With another set of post-season heroics in the rear view mirror, Hall of Fame buzz is beginning to swirl around David Ortiz. At 38, Big Papi delivered his best season since '07, with a .959 OPS in 137 games. Since joining the Red Sox in '03, Big Papi has authored a .292/.390/.572 resume with 373 home runs and an offensive record 48% above league average. That includes 2008-09 when a wrist injury hampered his swing and sapped his power; absent those two seasons he's raking at 55% above average. That Coopestownish.
The major Hall of Fame problem for Ortiz is that his career did not start with Boston in '03. In his first six years with the Twins, he hit just .266 with 58 homers. There was no Big and no Papi until he landed in the Bay state and began mashing behind Manny Ramirez. Ortiz has performed at a Hall of Fame level with the bat over an 11-year period, but that's not long enough and it's not the entirety of his playing career.
There's another barrier to a bronze bust for Ortiz: he's a DH. You will hear and read irrelevant analysis about how a DH doesn't belong in the Hall or about how no DH has ever been elected. Neither is the point. Cooperstown has a long history of enshrinement of one-dimensional players, in case you mistook Harmon Killebrew for a speed merchant (19 of 37 steals in 22 years) and defensive wizard (19 career wins below replacement with the glove).
The problem with rostering a player who can only DH is that it has an inherent negative effect on team construction. The various sabermetric measuring systems assess this against a player's defense, but the restrictions such a player imposes on lineup flexibility may accrue to offense instead or as well. Between his lack of range when he donned his mitt and the lack of managerial range created by carrying a non-fielder on the roster, Ortiz has cost his teams 18 wins over his career. That offsets a goodly chunk of his overall value.
There are four widely-used systems designed to predict a player's Hall of Fame case. Three of them say Ortiz has a fair amount of work to do. For example, the average Hall of Fame first baseman leads the league in 27 seasonal categories over the course of his career. Papi has led the AL in home runs once, RBIs twice, walks twice, OBP once and total bases once, well short of that standard. The JAWS Hall of Fame valuation model, which compares a player's value to the average Haller at his position (Ortiz is considered a first baseman since there are no DHs to whom we can compare him) suggests Ortiz is well short in both his peak and his overall career numbers, by distances he cannot bridge even if he performs well into his 40s.
None of this captures the special character that sparked the speculation to begin with. "Clutch" hitting is a vastly exaggerated notion, but Big Papi delivers in key situations so relentlessly there can be no denying that he loves the spotlight and thrives on pressure. Recounting all his game-changing home runs in season-altering games would amount to gilding the lily. His .455/.576/.795 line in three triumphant World Series speaks for itself. In addition, his unquestioned leadership was captured exquisitely when he gathered his bearded brethren around him in the dugout in Game 4 of the just concluded championship. It is tempting to assign cause and effect to that confab and the three consecutive victories that turned a 2-1 deficit into a parade.
How do you measure leadership and clutch hitting? What are their value? Are they enough to overcome a career gap of 24 wins against replacement. The answer, for me, is pretty clear: not even close. Big Papi is a great player and a character who will live forever in baseball history, but he hasn't done enough to earn a bust.
On to the elephant in the room: steroids. The New York Times reported that Ortiz was among 100 players who tested positively for steroids in 2003. Ortiz denied he took steroids and the Players Association claims those relatively unsophisticated tests returned false positives for supplement use. For some cynical followers of the game, that's enough to convict a player even though it amounts to nothing.
Others point to the spike in Ortiz big flies from 2004-2006 (40-47-54) at ages 28-30, followed by a dramatic decline to 35 after 2006, never to return. This argument is specious: that's normal career peaking. Indeed, in the four years preceding his home run spike he hit 10-18-20-31. In the four years following his peak, his home run totals declined to 35-23-28-32. He also played more games during the peak than in any other years.
In other words, there are several good reasons not to elect David Ortiz to the Hall of Fame -- a short peak and bad defense chief among them. There are a couple of good reasons to consider him further -- palpable leadership and clutch hitting that helped propel his team to three more championships in 10 years than they had won in the previous 86. But denying him a bust because of steroids is pure electoral malpractice, on par with electing Ted Cruz or Jesse Jackson Jr. to Congress.
No comments:
Post a Comment