Ortiz was entrenched as the team’s full-time DH (hitting 3rd or 4th in almost every game). Ortiz got a raise to $4.5 million and, shortly thereafter, a two-year contract extension worth $12.5 million.

Big Papi foreshadowed what was later to come in the Red Sox’ third home game of the season when he swatted a 12th-inning walk-off home run into the Monster seats against the Toronto Blue Jays. Then, two months later, Ortiz delivered another walk-off moment with an RBI single against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the bottom of the 9th.

At the All-Star break, Ortiz was hitting .304 with 23 home runs and 78 RBI, the most in the American League. He was named to his first All-Star roster and hit a pinch-hit two-run home run into the upper deck in Houston’s Minute Maid Park in the A.L.’s 9-4 victory. Ortiz finished the 2004 campaign with a .301/.380/.603 slash line (145 OPS+), 41 HR, and 139 RBI. He finished 4th in the MVP balloting.

2004: The Postseason Legend of Big Papi (Act I)

The Red Sox won 98 games in the regular season but were the Wild Card team again, finishing 2nd in the AL East behind the 101-win Yankees. David Ortiz brought Boston back to an ALCS rematch with the Yankees by clubbing an opposite-field walk-off home run to clinch Game 3 of the ALDS against the Angels.

In the ALCS, hopes were high in Beantown, but the Yankees won the first three games of the 7-game series, winning Game 3 by a humiliating 19-8 score at Fenway Park. No team in the history of baseball’s postseason had ever come back from a three-game series deficit.

2004 ALCS (Yankees v Red Sox): Game 4

In Game 4, the Yankees had a 4-3 lead in the 9th with future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera, the greatest relief pitcher in history, on the mound to close it out. But a lead-off walk to Kevin Millar led to a stolen base by pinch-runner Dave Roberts. Subsequently, an RBI single up the middle by Bill Mueller tied the game at 4.

With nobody out and the tying run at 2nd, the Sox could have closed it out there. Rivera got out of the jam, ironically by getting Ortiz to pop out with two outs and the bases loaded. The birth of a legend would have to wait for a few innings.

Fast forward to the 12th inning: the score was still tied at 4.  Journeyman pitcher Paul Quantrill was on the bump, with Rivera and set-up man Tom Gordon already being used. Manny Ramirez led off the frame with a single to left, bringing Big Papi to the dish.

After ball one, Big Papi drilled the 2nd offering deep into the right field seats for a walk-off 2-run home run, ending the five-hour game and prolonging the 2004 season for at least one more night. That blast, delivered 1:22 AM on the morning of October 18th, was the true beginning of the October legend of David Ortiz.

In baseball history, in the 22 previous 3-games-to-0 situations (including both the World Series and LCS), on only three previous occasions had a team managed even to win Game 4. Two of those teams lost Game 5; only the 1999 New York Mets managed to win both Games 4 and 5 (against the Atlanta Braves) before succumbing in Game 6. So the mountain the Red Sox were trying to climb was still the unconquered Mount Everest of baseball.

2004 ALCS (Yankees v Red Sox): Game 5

In Game 5, the Sox were again up against it late in the game, trailing by two runs in the 8th. Ortiz led off the inning with another mostly forgotten tater, a solo home run over the Green Monster off Gordon to cut the lead to 4-3.

Next, Gordon, perhaps trying to emulate the great Rivera, allowed a walk to Millar. Roberts entered again as a pinch-runner and advanced to 3rd on a single by Trot Nixon. Yankees manager Joe Torre summoned Rivera to attempt a Houdini act, hoping to coax a six-out save with the tying run on 3rd, but Jason Varitek managed a game-tying sacrifice fly.

Six innings went by without another run in a battle of the bullpens. Then, in the bottom of the 14th, reliever Esteban Loaiza allowed a one-out walk to Johnny Damon, followed by a two-out walk to Ramirez.

And then, for the second night in a row, Big Papi delivered the knockout blow with a walk-off RBI single up the middle and a 14-inning victory for Boston, setting up a trip to New York for Game 6. To do it once was amazing. To do it twice with a 24-hour span was, well, the stuff of a baseball fairy tale.

In three consecutive wins for the Red Sox (including Game 3 of the ALDS), the team was victorious due to a walk-off moment by Big Papi.

2004 ALCS (Red Sox v Yankees): Game 6 & 7

Game 6 in New York was the “bloody sock” game when starter Curt Schilling heroically took the mound on a bum ankle on which team doctor Bill Morgan had to suture a loose tendon back into the skin.

Schilling (who should be in the Hall of Fame for his many postseason heroics but isn’t due to his political views) tossed 7 innings of one-run ball in a 4-2 victory, making the Red Sox the first team to force a Game 7 after being down three games to none.

The Sox would win the 7th game easily, a 10-3 blowout started by, who else, David Ortiz, who hit a 2-run blast in a first inning to give Boston a lead they would not relinquish. Ortiz was, of course, named the Most Valuable Player of the ALCS.

An Easy World Series Victory for David Ortiz and the 2004 Sox

The Boston Red Sox had not won a World Series title since 1918 when they had a left-handed pitcher named Babe Ruth on the team. Although the Curse of the Bambino was about a championship drought, not a drought of making it to the Fall Classic, there was something about the historic come-from-behind 4-3 series win against New York that felt like an exorcism.

The Sox rolled over the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series in a four-game sweep. In Game 1, it was, surprise, Ortiz who set the pace with a 3-run home run in the opening frame. In 14 postseason contests, Ortiz slashed .400/.515/.764 with 5 home runs and 19 RBI.

October has birthed many legends in baseball history; many championships are delivered by a “hero of the year.” In 2014 it was Madison Bumgarner; in 2011, it was David Freese; think Schilling and Randy Johnson in 2001, Derek Jeter in 2000, Joe Carter in 1993, Jack Morris in 1991, Kirk Gibson in 1988, and Reggie Jackson in 1977, just to name a few.

An October legend rarely gets a second act: I honestly can’t think of any other who didn’t don the Yankee uniform. Big Papi not only had a second October act still to come but a third.

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2005-07: Perennial MVP Candidate

David Ortiz finished 5th in the 2003 MVP vote and 4th in 2004 (while also winning MVP honors in the ALCS). For a multi-year encore, he got better in the next three campaigns. Ortiz kept hitting right out of the gates in 2005, and he kept delivering in the clutch. His 47 home runs were the second-most in the A.L., and, amazingly, 20 of those 47 either tied the game or gave Boston the lead.

On June 2nd at Fenway, the Red Sox were losing to the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 with two outs in the bottom of the 9th before Ortiz hit a 3-2 pitch from B.J. Ryan into over the center field wall for three-run, walk-off tater. As a result of his first-half exploits and, no doubt, a result of what he did the previous October, Ortiz was the leading vote-getter in the American League as the All-Star Game’s starting designated hitter.

Ortiz had two more walk-off moments in 2005, both in September, the first a towering home run to right field off Anaheim’s Scot Shields. The other, in the team’s 4th to final game of the season, was a single against Toronto’s Miguel Batista. Besides his 47 home runs, Ortiz drove in an MLB best 148 while slashing .301/.380/.603 (158 OPS+). He finished 2nd in the MVP voting, barely behind Alex Rodriguez. The Red Sox were the A.L.’s Wild Card team again, but the 2004 magic did not return. Boston was swept in three games by the Chicago White Sox in the ALDS, despite Ortiz posting a 1.083 OPS.

Ortiz had the best season of his career in 2006, slashing .287/.413/.636 (161 OPS+) while leading the league with 54 HR and 137 RBI. Big Papi also led the A.L. with 119 walks; 23 were intentional despite having Ramirez hitting behind him. Ortiz finished 3rd in the MVP vote and won his third straight Silver Slugger. For the team, it was a middling season (86-76), thanks to a team ERA of 4.83. As a result, the BoSox missed the playoffs for the first time since 2002. Despite the mediocre campaign for the Sox, Ortiz continued his clutch performances, delivering five walk-offs (three of which were home runs). The first (against Texas in June) turned a 4-2 loss into a 5-4 win. The last of the five, a blast over the center field wall in late July, also turned a two-run deficit into a one-run victory.

Although his HR (35) and RBI (117) totals dipped in 2007, Ortiz improved upon his previous campaigns overall by slashing .332/.445/.621 (171 OPS+). He made his fourth straight All-Star team, won his fourth straight Silver Slugger, and finished 4th in the MVP vote, his fifth consecutive year in the Top 5. For the fifth straight season, Ortiz had a regular-season walk-off moment, this one in September, a two-run shot that turned defeat into victory. The Red Sox won 96 games in ’07, good enough to claim the A.L. East title.

2007: The Postseason Legend of Big Papi (Act II)

David Ortiz’s second act (and second ring) as a postseason performer came in 2007. In Game 1 of the ALDS (against the Los Angeles Angels), Big Papi announced to the world that he was ready for this postseason by delivering a two-run home run in the bottom of the 3rd inning off John Lackey. In Game 3, Ortiz and Ramirez hit back-to-back solo homers in the top of the 4th to pace the BoSox to an easy win and three-game sweep.

In the ALCS against Cleveland, in which the Sox had to come back from a 3 Games to 1 series deficit, Ortiz was fairly quiet, if you can call a .966 OPS quiet. I use the term “quiet” because he did not have any signature moments. Thanks to two blowouts in Games 6 and 7, the Sox returned to the World Series to face the Colorado Rockies.

In the Fall Classic, the Red Sox blew out the Rockies in Game 1 by a 13-1 score, with Ortiz supplying 3 hits and 2 RBI. Boston would sweep the Rox in 4 games, with Big Papi providing another “quiet” .945 OPS.

Although he didn’t have any historic moments as in 2004, Ortiz still clubbed 3 home runs with 10 RBI in the 2007 postseason along with a 1.204 OPS en route to adding ring #2 to his collection.

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2008-12: Boston’s Rollercoaster Ride

In 2005, David Ortiz just kept hitting as if it was October 2004. Unfortunately, it was not the same in early 2008. Ortiz hit just .070 in his first 12 games of the season. Although he would slowly rebound, another wrist injury (at the end of May) caused him to miss 45 games. Though still an All-Star selection, Ortiz’s final numbers for the season were reminiscent of his final year in Minnesota: he slashed .264/.369/.507 (124 OPS+) with 23 HR and 89 RBI.

The Red Sox made the playoffs again (as the Wild Card team) and, after dispatching the Los Angeles Angels, faced off against Joe Maddon’s Tampa Bay Rays in the ALCS. Ortiz’s bat was uncharacteristically quiet in the Sox’ seven-game series loss. He hit just .154 (.697 OPS) with 1 HR and 4 RBI. Maddon was the skipper best known for popularizing the shift, a defensive alignment that turns line drives to right field by left-handed hitters into long outs.

Ortiz had his worst season with the Red Sox in 2009. Although healthy enough to play in 150 games at the age of 33, he had a weak slash line (.238/.332/.462, 102 OPS+) with 28 HR and 99 RBI. It was also in 2009 that the New York Times reported that Ortiz had been one of 104 players to test positive for PEDs on a 2003 survey test. Ortiz had been informed of this in 2004, but it became public in 2009. Ortiz has (to this day) maintained that he was careless in taking over-the-counter supplements and, as we’ll see, the results of those 2003 tests may have contained some false positives.

Despite Big Papi’s off-year, the Sox won 95 games and were the A.L. Wild Card team again before getting swept by the Angels in the ALDS (Ortiz went 1-for-12 in the three-game series).

Ortiz, who looked as if he was starting to fade as a premier hitter, rebounded after the 2009 campaign, even though the Red Sox missed the playoffs for three years in a row.

• 2010: .270/.370/.529 (137 OPS+), 32 HR, 100 RBI
• 2011: .309/.398/.554 (154 OPS+), 29 HR, 96 RBI
• 2012: .318/.415/.611 (173 OPS+), 23 HR, 60 RBI

One notable change in the 2011-12 campaigns is that Ortiz improved his performance against left-handed pitching. After hitting just .218 against southpaws from 2008-10, there were grumblings that perhaps he would be best off as a platoon player, especially as he kept feeling the frustration of hitting into the shift.

In 2011-12, however, Big Papi hit .326 against lefties. In those years, the presence of left-handed-hitting first baseman Adrian Gonzalez helped remind Ortiz that hitting the ball to the opposite field was something to focus more attention to, ironic considering that he recoiled from that approach when he was with Minnesota.

Big Papi made the All-Star team for all three of these seasons but missed the final 71 games in 2012 due to an injury to his right Achilles tendon. 2012 was a lost campaign for the Red Sox. Terry Francona was let go after the BoSox lost 20 of their last 27 games to barely miss the playoffs in ’11. Bobby Valentine took over the reins in 2012, and everything went wrong for the team, which won just 69 games.

2013: Cherington’s Inside Straight

The third act of David Ortiz’s World Series story was in 2013. This was not supposed to be a good year for the Red Sox, coming off that miserable 93-loss campaign.

In the off-season, GM Ben Cherington hired a new manager (John Farrell, the Red Sox former pitching coach) and drew an inside straight with a series of small free-agent signings. Cherington brought in multiple gritty, gutty players who completely changed the character and competence of the team. Newcomers Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Jonny Gomes, David Ross, and Koji Uehara were integral parts of a team that improved from 69 to 97 wins and an easy division title.

Ortiz missed the first 15 games of the season while still rehabbing his right Achilles but made national news with his emotional speech in front of the Fenway faithful in the team’s first home game after the bombing at the Boston Marathon. “This is our @%$%ing city,” Ortiz declared. “And nobody is going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong.” When Big Papi returned to the diamond, he was in vintage form, hitting .500 with 3 HR and 15 RBI in his first ten games.

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For the first time since 2010, Ortiz delivered a signature walk-off hit, in this case, a three-run home run in the bottom of the 9th against the Rangers to end a game in early June. I happened to be on a business trip to Boston at the time (not really a coincidence, I always scheduled work trips to Boston to coordinate with Sox games) and was privileged to witness Ortiz send the missile into the bullpen in right field.

For the season, Ortiz slashed .309/.395/.564 (159 OPS+) with 30 HR and 103 RBI. By WAR (Wins Above Replacement), it was his best season (4.4 WAR) since 2007 (6.4). Ortiz was an All-Star for the 9th time, and the Red Sox won the A.L. East with 97 victories.

2013: The Postseason Legend of Big Papi (Act III)

In the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays, Ortiz wasted little time to reclaim his October folklore status; he clubbed two solo home runs off David Price, leading Boston to a 3-1 series win.

In the ALCS, the Red Sox were up against the Detroit Tigers and a troika of premier starting pitchers. Anibal Sanchez and four relievers shut them out in a 1-0 Game 1 Tigers win in which the Sox managed a total of one hit.

In Game 2, Max Scherzer, who would win the Cy Young trophy that year, allowed just one run on two hits (with 13 strikeouts) in 7 spectacular frames. With a 5-1 lead and Scherzer having thrown 108 pitches, manager Jim Leyland went to his pen. Although this was probably the right move given Mad Max’s pitch count, there had to be a sense of relief in the Sox dugout. Leyland used four pitchers in the bottom of the 8th: three different pitchers managed to load the bases while getting only two outs.

With two outs and the sacks full, Leyland summoned his fourth reliever of the inning, closer Joaquin Benoit. On the very first pitch, Ortiz smacked the ball to deep right field; 9-time Gold Glover Torii Hunter raced back to the wall to try to make a game-saving catch, the kind of catch he had made many times in his illustrious career.

But Hunter came up just short, tumbling over the wall in a gallant effort. Fenway Park, which just minutes prior had been quiet as a cathedral with a 5-1 deficit, exploded into Papi-fueled delirium on the game-tying grand slam. If Ortiz had hit the ball just a bit more softly, Hunter would have caught the ball, the inning would have ended, and the Sox would have likely headed back to Detroit facing a 2-0 series deficit.

It would be Big Papi’s only hit of the ALCS against Detroit, but it was a series-changing hit. The Sox won the game in the bottom of the 9th and would take the series in 6 games.

2013 World Series (Cardinals v Red Sox)

In the World Series against St. Louis, David Ortiz was out of this world. In the 2nd inning of Game 1, Big Papi nearly hit another grand slam, but Carlos Beltran caught his deep fly ball up against the bullpen wall. So Ortiz settled for a sacrifice fly. He followed that up with a 7th inning 2-run blast that turned a 5-0 lead into an insurmountable 7-run margin.

In Game 2, with the Sox trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the 6th inning, Ortiz delivered a 2-run tater over the Green Monster to give Boston a 2-1 lead. The Cardinals, however, would go on to win the game 4-2.

In Game 3, Big Papi went 1 for 2 with 2 walks (one of them intentional) as the Redbirds took a 2-1 series lead, winning in walk-off fashion in the 9th.

2013 World Series Game 4 (The Speech)

Game 4 arrived with Boston badly needing a win. The team had been stymied by Cards’ starter Lance Lynn and trailed 1-0 in the 5th inning. Up came Ortiz, who led off the frame with a double to right-center field.

Upon arriving at second base, Ortiz yelled, “let’s go,” to inspire his teammates. He wound up scoring the tying run three batters later on a sacrifice fly by Drew.

With the score now tied at 1 in the middle of the 5th inning, Ortiz gathered his teammates around him and delivered an impassioned speech which is credited by some for turning the series around.

“David Ortiz rallied us together… I think that just sums up the type of guy he is, the superstar he is, the teammate he is, the passion he has for the game… That this guy wants to rally us together for a pep talk, it was like 24 kindergartners looking up at their teacher. He got everyone’s attention and we looked him right in the eyes, and that message was pretty powerful.”

— Johnny Gomes (October 27, 2013)

Gomes turned out to be the guy who delivered on Big Papi’s message. After a two-out single by Dustin Pedroia and a walk to Ortiz, the Sox’ left fielder blasted a three-run home run in the top of the 7th to give the Sox a 4-1 lead, which resulted in a 4-2 win.

David Ortiz: 2013 World Series MVP

In Game 5, Big Papi set the pace again with a first-inning RBI double. Then, in the top of the 4th, Ortiz tied a World Series record by reaching base for his 9th consecutive plate appearance. The Sox went on to win Game 5 by a 3-1 score.

Game 6 was back at Fenway Park, and the Sox had the chance to clinch their first World Series title at their home ballpark since, yes, 1918. In 2004 and 2007, the Sox swept their opponents and celebrated on enemy soil.

In this game, the Cardinals wanted nothing to do with Ortiz. After drawing a 9-pitch walk in the first inning, he was intentionally walked in the 3rd and 5th. Both times, Papi’s teammates made the Redbirds pay.

Ortiz was the first to cross the plate on Shane Victorino’s 3rd inning, bases-clearing double. The Flyin’ Hawaiian drove Big Papi home again in the 5th. The Red Sox won easily, 6-1, and the faithful fans finally got a chance to witness a title clincher at Fenway.

Big Papi was named the World Series MVP; with his 2 home runs and 6 RBI came a .688 batting average and a 1.948 OPS.

Ortiz’ .688 BA was the second-highest in the history of the Fall Classic, behind only Cincinnati’s Billy Hatcher, who hit .750 in 1990. In 1990, the Reds swept the Oakland A’s, so Hatcher’s .750 clip was accomplished in just 15 plate appearances, 10 fewer than Papi’s 25 in 2013.

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2014-15: Down Years

In 2014, the year after the magic of 2013, the Red Sox sagged dramatically, finishing last in the AL East with a 71-91 record. 2015 wasn’t much better, with the Sox finishing last again at 78-84.

The main highlight for these two sorry Sox teams was that David Ortiz continued to mash, even into his late 30’s. For Red Sox Nation, the best moment of 2015 was a regular-season game in Tampa Bay in September, in which Ortiz launched his 500th career home run.

Although he wasn’t selected to the All-Star team in either season, Ortiz continued to hit with authority in what were his age 38 and age 39 seasons:

• 2014: .263/.355/.517 (141 OPS+), 35 HR, 104 RBI
• 2015: .273/.360/.553 (140 OPS+), 37 HR, 108 RBI

Epilogue: the 2016 Swan Song

In 2016, the Sox had a team that offered Ortiz one more opportunity to shine in the post-season sun. Right fielder Mookie Betts emerged as a superstar and MVP candidate. Second baseman Dustin Pedroia had a renaissance campaign.

Most importantly, Big Papi had arguably the greatest hitting season ever for a 40-year old player. Ortiz hit .315 with 38 home runs. He led the A.L. with 127 RBI and led all MLB with 48 doubles, a .620 SLG, and 1.021 OPS. Papi’s park-and-season-adjusted OPS+ (164) was the highest ever for a 40-year old to qualify for the batting title, besting Willie Mays’ 158 OPS+ in 1971. Ortiz was the Hank Aaron Award winner as the A.L.’s best hitter and won his 7th Silver Slugger Award. He also finished 6th in the MVP vote.

Before the season, Ortiz had announced that 2016 would be his final season. He made the most of his last hurrah and was feted at every visiting stadium, having earned that level of respect throughout Major League Baseball. But, of course, Big Papi had to have one final walk-off moment, a double to deep center field to break a 5-5 tie in the bottom of the 11th of a game against Houston in May.

The Red Sox won the A.L. East and headed into October with the high expectations of a swan song for their retiring slugger. Unfortunately, not every story, even the feel-good stories, has a perfect ending. It seemed as if the Sox’ were distracted by the Ortiz retirement tour. The team lost 5 of its last 6 regular-season games and then were swept in three games by the Cleveland Indians in the ALDS.

In Game 1, it seemed like there might be some magic left. In the top of the 8th inning, the Sox trailed the Tribe 5-3. Utilityman Brock Holt led off the inning with a solo home run. Two batters later, Ortiz doubled, making himself the tying run. The 40-year old Ortiz was lifted for a pinch-runner, and Indians’ closer Cody Allen got out of the jam. The Sox would lose 5-4.

Ortiz went 0 for 4 in Boston’s 6-0 loss in Game 2. In Game 3, Ortiz had a sacrifice fly and walked twice as the Sox’ fell 4-3. Big Papi’s last plate appearance in October resulted in a four-pitch walk.

After the loss, Ortiz came out of the dugout and was greeted by a warm ovation for several minutes as the fans at Fenway showed their appreciation of his brilliant and impactful career.

Big Papi in Retirement

David Ortiz’s number 34 was retired in the summer of 2017, and he had both a street and a bridge named after him.

“The David Ortiz Bridge starts across the street from where the plot to throw the 1919 World Series was hatched, and a couple of hundred yards west begin the Fenway Park offices. Like Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga and Samuel Adams at the Boston Tea Party, the honor of the bridge puts Ortiz in the pantheon of New England Heroes.”

— Peter Gammons (The Athletic, 1/4/22)

Less than three years after his retirement, in June 2019, Ortiz was in the news in a way no baseball fan would ever want. On June 9th, the native of the Dominican Republic was shot twice at a nightclub in the capital city Santo Domingo in what was an organized hit that was a case of mistaken identity. With his life in the balance, Ortiz underwent a six-hour operation during which portions of his intestines, colon, and gallbladder were removed. A few days later, a medical flight sent by the Red Sox organization flew their former All-Star back to Boston for continued treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital. Thankfully, Ortiz made a full recovery.

For the last several years, Ortiz has remained a prominent part of October baseball as a member of the Fox Sports studio crew. Although I can imagine that his unabashed homerism for the Red Sox might annoy fans who aren’t fans of the team, he’s always laughing and has a good rapport with fellow analysts Frank Thomas and Alex Rodriguez.

The Hall of Fame Case for and Against David Ortiz

David Ortiz was inducted into the Hall of Fame today. For posterity, I’m keeping this section of the original piece, an analysis of the pros and cons of Big Papi’s case for Cooperstown.

So, for starters, to play devil’s advocate, let’s try to poke some holes in the Hall of Fame case for Ortiz. What reasons would a writer have had for not voting for Big Papi for Cooperstown?

1. He tested positive for PEDs on that 2003 survey test.
2. He was a one-dimensional player, almost exclusively a designated hitter only. No player currently in the Hall has a higher percentage of games played as a DH.
3. His career WAR (55.3) is a bit low, lower than several first basemen or corner outfielders who aren’t in the Hall, including Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith, Todd Helton, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Abreu, Keith Hernandez, John Olerud, Will Clark, Sammy Sosa, and Dick Allen.

Let’s go through these points against. If you’re a PED hard-liner who makes no exceptions, I guess #1 is a point against him. I’ll circle back to this in more detail at the end of the piece, but, as previously noted, what makes Ortiz different than almost every other PED-linked candidate is that he passed MLB’s drug tests for the last 12 years of his career.

Regarding the DH factor, there’s no doubt that Ortiz was a specialist, and he indeed has fewer games played in the field than designated hitters already in the Hall of Fame. But let’s not pretend that Edgar Martinez, Frank Thomas, or Harold Baines have plaques in Cooperstown in which the voters even gave a nanosecond of thought to their prowess in the field. I think the “anti-DH” stance that some writers take (yes, some still do) is silly. It’s been an official position in the American League since 1973.

In a certain sense, #3 is a corollary of #2. Ortiz’s WAR is relatively low precisely because he was a designated hitter. WAR gives credit (or takes it away) based on a player’s position on the diamond. On Baseball-Reference, the primary website that calculates it, there is no player in the history of baseball whose WAR was more severely impacted negatively by his positional factor than Ortiz.

David Ortiz’s Regular Season Hitting Record

Ortiz was paid to hit, period, and, as a hitter, he was elite. You don’t need to add his October record to make a case for Cooperstown. To drill down to the details for a moment when it comes to WAR, there are five aspects of the game used for hitters to arrive at the final number: batting, fielding, base-running, double-play avoidance, and positional adjustment.

If you take just the batting component that goes into WAR (Rbat), only nine players in MLB history who aren’t in the Hall of Fame were worth more “runs above average” than Ortiz: Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Cabrera, Gary Sheffield, Mark McGwire, Joey Votto, and Mike Trout.

Among all players, Big Papi’s RBat is the 49th best all-time, ahead of 127 non-Negro Leagues Hall of Famers, including Carl Yastrzemski, Wade Boggs, Jim Rice, Willie Stargell, Vladimir Guerrero, Dave Winfield, and Eddie Murray.

There’s more:

• Ortiz has the 17th most HR (541) and 12th most doubles (632) in baseball history.
• There are only two other players with over 500 HR and over 600 doubles: Pujols and Hank Aaron.
• Ortiz’s 1,192 extra-base hits are tied (with Ken Griffey Jr.) for the 8th most in MLB history, behind Aaron, Bonds, Stan Musial, Pujols, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and A-Rod.
• In ten different seasons, Ortiz hit 30 HR with at least 100 RBI. Only six players in history have done it more than ten times: A-Rod, Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Jimmie Foxx, and Ruth.

Besides those impressive statistical nuggets, Ortiz has the accolades to match his excellence with the stick:

• His 7 Silver Sluggers are the most ever for a DH. Only seven players have more Silver Slugger Awards at any position.
• 10 All-Star selections.
• 5 consecutive top 5 finishes in the A.L. MVP voting (with a pair of additional top 10’s).

There’s one other thing to consider: because Ortiz spent his best years playing for the Boston Red Sox, his career total of 541 home runs is actually depressed by calling Fenway Park his home. In his entire career, Ortiz hit 241 HR in home games and 300 on the road. (To be fair, Fenway is more of a doubles park for lefties; Ortiz had 132 more two-baggers in home games compared to road games).

Anyway, it’s clear to me that Ortiz’s body of work in the regular season was good enough for a Hall of Fame plaque, but, needless to say, the crux of his legacy is in October and undoubtedly it was his postseason prowess that made him a first-ballot inductee.

Greatest Postseason Hitter Ever?

Is Ortiz the greatest postseason hitter in baseball history? In 85 postseason games, Big Papi hit .289 with a .404 OBP and .543 SLG (which adds up to a .947 OPS). However, that’s only slightly better than his career regular-season slash line of .286/.380/.552 (a career OPS of .931).

Ortiz averaged 36 HR and 119 RBI per 162 games played in the regular season. If you take his postseason stats and project to 162 games, you get 33 HR and 117 RBI — virtually no difference.

So, if you take the totality of Big Papi’s postseason career, he was essentially the same hitter that he was during his 20 seasons in Major League Baseball.

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David Ortiz and Win Probability Added

That analysis, of course, is wholly incorrect. In October, besides the fact that you’re facing better pitchers than you do over the balance of a 162-game schedule, David Ortiz was, in fact, one of the greatest clutch October batsman in the history of the sport. There is a statistic called Win Probability Added (WPA), which measures situational hitting or pitching. Essentially, WPA gives you credit (or demerit) for hits (or outs) that alter the likelihood of winning or losing.

In the bottom of the 8th of Game 2 of the 2013 ALCS, Ortiz strode to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. The Red Sox were trailing the Detroit Tigers by a 5-1 score. The odds (per Baseball-Reference) that the Red Sox would win that game were a measly 7%. In one swing of the bat, his grand slam off Joaquin Benoit, Ortiz tied the score and raised the odds of victory to 53%. Thus, by increasing his team’s odds of winning from 7% to 53%, Oritz gets a WPA of 0.46 (0.53 minus 0.07).

Compare the grand slam off Benoit to Big Papi’s first home run in the 2013 World Series. It was a two-run blast off the Cardinals’ Kevin Siegrist. That tater was only worth a WPA of 0.01. Why? Because it was in the bottom of the 7th inning, and the Sox were already ahead by a 5-0 score. The game was in hand, and Papi’s two-run shot just moved the needle slightly closer to a 100% win probability.

Anyway, as we’ve seen in the paragraphs above, Ortiz had a great number of clutch hits in his postseason play. In his 85 playoff games, Ortiz delivered a 3.2 WPA, the most for any postseason hitter in baseball history.

Now, to be fair, in the Wild Card era (since 1995), players have more opportunities than in either the LCS era (1969-1993) or when the only postseason ball was the World Series (1903-1968).

If you take the World Series only, Ortiz WPA (1.2) is still tied for the 7th best in history. He trails Lou Gehrig, Charlie Keller, Lance Berkman, Mickey Mantle, Home Run Baker, and Reggie Jackson.

Needless to say, David Ortiz’s legend in October rests on more than the Fall Classic. Arguably his three most significant hits came in the ALCS. Of course, I’m referring to the two walk-offs in Games 4 & 5 of the 2004 ALCS and the aforementioned granny in 2013.

Still, if you want to look solely at World Series performance (to make it an even playing field for all generations), Ortiz still reigns.

Through the end of 2021, there have been exactly 300 players in baseball history who have accumulated at least 50 Fall Classic plate appearances.

With his 59 World Series PA, Ortiz has the highest batting average (.455) of any player ever. In addition, Ortiz has the highest on-base percentage (.576) of any player ever. He also has the second-highest slugging percentage (.795) of any player in the history of the Fall Classic, behind George Springer but ahead of Jackson, Ruth, and Gehrig. That’s almost an incredible slash line Triple Crown for the World Series for Big Papi.

The 2003 Survey Test

David Ortiz was inducted into the Hall of Fame today as a first-ballot inductee. Besides the “DH only” and “low WAR” demerits, one thing that likely lowered Ortiz’s final vote total for the Hall of Fame is that he was named on that survey test in which he allegedly tested positive for the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs. The tests were supposed to be kept private, but someone leaked it to the New York Times. Ortiz and 103 other players were named in the report.

However, as Ortiz was wrapping up his final MLB campaign in 2016, Commissioner Rob Manfred addressed the 2003 tests by claiming that there were at least ten false positives in the testing and that it was “unfair” for Ortiz’s legacy to be tarnished by it.

Now, one of the other players on the list of 104 was Sammy Sosa, and the members of the BBWAA have given no Hall of Fame voting love to Slammin’ Sammy. The highest vote percentage Sosa has received in ten times on the ballot has been the 18.5% he got this year on the 2022 ballot.

Since this Times report is the only documented link between Sosa and PEDs, is there a double standard in play that Ortiz has been elected to get a plaque in Cooperstown while Sosa got nowhere close? I don’t think so because there’s a huge difference between the two. The difference is that the league and union agreed to a drug testing regimen that started in 2005. The first prominent player to test positive was Rafael Palmeiro, who was in the final season of his career. Because of that positive test, Palmeiro lasted for only four years on the BBWAA ballot, getting just 4.4%, which made him ineligible for future ballots.

Anyway, Sosa played for only two seasons during the drug-testing era (in 2005 with Baltimore and in 2007 in Texas). Statistically speaking, Sosa was a shell of the hitter he had been with the Chicago Cubs, for whom he hit 545 of his 609 home runs. As previously noted, Ortiz was tested for PEDs for each of the last 12 seasons of his MLB career. Many prominent sluggers failed drug tests during those years, including Manny Ramirez, Ryan Braun, Robinson Cano, and Nelson Cruz. They were all suspended, as was Alex Rodriguez (for an entire year) due to the biogenesis scandal.

Ortiz never failed a test during the official drug-testing era that contained penalties for positive tests. Given Manfred’s assertion that there were false positives in the 2003 survey tests, to me, that positive test was not a reason to keep Big Papi out of the Hall of Fame. 77.9% of the writers agreed, including a good number of PED hard-liners such as Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci.

Final Thoughts

David Ortiz was signed as a free agent by the Red Sox on January 22, 2003, having been released by the Minnesota Twins five weeks earlier. Little did the front office know that the signing of this left-handed-hitting designated hitter would change the course of the franchise’s history.

On a team that went 86 years without a World Series title, David Ortiz delivered three in the span of ten years. He wasn’t just the only player on all three championship teams of 2004, 2007, and 2013, he was an indispensable member of those teams, and that is why, although he is not the greatest player in Red Sox history, he is the biggest folk hero now and likely for decades to come.

“Cooperstown tells the story of the game, and iconic players are the main characters in that story. The story of baseball in the first decade and a half of the 2000s is incomplete without Ortiz. He was a fixture, larger than life, a household name well beyond the United States… Ortiz built his legacy on baseball’s biggest stage.”

— Chad Jennings (The Athletic, 1/4/22)

When it came to crunch time, Ortiz was one of the greatest postseason hitters in baseball history. He deserved to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Congratulations, Big Papi!

Thanks for reading! Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Chris Bodig

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