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Red Sox David Ortiz Passes Three Hall of Famers on Homer List

ByBobMueller|
Apr 12, 2016; Boston, MA, USA; Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz (34) hits a home run against the Baltimore Orioles during the first inning at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 12, 2016; Boston, MA, USA; Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz (34) hits a home run against the Baltimore Orioles during the first inning at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

David Ortiz passed Ted Williams, Willie McCovey, and Frank Thomas on the all-time home run list while also reaching 2,000 hits as a Red Sox player.

Big Papi just keeps on trucking. The 40-year-old DH for the Boston Red Sox is having an amazing season. His most recent historic feat came on Friday when he hit his 522nd career homer that moved him past three Hall of Fame players on the career home run list. The home run puts Ortiz in 19th place on the all-time list and drops Ted Williams, Willie McCovey, and Frank Thomas into a tie for 20th.

Next up on the home run list for Ortiz is Jimmie Foxx, who has 534, then Mickey Mantle, with 536. Ortiz has 19 home runs in the Red Sox’ first 79 games and is projected for 17 more by the Depth Charts projections at Fangraphs. If he hits 15 more home runs, he’ll finish the year in 17th place.

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Ortiz has spent this year moving past some of the greatest hitters in baseball history on the all-time home run list. He started the year with 503, just one behind Eddie Murray. He has since passed Murray, Gary Sheffield, Mel Ott, Eddie Matthews, and Ernie Banks, along with the three Hall of Fame players mentioned earlier. Seven of the eight players Ortiz has passed this year are in the Hall of Fame, with only Gary Sheffield not among the enshrined. Sheffield has been on the ballot the last two years and received 11.6% and 11.7% of the vote.

The home run was also the 2000th hit for Ortiz as a member of the Red Sox, making him the seventh player in team history to achieve that number. The players preceding Ortiz as members of the 2000-hit club for the Red Sox include the legendary Ted Williams, along with Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Wade Boggs, and Bobby Doerr. All but the criminally underrated Dwight Evans are in the Hall of Fame.

As we near the halfway point of the season, David Ortiz is hitting .342/.435/684. He’s been worth 3.1 WAR so far this year, according to Fangraphs, and is projected to finish with 4.8 WAR. That projection expects Ortiz to hit .286/.377/.550 from here on out, which is well below his current level of production. He is 40, though, and has never hit this well over a full season.

Should he finish with 4.8 WAR, he would have the fifth-best season of all time for a player 40 years old or older. At the top of the list is Willie Mays and his 5.9 WAR season in 1971, followed by Honus Wagner in 1915 (5.5 WAR), Luke Appling in 1949 (5.2 WAR), and Carlton Fisk in 1990 (5.0 WAR). Those four players all played important up-the-middle defensive positions and gained more value from their defense than Ortiz will as a DH.

If we only consider offense, Ortiz is far ahead of the pace of any season by a player 40 or older in the history of the game. Ortiz currently has a 187 wRC+, meaning he has been 87% better than a league average hitter when adjusting for league and ballpark effects. Among players with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, Willie Mays posted the highest full season wRC+ for a player 40 or older during his 1971 season, when he finished with a 157 wRC+ (Barry Bonds also had a 157 wRC+ for his age-42 season but came up 25 plate appearances short of qualifying for the batting title. That was Bonds’ final season.). David Ortiz could top Mays (and Bonds) if he reaches his rest-of-season projection from Fangraphs, which, again, is well below his current level of hitting.

Next: Time for Ryan Howard to hang it up

Whether looking at traditional measures like home runs and hits or advanced statistics like WAR and wRC+, David Ortiz has been incredible in what is expected to be his final season. If he continues to hit like he has so far, can he really hang up the spikes at the end of the year?

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