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Red Sox David Ortiz Celebrated by Mariners During His Farewell Tour

By Bobby Mueller

Jul 12, 2016; San Diego, CA, USA; American League player David Ortiz (34) of the Boston Red Sox tips his helmet to the crowd as he is replaced in the third inning in the 2016 MLB All Star Game at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 12, 2016; San Diego, CA, USA; American League player David Ortiz (34) of the Boston Red Sox tips his helmet to the crowd as he is replaced in the third inning in the 2016 MLB All Star Game at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Seattle Mariners bestowed gifts to David Ortiz prior to the Mariners—Red Sox game on Wednesday.

The season-long farewell tour of David Ortiz made a stop in Seattle this week. It gets lost in the shuffle of the long, distinguished career of David Ortiz that he first signed with the Seattle Mariners as a 17-year-old amateur free agent in 1992. He played two full seasons and part of a third in the Mariners’ organization from 1994 to 1996, then was sent to the Minnesota Twins as the player to be named later in a deal that netted the Mariners Dave Hollins (ironically, David Ortiz was known as David Arias at the time, so he was the player to be named later in multiple ways).

Hollins went on to accumulate 2.5 Wins Above Replacement (per Baseball-Reference) over the remainder of his career. Meanwhile, David Ortiz has been worth 53.7 WAR in his career. Trading away David Ortiz in 1996 was not one of the finer moves by GM Woody Woodward.

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As part of the celebration on Wednesday, the Mariner gave Ortiz his first professional contract from back in 1992. They also gave him 34 pounds of salmon, with the 34 representing his uniform number and salmon being the signature seafood of Washington State. Nelson Cruz, Robinson Cano, and Felix Hernandez presented Big Papi with a painting and a watch. The trio of Mariners were wearing their own Flava Flav style watches around their necks at the time (“Yeahhhh, boyyyy!).

There was one moment in all of this that I personally found to be very amusing. David Ortiz is considered by many to be a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s had a great career, with 10 All-Star appearances, six Silver Slugger Awards, and five Top 5 finishes in AL MVP voting. He’s hit more than 500 home runs, has over 1700 RBI, and a career batting line of .285/.379/.550. He’s been even better in the post-season. In 82 career post-season games, Ortiz has 17 home runs and 60 RBI and has hit .295/.409/.553. He’s had so many big moments in the playoffs and World Series, it would take a thousand words to reminisce about them all. Here, watch this video instead:

The Mariners recognized Ortiz for his accomplishments, including a flyer with the words Special Presentation: David Ortiz “Big Papi”. The flyer announced that the team would be honoring Ortiz that night because he was retiring at the end of the season. On the bottom part of the flyer, there was this title: The Greatest Designated Hitters in MLB History. Below that it showed a comparison of Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz:

.933 OPS, .312/.418/.515, 1283 BB, 1202 K, 1.07 BB/K—Edgar Martinez

.930 OPS, .286/.379/.551, 1293 BB, 1716 K, 0.75 BB/K—David Ortiz

7.54 RC/27, 68.3 WAR (Baseball-Reference), 147 OPS+—Edgar Martinez

6.95 RC/27, 53.8 WAR (Baseball-Reference), 141 OPS+—David Ortiz

This is brilliant. While the Mariners are celebrating David Ortiz for his excellence at DH, they included this subtle little acknowledgment that, as good as David Ortiz has been, Edgar Martinez was better. The statistics used on the flyer were cherry-picked to show Edgar in the best possible light, of course, but he actually has been much more valuable according to Baseball-Reference WAR (68.3 to 53.8) and Fangraphs WAR (65.5 to 49.1).

The trouble with Edgar’s case for the Hall of Fame is that he doesn’t have the counting stats that David Ortiz has. Ortiz had 1200 more plate appearances, which helped him accumulate almost 200 more hits, 300 more home runs, and nearly 500 more RBI. Edgar has a significant edge in batting average and on-base percentage.

I’m sure Big Papi fans are crying foul. “If Ortiz had so many more homers and RBI, how could Edgar have been more valuable? These new-fangled statistics are ridiculous!” One way of looking at it is to consider the number of outs made. Outs are the currency of baseball. The defense needs to get three of them every inning while allowing as few runs as possible. The offense needs to get as many runs as they can before using up their three outs. In their careers, Ortiz has made over 1000 more outs than Edgar. That’s about three seasons worth of outs that Ortiz has used up that Edgar did not. That makes a difference.

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I’m not writing to denigrate David Ortiz, though. He was (and still is) a terrific player. He was a key member on a Red Sox team that helped a franchise that hadn’t won a World Series since 1918 to their first World Series in more than 80 years. Then he helped them win two more rings. He’s a Hall of Fame player in my book. And so is Edgar Martinez.

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