David Ortiz Live

With all the hoopla at the end of the season surrounding David Ortiz, this one just seemed like a natural fit. How had Ortiz performed while I was in the park? I hadn’t looked at anyone with such a large sample size before, so I thought this would be interesting. First, of course, I needed to be sure that I was really covering every game I saw him in. So, I waited until after the Red Sox were eliminated, just in case. Of course, that made me really regret that I don’t have every time I’ve seen Ortiz chronicled here. There are games I don’t score for one reason or another. That’s especially annoying in this case because I notice no October games in 2004. That means I missed ALCS game 4. I feel like he did pretty well in that game.

But, even missing those few instances, I have an amazing sample of Ortiz performances ranging from 2000 to 2016. Those games encompass his entire Red Sox career, and then some. I scored 65 of his games, totaling 270 plate appearances. 

How did David Ortiz do while I was in the park?

Yup. Pretty damn well. Exactly what you’d expect from Ortiz, and maybe then some.

Just the raw numbers. I’ve seen David Ortiz hit a home run at least fifteen times. I’ve seen him drive in over 50 runs, and score more than 40 himself. Those are fantastic numbers.

But, look at the extrapolations. If I scale his performance to a 660 at-bat season, I can see what kind of player I was watching. From the looks of it, I was watching an MVP. Look at that slash line. Slugging over .600? An OPS of 1.025? Monster numbers. 200 hits. 150+ RBI. 44 HR. Even if he didn’t exactly end on a high note, he was a magical player while I was in the park.

Which is, of course, exactly what I was hoping for. It’s always nice when I do these and see that I saw a pretty fair representation of the player. I don’t like that I saw the very worst of Paul Konerko. I wish I had seen more of the “real” Mariono Rivera. (On second thought, scratch that. I’m glad I saw the worst of him.) But, much like Pedro, with Ortiz I got a true representation of the player, and I’m thrilled.

How did Ortiz do when you were in the park?