David Ortiz is having a monster final season in the big leagues, good enough to have many asking if it’s really time to hang it up. But how does Big Papi’s last hurrah compare to some other all-time greats?
What David Ortiz is doing in 2016 is something for the ages. After announcing that this would be his final season via a video on The Players’ Tribune website on his 40th birthday last November, Ortiz is putting together perhaps the best year of his entire career and prompting players, coaches, and media to question whether he should reconsider.
Entering play on Friday, Ortiz is slashing .340/.431/.697 with 18 home runs, 30 doubles, and 60 RBIs. He leads all of Major League Baseball in OPS, OPS+, runs created, and offensive winning percentage, among others, and has already amassed a 3.4 bWAR in 66 games played.
For his career, Papi currently sits 19th all-time in home runs with 521, 25th with 1,701 RBIs, and 11th with 614 doubles, and all of those numbers will continue to be padded throughout the summer. It’s basically impossible to argue that Ortiz is not a Hall of Famer, despite having spent the majority of his career as a designated hitter. The career numbers are just that good.
Even as he comes to regret announcing his retirement early and shying away from the various ceremonies and media throngs meant to honor him that take away from his usual pregame routine, Ortiz is having one of the all-time great final seasons in big league history.
So how does Papi’s 2016 measure up with some other epic final seasons? We dug around the history books and found that he’s in some very special company.
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