How Ortiz S Final Season Stacks Up With The Best Ever

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 18, 2025, 8:42 AM

how ortiz s final season stacks up with the best ever

No matter what happens in the postseason, David Ortiz is capping his career with quite a slugging display. Boston’s 40-year-old designated hitter finished the regular season with a .315 average and 38 home runs, and he tied for the American League lead with 127 RBIs. His OPS of 1.021 was the fourth-best of his career. Ortiz’s powerful finale is noteworthy — often, when a player is on the verge of retirement, it’s easy to see why. His bat speed (or his fastball) has slowed to the point where he’s no longer capable of performing at the high level fans are accustomed to seeing. The best final season of any player in the modern era, as measured by Baseball-Reference.com’s wins above replacement stat, belongs to Sandy Koufax, who was worth 10.3 WAR in 1966.

He went 27-9 with a 1.73 ERA and 317 strikeouts, winning his third Cy Young Award. That’s an outlier, though, because Koufax retired in his prime. Ortiz is the rare case of an older player going out with this kind of production when it was not necessarily expected. Seemingly every year or two for the past decade when David Ortiz has gone through a rough stretch—a bad April, a slow start coming back from the disabled list, or even just a hitless... The answer has always been a resounding no. In fact, few players in baseball history have as thoroughly and convincingly avoided being washed up for as long as Ortiz.

At age 26 he was released by the Twins—as a Minnesotan, the state ban prevents me from discussing this matter any further—and from the moment Ortiz started putting up big numbers in Boston many... He never has, topping an .850 OPS in 13 of the past 14 seasons, with a low-water mark of .794 in 2009 that really pressed the “he’s washed up!” alarm. Just last season Ortiz was hitting .219 in early June when a local television reporter asked him about being washed up, which led to this memorable rant a few days later: “I’m not washed up. I guarantee you that. I can wake up and hit, bro.

That’s my nature. I’m not washed up. … And my [expletive] is not going to finish like this, I’ll tell you that right now. I’m not going to end up like this. … But I’m not washed up. I’m not.

You know why? Because they pitch me very carefully. If they don’t, I make them pay. All of them [expletive] who say I’m washed up, tell them to sit down and watch the game.” Almost exactly one year later, at age 40 and in what is supposed to be his final season, Ortiz is making them pay by putting up the biggest numbers of his brilliant career. He guaranteed it and then he proved it.

Looking at David Ortiz in his final Major League Baseball season, one would have assumed he could have played a few more seasons. He had a year most MLB players would kill for. Although he was 40, the Boston Red Sox DH led the league in doubles, RBIs, and slugging percentage. Recently, the Hall of Fame hopeful admitted he simply ran out of gas but also spoke about something else that concerned him had he pushed his career along another year. After Ortiz spent 20 years in the big leagues and retired in 2016, he finds himself on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. Big Papi spent the last 14 years of his illustrious career with the Red Sox, where he became a fan favorite.

He also turned into a superstar. Boston signed Ortiz when the Minnesota Twins released him after the 2002 season. That year, he had his best season with 20 home runs and 75 RBIs. In his first year in Boston, Ortiz began a string of five straight seasons with 100-plus RBIs when he drove in 101 runs and smacked 31 home runs. Ortiz went on to collect 483 home runs in a Red Sox uniform, giving him 541 for his career. In Boston, he won three World Series titles and was a 10-time All-star.

He was known for his clutch postseason performances with the Red Sox. Ortiz has a strong shot of becoming a first-ballot Hall of Famer. According to Ryan Thibodaux, who is keeping tabs on the public ballots, Ortiz has 83.6% of the votes with 150 ballots on file. In order to get in, a player must receive 75% of the votes. When David Ortiz steps off the field for the final time Sunday afternoon he'll have completed perhaps the greatest farewell season of all time. The 40-year-old should lead all of baseball in doubles, slugging percentage, and OPS this year, and he's already set single-season records for players his age.

Earlier this year we looked at how Ortiz's last season could stack up against the great farewells in baseball history, and it's clear Big Papi now arguably tops that list. But Ortiz's 2016 campaign will be remembered beyond baseball - especially if he comes through one more time in October - as one of the finest farewells professional sports has ever seen. To try and figure out where Big Papi's 2016 season stands on this prestigious list, we took a look at some of the great final seasons from other professional athletes. After retiring in 1971 as the NHL's all-time leading goal scorer, Mr. Hockey came back in 1973 to play with his sons in the upstart World Hockey Association. Seven years later, the leagues merged, and Howe - still active with the Hartford Whalers, who joined the NHL in the merger - returned to the NHL for the 1979-80 season at, incredibly, 51...

Age was no factor here, as Howe scored 15 goals and 41 points while playing in all 80 of the Whalers' games, and made a final All-Star Game appearance in Detroit. The Whalers made the playoffs and though they were quickly swept by Montreal, Howe added one last postseason goal to his resume before finally leaving the ice. Elway finally led the Broncos to the promised land in 1997 with a dramatic victory over Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXII, and that would have been a perfect ending - but he wasn't... Returning for a 16th season in 1998 at age 38, Elway passed for over 2,800 yards for a 14th straight season and tossed 22 touchdowns for the league-best 14-2 Broncos. In Super Bowl XXXIII he closed out his Hall of Fame career by completing 18 of 29 passes for 336 yards and a touchdown, lifting the Broncos to a second straight Super Bowl title... Well, it’s official.

Barring some sort of Brett Favre type comeback, David Ortiz has retired. After 20 seasons, Ortiz will be remembered not only for his 541 home runs and nearly 2500 hits, but for his flamboyant personality and his innate ability to deliver in the biggest moments. While Ortiz’s final season didn’t go exactly as planned, as the Red Sox were swept out of the playoffs by the Cleveland Indians, it will certainly be remembered for something else: one of the... But, was it the greatest? Table 1 displays the top five final seasons ranked by OPS since the beginning of the expansion era. Looking strictly at OPS, David Ortiz has the best mark by far.

However, it would be facile to declare this the greatest final hitting season ever based purely on that. OPS is an excellent stat for measuring offensive performance, but it has its flaws. For example, OPS gives on base percentage and slugging percentage equal weight. The general consensus is on base percentage is worth at least twice as much slugging. In Moneyball by Michael Lewis, it’s revealed that Paul DePodesta theorized that at the high end of the spectrum, on base percentage is worth three times as much as slugging. Based on the fact that one point of on base is worth more than a point of slugging, I’ve calculated two separate stats in table 1 (OBP*2+SLG and OBP*3+SLG), which give greater weight to...

The only person who even comes close to touching Ortiz is Will Clark, whose 17 point OBP advantage gives him a boost under the alternate OPS calculations. However, even with the generous 3x weighting applied to his on base, Clark still falls short of Ortiz. David Ortiz, also known as “Big Papi,” is one of the greatest hitters in Major League Baseball (MLB) history. He has been in the league for 20 years, playing for the Minnesota Twins and Boston Red Sox, and is known for his power at the plate. In 2015, Ortiz broke the Boston Red Sox career home run record, surpassing legendary slugger Ted Williams. By doing so, Ortiz solidified his place among the all-time greats, and cemented his legacy as one of the most beloved players in Red Sox history.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how Ortiz broke the record, and the impact it had on the Red Sox franchise. David Murphy of the Boston RedSox breaks Dave Kingman’s final-season HR record with 36th shot of the season. In a final season, Ortiz is the franchise home run leader in the majors. ” I’ll have to hit a few more,” he says, adding that nobody else will be able to reach him. With three more runs scored, he will finish the season with 121. David Ortiz played through pain in his feet and ankles again as he prepared for his final series in Baltimore.

In a recent interview, he was asked if he could return to the Boston Red Bulls in 2017. It’s as simple as that for me. You end up exhausting yourself. That figure was obliterated in 2017. Stanton set a franchise record with 59 home runs that season. His final two home runs came on this day five years ago, in a 7-1 win over the Atlanta Braves.

In September, the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins were meeting at Miami’s newly renovated Marlins Park for the first of four games. Stan Musial became the first player to hit five home runs in a single game in 1954, on May 2, 1954, at the age of 24. No one had ever seen anything like it before, let alone from a player of such stature. Among all time greats, Ted Williams hit only 44 home runs after the age of 40, including a solo shot in his final at-bat when he was 41. Stan Musial had five home runs on that day in 1954, one of the greatest home runs of all time and a testament to his incredible talent as a batter. Musial’s five home runs in one day stand out among his accomplishments, regardless of whether they are ever duplicated.

In 2006, he set a Red-Sox record with 54 home runs. In 2005, he ranked third on the list with 47 points, just behind top-ranked Michael Vick. Throughout the 20 years David Ortiz has been in MLB , he’s managed to propel the Boston Red Sox to 3 World Series Championships, played in 10 All-Star games, and been one of the... Even if 2016 is his last season, that doesn’t mean he’s too old to perform on the same level he did in 2004 or 2007. In ’04 Ortiz had a batting average of .301 with 41 home runs. So far in 2016 he’s got a .318 average with 31 home runs.

How Ortiz S Final Season Stacks Up With The Best Ever

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