University of Kwazulu-Natal

The Last Time The Story Of David Ortiz S Final Season

Bonisiwe Shabane
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the last time the story of david ortiz s final season

Hannah Martian, Editor-in-Chief|June 7, 2016 Red Sox’ Designated Hitter David Ortiz tips his cap to just a few members of Red Sox Nation. So the Red Sox were playing a game this year. I can’t remember what day it was or what time it took place, but I remember that they were playing the Astros, and in the ninth inning, they were losing by a run. Now with the way that the Red Sox have been hitting the ball this year, one run isn’t a big deal. But there were two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, and it honestly just wasn’t looking like the Red Sox were going to be able to win this one.

But then this thing happened. You know, the thing that makes this story worth telling: David Ortiz stepped to the plate. Every professional athlete hopes to “go out on top” at the end of their career. No one likes to think of struggling through a final season and not being invited back, like a hypothetical baseball player putting up disappointing numbers and then wishing he had perhaps retired a year... When Ted Williams hit just .254 in 1959, the year he celebrated his 41st birthday, it was almost 100 points below his career .349 batting average to that point. He came back – after insisting on a 30 percent pay cut from Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey because of his under-performance in 1959 – and boosted his average for 1960 to .316...

That put him over 500, to 521. Then he retired.1 On November 18, 2015, his 40th birthday, another venerated Red Sox left-handed hitter, David Ortiz, announced he was going to play one more season and then retire.2 Unlike Williams in 1959, Ortiz’s production had... Ortiz had passed the 500-homer milestone, reaching 503 career home runs through 2015. In addition, Ortiz had three World Series championship rings with the Red Sox (2004, 2007, and 2013), a team accomplishment that had eluded Williams. Ortiz’s decision to return in 2016 proved correct, on both individual and team levels.

He had another successful year, leading the major leagues in doubles (48), slugging percentage (.620) and on-base percentage plus slugging (OPS) (1.021), while topping the American League with 127 RBIs. By the time Boston hosted the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park in the final three games of the 2016 season, the Red Sox had already clinched the AL East title, a rebound from... The final weekend began with the Friday night game on the last day of September. A day earlier, the New York Yankees had honored their longtime rival and his family at Yankee Stadium, with both Ortiz’s wife and daughter receiving floral bouquets. David Ortiz is no stranger to making history, to the point he may have numbed even the most sensitive baseball fans in New England. No.

34 passed Mickey Mantle on the all-time home run list? Snooze. With Ortiz, even historic production can, at times, seem routine. Until you look through the history books. What he’s doing in 2016 isn’t routine. It is far from it.

People who are 40 years old aren’t supposed to be playing baseball this well. They aren’t supposed to be belting home runs at Ortiz’ rate or hitting better than .300. I can’t remember a time when David Ortiz wasn’t on the Red Sox. In fact, I was just four years and 310 days old when “Big Papi” made his Sox debut. David Ortiz has made a greater impact on Boston sports fans of my generation than any other athlete. For someone who grew up scouring the box scores every day in the Portland Press Herald (Maine), it was a familiar sight to see Big Papi’s name as recording extra-base hits and RBI.

More notably, it has been Big Papi’s face everywhere. From Dunkin Donuts commercials with Rob Gronkowski to old “This is ESPN” commercials with Jorge Posada, David Ortiz’s image has been awesomely inescapable. I have had the same David Ortiz pennant hanging just above my bed in my Portland, Maine room since I started Little League in third grade. Here at BU, a gray Ortiz jersey hangs right above my bed. Admittedly, I cannot name all of Big Papi’s most famous clutch moments. In the 2013 World Series Ortiz batted .688 and hit two homeruns.

Just as memorable were the beards of the 2013 Sox with the likes of Jonny Gomes, Mike Napoli and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Of course, early in 2013 the tragic Boston Marathon bombing occurred. Although at the time David Ortiz has only lived in Boston for just over a decade, his words “this is our f***ing city” imbued more hope in the Boston community than words of anyone... Big Papi’s image is more than baseball, David Ortiz is the mentor, inspiration, and big brother to all of the baseball fans of this generation. Appreciating a truly historic farewell tour. Looking back at the 2016 baseball season, there was no shortage of iconic moments.

The Cubs broke a 108-year-old streak, Rougned Odor put his own personal touches on “The Shot Heard Round the World”, as well as Jose Bautista’s face, and Dee Gordon hit baseball’s most emotional home... But the thing that will forever be overlooked is that David Ortiz had the best farewell season, ever. In the 114 years of Major League Baseball, no player has performed quite as well in his last season as David Ortiz. He had the highest final season WAR of anyone in the history of the game, higher than the likes of Ty Cobb, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth—combined. Along those same historic lines, this David Ortiz season was the 3rd-highest campaign all-time in terms of WAR for players older than 40. And his slugging percentage was nearly 140 points better than the next-highest, Willie Mays in 1971.

These were all remarkable ranks in comparison to older hitters, yet looking at 2016 alone also speaks to Ortiz’s sheer dominance. He led the league in doubles (48); to crack 48 doubles at age 40 is unfathomable. He was also first in slugging percentage, by 25 points. The power he consistently demonstrated at 40 is insane—he led MLB with a .308 ISO, which is a sabermetric statistic that solely measures power. He does not even fit the parameters of this table used to contextualize this stat. In nearly every other category in 2016, such as wRC+, David Ortiz trailed only Mike Trout.

Mind you, Trout was 24—in or approaching his prime—and Ortiz was 40. Through Statcast, MLB’s advanced media program, Papi’s 2016 looks just as impressive. In the statistics compiled from Statcast (below), he is the only player who appears in the top five of all three statistics during this previous season. His one downside comes on defense, which is the reason he has embraced the role of DH throughout much of his professional career. He only played five innings in the field this past year; the season before, only 60. Much like Edgar Martinez, this may be the one obstacle to his induction into the Hall of Fame.

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.

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