Final curtain call: Hall
Ortiz’ legacy clearly worthy of Cooperstown
The best case for David Ortiz as a future Hall of Famer is not the numbers, although many of them are admirable, some phenomenal, all qualifying and this season’s utterly unbelievable. Despite them, the best argument is this: Name 10 guys who made the Hall of Fame because of their glove.
Ozzie Smith? Maybe, although he had 2,460 hits in case you didn’t notice. Now, give me the other nine. Crickets. If glove work is what puts you in the Hall of Fame, Clete Boyer and Mark Belanger would have gone in on roller skates. The latter is the proud product of Pittsfield — so he has home-field advantage here — was an eight-time American League Gold Glover for the Baltimore Orioles and retired after 18 seasons with major league history’s highest career fielding average by an AL shortstop at .977. He was like a vacuum cleaner in the hole.
One could argue there has never been a better fielding shortstop than Belanger. So if playing in the field is so important when it comes to the Hall of Fame, why isn’t Belanger in Cooperstown? Because he was a career .228 hitter. That’s why. That and the fact that what gets you to Cooperstown is your bat.
Which brings me to David Ortiz.
If this is indeed his final season, the way Big Papi is going out is not going to make it easy on those who want to keep him out of the Hall simply because he’s only used his first baseman’s mitt 15 percent of the time he’s been in the major leagues.
Without a doubt, Ortiz is a professional hitter. He hits bombs for a living, 541 for his career heading into the final two games of the regular season. Some will tell you he couldn’t catch the flu in February. So what?
This year Ortiz is writing the finest goodbye song since “I Did It My Way.” One can argue no one in baseball history has had the kind of final season numbers Ortiz is ringing up, numbers so dominating he could end up as the league’s MVP at the same time he’s saying “Adios, muchacho” to baseball.
Entering yesterday, Ortiz had 541 home runs, which is 17th all-time; 1,768 RBI, which is 22nd all-time; and 632 doubles, which is 10th all-time. His career batting average of .286 ranks 35th all-time and let’s face it, he’s never gotten a leg hit in his life.
He is only the third player in history to have more than 500 home runs and 600 doubles. The other two are Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds. Aaron is in the Hall and Bonds, PEDs or no PEDs, should be.
If one factors in Ortiz’ postseason work, it’s even more remarkable. He ranks among the greatest playoff hitters in history with 17 home runs, 60 RBI and 21 doubles. He is an ALCS and World Series MVP, as well as a three-time World Series champion. His postseason average is .295 with an OBP of .409, a slugging percentage of .553 and a .962 OPS. Do you really care if he can make the one-hop catch at first base?
His regular-season averages are even more noteworthy. Over 20 years, an average Ortiz season would be 43 doubles, 36 home runs, 119 RBI with a .286 batting average, .380 OBP, .551 slugging and .931 OPS. At 40 years old, and making his final trip through the big leagues, Ortiz has exceeded his seasonal career average in each of those categories. In other words, at a time when most major leaguers have retired to the Barcalounger, he is exceeding his career norm in every significant hitting category. If this guy doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame, why do they have one?
The purists will argue he’s a designated hitter by trade, meaning he plays only half the game. That’s like saying Bruce Sutter or Goose Gossage or Hoyt Wilhelm don’t belong in the Hall because they only pitched an inning or two per appearance. They may have only had part-time work, but ask their teams where they would have been if someone else was doing the job? You want to argue against Mariano Rivera because he only pitched an inning a night?
Same applies to Ortiz. He does more for his team with the bat than most guys do with a bat, ball and glove. And let me ask you this: Is Harmon Killebrew in the Hall of Fame because of how he could pick it? Is that true for Ted Williams, a laconic left fielder at best? We could go on, but why bother when the answer is obvious?
Pitchers reach the Hall of Fame for their dominance whether they are starters or relievers. They aren’t judged by how well they hit, nor are they penalized for not hitting at all if they play in the AL. One can argue, “Yes, but at least they have to field,” but name the pitcher in the Hall for his adeptness in the field.
In fact, if fielding the position was so important for a pitcher, they’d let him catch a pop-up once in a while rather than force infielders and catchers to stagger around all the way to the mound to catch one for them.
Frankly, there already is a DH in the Hall if one looks honestly at Frank Thomas. He played 1,310 games at DH and only 971 at first base. That’s about 600 more games in the field than Ortiz but did you ever study Thomas’ glove work? He was the Big Hurt at first base, too, but it was his own team that was suffering.
The stat geeks don’t believe in clutch hitting, but they do believe in WAR (wins above replacement), which is supposed to evaluate a player’s total contribution to his team. Here are a few guys with a better career WAR than David Ortiz: Chet Lemon, Johnny Damon, Will Clark, Kenny Lofton and John Olerud. If we’re starting a team, be it fantasy or reality, would you rather have their WAR or his bat? Exactly. David Ortiz deserves to one day enter the Hall of Fame because he earned it the way nearly all his predecessors did. He hit his way in.