I'm not going to mock Ortiz for putting himself in the same conversation with Big Frank and with Edgar. After all, a man's got to have a certain level of positive outlook on his own accomplishments. But he fits in between Edgar and Hal McRae, and to be honest, a lot closer to McRae than to Edgar.

If Ortiz has 2011-2015 seasons as good as his 2010, I think he's got a decent case with all the intangible stuff.

What are the odds of that? 50 to 1? 100?

I think he's got a decent case with all the intangible stuff.

The positive steroid test in particular is really going to help him.

I'm not going to mock Ortiz for putting himself in the same conversation with Big Frank and with Edgar. After all, a man's got to have a certain level of positive outlook on his own accomplishments. But he fits in between Edgar and Hal McRae, and to be honest, a lot closer to McRae than to Edgar.

I'm not going to endorse an Ortiz HoF case, but that's beng a bit mean. Through their age 34 seasons Ortiz has about 50% more oWAR than MyRae, and wasily the better peak. Neither added anything defensively ;)

I've closed the tabs now, but through age 34, the WAR for McRae, Ortiz and Edgar was around 20, 31, 39. So Ortiz is pretty much right in the middle, but if anything leaning t o the Edgar side, not the McRae.

Of course DHs should be considered, and voted in if they were good enough. The only problem is that they contribute absolute zero to the team's defense, as opposed to just being lousy at a position, and it's turning out to be difficult to determine, mathematically, what "absolute zero" means in this case. - Brock Hanke

And minigolf deserves a Masters.

Lenny Harris believes pinch-hitters deserve Hall Of Fame consideration.

Being a great DH is like serving the best airline food or being the tallest midget at the circus.

Mike Myers thinks loogys deserve to be in too. They don't play in their house either.

Ortiz + Roid test = not good enough.

He wont have the counting stats because except for his peak years he was not HOF caliber. Papis peak from 2003-2007 was pretty good and should be considered.

2003-2007


208 HR
642 RBI
156 OPS

A-Rods best 5 year stretch, 154 OPS+ 240 HR, 631 RBI
Manny Ramirez 172 OPS+, 193 HR, 623 RBI
Albert Pujols, 176 OPS+, 206 HR, 608 RBI
Derek Jeter 128 OPS+
Barry Bonds (pre-juice), 190 OPS+, 192 HR, 540 RBI
Edgar Martinez 165 OPS+, 136 HR, 512 RBI
Frank Thomas, 184 OPS+. 194 HR, 599 RBI

Especially given that Bonds and Manny won't get in for steroids (somehow people believe Papi did not use despite his being on the 2003 list).

Of course, so many HR and RBI's over this stretch will hurt him. I think OPS+ is unfair for a LHB'er at Fenway since it's a tough park for LHB'ers. Probably should have used OPS.

Unless he hits for another 5 years and somehow makes it to 500 HR he probably does not get in.

MLB all but declared that Ortiz's 03 result was a false positve/supliment.

They did this for no other player. George Mitchell I presume, again?

The only problem is that they contribute absolute zero to the team's defense, as opposed to just being lousy at a position, and it's turning out to be difficult to determine, mathematically, what "absolute zero" means in this case.

For a career DH like Ortiz, the lack of defensive ability requires some offset of whatever the offensive contributions are. Other poor fielders were kept on the field because Ortiz wasn't good enough to play the field except for a few inter-league game in the NL parks when there was no DH. Similarly, other players couldn't get the "half-day off" that comes with the occasional turn at DH, and injured players who might have been able to DH weren't able to do so because Ortiz was such a defensive liability. Given all these ripple effects, Ortiz would have to be a heck of a hitter to make the HoF, and his late start and positive PED test make him an unlikely candidate at this point.

Neither added anything defensively ;)

You're making a joke, I know, but McRae actually did provide some small measure of defensive value over his career. He had almost 500 career starts in the field, most of them as an average-ish defensive LF. Ortiz had about half that many starts at a defensive position, all as a below-average 1B.

McRae also gets whatever credit you'd like to assign for his managerial career.

To me a full time DH has to be better than the best hitting non-DH that is not in the Hall to have a shot. PED guys aside that is probably Allen I would guess.

Comps list centered on Ortiz in terms of OPS+ and PAs, ranked by B-Ref's Fielding Runs:



First of all, careers of that length don't get into Halls unless they're Frank Baker. Second, hey, those are all excellent hitters. Third, an interesting contrast between Ortiz and Vaughn, pointing up one item of contention in these threads. Vaughn was actively bad at 1B and Ortiz avoids such badness by playing DH – meaning that the actual defensive harm he engenders is entirely due to the cascade effect the Clapper mentions in #13. (Which can be read both ways: perhaps a great DH gives you the freedom to employ more pure defensive players, potentially [if not always actually] helping the team on that end.)

Fourth, Bob Watson was that bad in the field?

To me a full time DH has to be better than the best hitting non-DH that is not in the Hall to have a shot. PED guys aside that is probably Allen I would guess.

What if you think Allen should already be in the hall? Then can you lower the bar slightly?

Either way, no on Ortiz. Not nearly as good as Edgar, all told, and he's barely over my line.

What if you think Allen should already be in the hall? Then can you lower the bar slightly?

Absolutely. I guess to be more accurate I would say a DH has to be better than the best hitting non-DH I think is not worthy.

To me a full time DH has to be better than the best hitting non-DH that is not in the Hall to have a shot. PED guys aside that is probably Allen I would guess.

I agree with the concept, but unfortunately the execution has a problem, in that there are clearly deserving players who aren't in, and of course in Allen's case there is more than just numbers to explain why he isn't in. I would say that a DH is deserving of serious consideration of going in if he can qualify as an above average hof hitter among the corner outfielders and firstbaseman that are in(or should be in). Of course you have the peak, career, prime arguments after that point, but I think that you start by looking at what the standard for hof consideration is, and work from there.

Do a search for all players with 4000+ PA and 70%+ career games at DH and you get one player: Ortiz. He's the first "career DH" with a long career.

Comps for Papi

Least WAR fielding runs, Eligible non-HOFers, mainly DH-1B-corner OF, OPS+ 125-143, PA 6000-9000

Active and recent players:

Do a search for all players with 4000+ PA and 70%+ career games at DH and you get one player: Ortiz. He's the first "career DH" with a long career.

Edgar Martinez played 592 of his 2055 career games in the field, or 28.8%. I think he qualifies.

I think we should stop voting for American League pitchers for the Hall of Fame.

Edgar Martinez played 592 of his 2055 career games in the field, or 28.8%. I think he qualifies.

I thought it was pretty well agreed upon that Edgar was the first true career DH with a long enough career to be considered as a DH-only HOFer. And Ortiz is no Edgar. For example, David Ortiz's current career OBP is 0.376. The only time Edgar had an OBP lower than 0.376 in his career in a season with more than 200 PA was his last season (age 41, OBP .342).

Martinez played 592 of his 2055 career games in the field, or 28.8%. I think he qualifies.

Well, Martinez was capable of playing adequate defense but his team chose not to in order to maximize his value to the team.

In contrast, Ortiz has played 15.4% of his career games at 1B (and no other defensive position), about half as much as Edgar. And this percentage is decreasing every year. At no time in his career was Ortiz ever an adequate fielder. This is unlike Martinez, who was at least useful defensively into his early 30's.

There is a widespread misperception that Martinez was a full-time DH like Ortiz. I'm saying that there is an obvious difference. That it's inaccurate to lump in Edgar with Ortiz as "career DH's" who had no value defensively while blocking his teams' options for playing others at DH. For the first one-third of his career Martinez was a third baseman.

Yes, Edgar Martinez was used mostly in the role of DH. No, he was not a career DH like Ortiz.

Dan,


If Misirlous's comment about edgar's playing time is correct, then your initial comment...

Do a search for all players with 4000+ PA and 70%+ career games at DH and you get one player: Ortiz. He's the first "career DH" with a long career

...isn't.

At no time in his career was Ortiz ever an adequate fielder.

Depending on what you mean by 'adequate', I'd disagree with that. Ortiz was never a 'good' fielder, but he was a little below average to below average when he did play, not a disaster by any means. To me, that's perfectly adequate for solid-hitting player. He was assigned to the DH more because of his knees, and because the Red Sox really like having a good defense 1B.

In contrast, Ortiz has played 15.4% of his career games at 1B (and no other defensive position), about half as much as Edgar. And this percentage is decreasing every year. At no time in his career was Ortiz ever an adequate fielder. This is unlike Martinez, who was at least useful defensively into his early 30's.

Yeah, but doesn't this cut both ways? In his defense, was he stuck at DH because he simply couldn't play the field, or because his teams had adequate hitters who were better fielders? In other words, could he have existed in the National League? I mean, hell, Adam Dunn is the proto-typical career DH, but even he has played almost all of his career in the NL. I don't believe Ortiz hit free agency after the first deal he signed with Boston, but I'd venture to guess that there were plenty of NL teams who would have pursued him as a first baseman with his ability to hit.

I can't think of a player that has ever hit the free agent market that could hit like Ortiz and got no action from NL teams.

Edgar had three seasons in which he played more than half the season in the field. He had only five seasons of more than 20 games in the field. He was a full time DH.

Dan,


If Misirlous's comment about edgar's playing time is correct, then your initial comment...

Do a search for all players with 4000+ PA and 70%+ career games at DH and you get one player: Ortiz. He's the first "career DH" with a long career

...isn't.

Edgar did a lot of pinch hitting at the end, 35 times in his last 3 years. Thus, though he played less than 30% of his career games in the field, he doesn't have 70% of his career at DH. He has 67%. A trivial distinction to be sure, and Dan's contention that he is not a career DH is ludicrous.

If Misirlous's comment about edgar's playing time is correct, then your initial comment...

You callin' the Play Index a liar? While Misirlou's numbers are correct, he's forgetting pinch hitting games. Adding up Edgar's DH games at BB-Ref has him with 1396 games as DH in his career, or 67.9%. If you look at his Splits page it shows 1403 games as DH, cause they include Ph for the DH in the total; still only 68.3%.

Edgar had three seasons in which he played more than half the season in the field.

Actually, four seasons that he started more than half the schedule at 3B, since he also did this in the shortened 1994 season. One could also consider the years 1987 to 1989 (age 24-26), years when he coulda/shoulda been in the majors instead of nuking AAA pitching. He played no DH in those years, even some 2B in the minors.

Martinez was not a born DH like Ortiz; he is more like Paul Molitor or Hal McRae, guys who were moved to DH in mid-career to try and keep them in the lineup.

In his defense, was he stuck at DH because he simply couldn't play the field, or because his teams had adequate hitters who were better fielders?

His defense was definitely not good, but it wasn't so bad he couldn't have played in the NL. But Ortiz was pretty injury-prone in Minnesota when he had to play in the field, and I'm guessing in pre-DH time or in the NL he's a what-might-have-been guy.

Actually, four seasons that he started more than half the schedule at 3B, since he also did this in the shortened 1994 season. One could also consider the years 1987 to 1989 (age 24-26), years when he coulda/shoulda been in the majors instead of nuking AAA pitching. He played no DH in those years, even some 2B in the minors.

Oops, you're right about '94.

I see no reason to give him credit for his minor league play. Ortiz played in the field an awful lot in the minors as well. One could argue that given how great a minor league hitter Edgar was that a reasonable assumption is that his defense was unacceptable for promotion to the Majors. I sincerely doubt that to be true and that it's the 80s Mariners just being stupid as they tended to be but I think making assumptions in either direction is erroneous.

Whether Martinez couldn't play in the field because he couldn't stay healthy or because he was bad at it the end result is the same; he was unable to play the field regularly. He played the majority of his career at DH.

On a related note I believe early 17th century masculinity studies should be better funded.

EDIT: I kid. Nobody actually believes that.