David Ortiz is going to be a Hall of Famer someday, whether you agree with the decision or not.
The Boston Red Sox designated hitter made it official Wednesday that he’d be retiring after the 2016 season. So, naturally, the announcement brought out the baseball pundits to argue over whether Ortiz should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Really, though, there’s no argument.
It’s hard to imagine looking back at baseball in the early 2000s without Ortiz’s name coming up. He came to the Red Sox in 2003 from the Minnesota Twins as a free agent, and one year later he was an instrumental part of ending the franchise’s 86-year World Series drought. He brought Boston two titles more over his soon-to-be 20 seasons and accomplished so much in between.
Honestly, it’s hard to imagine baseball in general without mentioning Ortiz.
The statisticians will tell you Ortiz wasn’t all that valuable a player, and they’ll have the WAR numbers to prove it. They’ll say there’s just no way a designated hitter could ever make as much difference as a guy who takes the field day-in and day-out. But that really doesn’t tell the whole story.
Ortiz built a career on broken records and baseball magic. He’s had more staying power than any other DH in his time. (Seriously, how many true DHs can you think of who consistently produced for one team in the last two decades and aren’t named Edgar Martinez or Frank Thomas?) Ortiz is a nine-time All-Star, three-time World Series champion, six-time Silver Slugger honoree, has had 13 seasons with an OPS-plus of 120 or more, seven seasons with 30-plus home runs and 100-plus RBIs and, oh yeah, has 503 career home runs.
And there are the intangibles, too. If you need to win in the ninth inning, you feel a whole lot better if you know Ortiz is going to get a chance to step up to the plate. He’s the epitome of clutchness, and his postseason numbers make a point of that. In 82 postseason games, Ortiz has a .295 average with 60 RBIs and has American League Championship Series and World Series MVP awards to prove it.
If your argument against Ortiz is performance-enhancing drugs, then this isn’t the place, either. Ortiz’s name was brought up as a possible user in a 2003 New York Times report, but the MLB Players Association found plenty of inconsistencies with it. It’s not the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s place to be the jury on who did or didn’t do PEDs unless there’s concrete evidence from the league. And — you might have to brace yourself for this one — there’s almost a 100 percent chance PEDs users already are in the Hall.
So when it comes to Ortiz’s Hall of Fame chances, you have to look past the WAR and speculations. He’s been the face of the Red Sox for 13 seasons, and perhaps the face of baseball for some of those years. There might be some writers who can think ahead and imagine baseball history without David Ortiz, but there’s a very good chance at least 75 percent of them can’t.
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
