320 Baserunners? Ouch.

Yup, that zips looks about right. Even though I think his homers may go up some. His dips for 2004 from espn was 4.86, his fip was 4.82. In AZ, the balls will fly out faster and farther, and he won't have Andruw or JD to chase them down. Splash parties in the pool every time Ortiz pitches. Man, if that production is worth $8M/year, Pedro ought to be asking for about $20M/year or so. No wonder RJ is growling (then again, he always does).

Here's the collective GOOD RIDDANCE from Braves fans.

And even the people who just sorta like 'em :)

I don't get it. I thought the D-Backs were supposed to be broke and 55 mill in debt. And yet the overspending continues ... taking their cues from the Federal Government, no doubt.

There. Gammons got one right. He said "close to 4/34," whereas someone in the dugout cited a report from an AZ newspaper that was 3/27.

I don't get it. I thought the D-Backs were supposed to be broke and 55 mill in debt. And yet the overspending continues ... taking their cues from the Federal Government, no doubt.

Why file for bankruptcy with 50M in debt when you can file for bankruptcy with 150M in debt?

Oh, and there's no way Ortiz wins 9 games with a ~5 ERA and that lineup, even in that run scoring environment. Glaus could hit 162 HR's and it wouldn't change that.

Glaus could hit 162 HR's and it wouldn't change that.

Well, not to quibble about it or anything, but I'm willing to bet that Glaus hitting 162 HRs would change that.

And a lot of other things besides . . . . :-)

The Diamondbacks offense should head towards the mean - it's really, really hard to maintain 3.8 runs/G offense for more than a year - you can score more by accident.

A big part of that was Al "Bunt Like Your Life Depends On It" Pedrique.

Man, good thing for the D-Backs that the Angels trumped this idiotic move. Still, the Glaus-Ortiz one-two punch is giving Guzman-Castilla a run for its money.

This is madness.

This is like one of those crazy NBA FA contracts you see during the off-seasons, like Etan Thomas or Brian Cardinal randomly getting $6M/yr for being a competent pro. Ortiz is of somewhat greater standing in his own sport, but this is still crazy. Carl Pavano, at this rate, should make about a billion dollars a year now.

Why file for bankruptcy with 50M in debt when you can file for bankruptcy with 150M in debt?

I like your thinking!

I think the Moorad era in the desert is going to be very expensive and very short. Definitely not going to last as long as when Moses had the job.

Any word if all this spending by the DBacks has changed Randy's mind about playing in Pheonix?

Posted by flournoy on December 10, 2004 at 10:00 PM (#1012042)
Here's the collective GOOD RIDDANCE from Braves fans.

I would like to preface this statement by saying of course I see the walks, and as Levski pointed out yesterday, the detoriating bb-k ratio and Homeruns allowed the last 3 years.

But the guy DID go 33-12 from April 2003-July 2004.

He faltered badly in August-September last year going 3-3 with an ERA around 6.00, closing out his career as a Brave with a 36-15 Record.

I agree Ortiz is being overpaid, and could be primed for a serious downfall if it wasnt just a two month slump the felled him last year, ( loss of velocity rumours are troubling) but good riddance is a little harsh, don't you think?.

Now don't jump all over me about over valuing wins. I know all the arguements, and agree with 90% of it. But there must be some skill, or talent , or ability, that has not been measured yet, that allowed Ortiz to compile a .632 career winning percentage. Yes, he has played on good teams. But which Giant or Braves pitchers have a better winning % than Ortiz during those 6 years?

Has he been lucky? Well, maybe tremendously so. Perhaps increasingly so. Of course DIPS is going to tell you that. But how can he be so lucky for 6 straight years? What are we missing here? Why does he have such a better win % than the teams he has been playing on?

With the Giants:

Russ Ortiz 67-44 .604 win %
Other giants pitchers 390-309 .558 win %

With the Braves:

Russ Ortiz 36-16 .692 win %
Other Braves pitchers 161-111 .692 win %

I realize every prdictive model there is says he will stink. No one really knows going forward.

But I would like to see someone smarter than me explain just why he has been able to win so much, so consistently. Explain the past to me before we speculate on the future.

typo on the above. Braves other pitchers win % was .592, not .692

Combined, Braves and Giants pitchers not named Ortiz have a .567 win% compared to Ortiz's .603 win %

Some clues perhaps to why Ortiz can win:

The following are pulled from ESPN's splits for the last 3 seasons:

OPS against, total, last 3 seasons .693

Runners in scoring position, OPS against .687

RISP, 2 outs, OPS against .669

Bases Loaded: .634

He is slightly better with Runners in scoring position, better still with RISP, 2 outs, and very tough with the bases loaded.

I am not talking "clutch" here, but it would appear he has the ability to "bear down". That phrase did not come about for nothing. I pitched through high school and two years of college. It is a legit thing to say a pitcher has the ability to bear down in given situations. Ortiz's numbers here would tend to support that.

I was also looking at OPS against by pitch count.

1-15 .790
16-30 .833
31-45 .545
46-60 .673
61-75 .616
76-90 .650
91-105 .752
106-120 .649

So it looks like you either get to him early, or prepare to be shut down in the middle innings and hope you can get to him in the 7th. If you don't you lose.

shoewiz, if the reported drop in velocity on Ortiz's fastball is real (Gammo says 8mph!), you can take all these numbers and throw them out the window. I only hope that Ortiz isn't hiding some injury, like a sore elbow (paging Dr. James Andrews!) or even worse, busted labrum (then Ortiz ought to just be euthanised). We won't know until spring training, unfortunately.

He's won so much because he is a winner. Ortiz at only $34M is so far the steal of the offseason.

shoewizard,

Ortiz seems to be in the class of pitchers who change their approach significantly with runners on. His BB rates with men on 2B, men on 2B & 3B, etc. are astonishingly high.

Nate Silver, on one of the BP chats, mentioned somethng like this in relation to Tom Glavine. I'd be curious if any of the projection gurus had looked into this issue. It seems like pitchers like this ought to beat their DIPS or CERA rates because their walks are not as damaging as they would be if they were normally distributed.

Of course, it's still a terrible signing. His velocity is down 8 mph post-ASB?! Was he throwing a palmball for two months?

Arizona didn't give Wally Backman a background check so who says they're going to check out how hard Ortiz was throwing in August and September? Due dillegence, guys. Due F. Dillegence.

I predict this deal won't work out and Ortiz will get released around June of 2006.

What's amazing is how much ZiPS over estimated Ortiz' abilities. I think the team would have been overjoyed if they had gotten 9-16, 4.92 and 7-15, 5.34 instead of what they did get.