That's awesome

I think he's kind of a prima Donna sometimes. But that's cool.

Tough to find a guy who has meant more to a franchise and city than Papi to the Red Sox.

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I feel like him more than anyone has gotten a free pass for steroid usage

That annoys me

I'm sure he's a great guy, but I will boo him in person tomorrow, because I want to start ****

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You seem like a quality individual.

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That f-bomb was in response to a terrorist attack and it helped define the city's response.

The PED use has never been established. He supposedly tested positive once in a trial that was never meant to go public and we don't even know what he tested positive for. And that list had more players on it than samples of urine tested.

He's been a terrific presence in the city of Boston and is by all accounts a good, decent human being.

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I can't stand the guy.

Real decent human beings, except not ball all accounts, well at least not this one.

When my boy's team is learning how to argue balls and strikes, I bring along this video to help them understand that at 37... 38... it is perfectly acceptable to behave like this, because Ortiz does it.

If you doubt he uses PEDs and has for years, then I really can't help you... You probably still believe A-Rod, Bonds and McGwire were ALL legal.

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That f-bomb was in response to a terrorist attack and it helped define the city's response.

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I'm not ignorant of the circumstances.

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The PED use has never been established. He supposedly tested positive once in a trial that was never meant to go public and we don't even know what he tested positive for. And that list had more players on it than samples of urine tested.

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Hence, the use of the word "allegations." But, when Rob Neyer talked about Ortiz claiming to have been tested over 80 times and not failed one, Neyer noted that a player who had tested perfectly clean would have no legitimate reason to be tested so often.

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He's been a terrific presence in the city of Boston and is by all accounts a good, decent human being.

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A good, decent human being who loses his composure in the most public and explosive ways at least once a season, and who can't seem to give an interview without revealing a chip on his shoulder about something or someone.

But, I don't want to come off as too harsh on the guy. I liked him fine when he was named Mo Vaughn.

Man lots of hate for this guy here.

I'm kind of meh on Papi. Used to dislike him a lot more, but now he's not too high up on my list of guys I hate.

Stuff like the video in the OP is always good to see and I think overall Ortiz is a good guy and he'll be missed not only in Boston, but in the game itself.

Yankees fans dislike him so he's alright with me

Everyone has the opportunity to do good things for people. I'm a teacher, I see my colleagues do amazing stuff every day. Doesn't get on YouTube much, though.

I don't generally see them lose their ****, smash things, need to be restrained, etc, over things that don't go their way. Nor do I see a lot of public discussion about things that happen, and taking them personally (to be fair, teachers lounges are probably as mercurial and profane as any MLB clubhouse).

So I gotta judge on what I see. He does only part of the job that other players do, because he is incapable of playing the field at a competent level consistently. His impulse control is below what I would consider an acceptable standard; perhaps because of (but certainly related to) his tendency to take things personally.

And truthfully, I'm exasperated by the near deification by the Boston fans. It approaches Jeter level idolatry.

I don't hate Ortiz. I don't care for him, but I can easily name other baseball men that I dislike more.

I'm indifferent towards Ortiz. One of my favorite players is STILL Pete Rose. To each his own.

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Hence, the use of the word "allegations." But, when Rob Neyer talked about Ortiz claiming to have been tested over 80 times and not failed one, Neyer noted that a player who had tested perfectly clean would have no legitimate reason to be tested so often.

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For what it is worth, Chris Calcaterra, who Rob Neyer was taking that from, did the math wrong.

1 mandatory spring training urine test
1 additional mandatory urine test at random time.
1 mandatory spring training blood test

~ 3 random urine tests per player. (3200 random in-season tests/1200 players = 2.7 tests/player + 350 random off-season tests/1200 players = 0.3 tests/player)

So, on average that is about 6 per year without being in "the program."

Calcaterra said players are tested 2-3 times a year without being in "the program."



Now, some of this is new testing and Calcaterra was right in saying it still seems like a lot, and Papi may very well have ****ed up at some point and brought on extra testing, but Big Papi's claim is less outrageous than what Neyer and Calcaterra were saying.

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1). He does only part of the job that other players do, because he is incapable of playing the field at a competent level consistently.

2). And truthfully, I'm exasperated by the near deification by the Boston fans. It approaches Jeter level idolatry.

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1). He plays his assigned position. The DH is his position. If he were a pitcher, I'd agree. But he isn't. The AL has a designated hitter and that is the position the team has assigned him to play. Do you think he should fight the management over this?

So that argument is dumb.

2). Like Rays fans didn't idolize Wade Boggs, or any of their other long time greats? You know, the great players that fans come to the field by the bus loads to see? You know, like... um wait a minute. Never mind.

See answer 1!

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Am I the only person who doesn't like David Ortiz

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Am I the only person who thinks you are a cross dresser?

I'm not a Boston fan in the least bit, but don't have a problem with Papi at all.

Anyone saying that his most memorable moment was saying **** on TV obviously hasn't been a baseball fan for very long. I can name several in-game moments off the top of my head that are much better.... As for PEDs - I hope you don't watch football at the professional or even college level. And if you can't show me a time he has tested positive, then he will get lumped in with the innocent in my book.

Complaining about people who argue calls or get ejected from a game leaves you a REALLY short list of players to root for. Hell, I have gotten in serious arguments over something pretty silly that wasn't even in the heat of competition. If you are saying you haven't.... well, then I'm calling you a sanctimonious jackass - and a liar.

I don't like Ortiz for the same reasons I don't like A-Rod. Both are known PED users and both are adamant they are clean. Both have taken rosters spots and millions of dollars from players who tried to do it the right way.

A tale of the tapes.

They are less than 4 months apart, so comparing them is quite easy.
DO - Born: November 18, 1975 (40.176)
AR - Born: July 27, 1975 (40.290

1st MLB Season - ARod got an earlier start. DO is from DR and AR is from "Miami."
DO: 1997 (age 21)
AR: 1994 (age 18)

Compare: before 2000 Season. I chose 2000 because Ortiz had not become a regular player. That gives A-Rod a jump on the stats.
DO: 3 Seasons \ 111 G \ 93 H \ 23 2B \ 10 HR \ 347 AB
AR: 6 Seasons \ 642 G \ 493 H \ 160 2B \ 148 HR \ 2070 AB

Compare: 2000+:
24: 17 Seasons: 2247 H \ 575 2B \ 502 HRs \ 7871 ABs = .285 BA; HR every 15.68 AB
24: 16 Seasons: 2591 H \ 384 2B \ 544 HRs \ 8343 ABs = .311 BA; HR every 15.34 AB

So, comparing the two players for similar seasons, both are 24 in this season and both are still playing. The one difference in tenure is A-Rod's PED banned season. Both played in the AL their entire career and while one was in Boston with the Green Monster, the bulk of their time was in the AL East facing similar pitching and visiting stadiums.

What we know is A-Rod tested positive his MVP season of 2003 and was allowed to continue playing even though he was tested positive. Ortiz was 5th. A-Rod was again MVP in 2005, when Ortiz finished 2nd. In 2007, A-Rod won again and Ortiz was 4th.

So, in A-Rod's 3 MVP seasons, Ortiz was 2nd, 4th and 5th.

For the same 17 seasons of MLB A-Rod had a slightly higher HR rate and crushed A-Rod in the number of doubles. During that time we are confirmed that A-Rod tested at least twice for PEDs. During that time A-Rod has been a pure physical specimen that is a monster physically. Ortiz looks like someone from Arlen in King of the Hill.

The power, the flexibility, the youthfulness demonstrated by Ortiz is even more impressive than Bonds. I'm going to assume when I compare Bond, Sosa, McGwire, A-Rod and Ortiz, we'll find very similar performance numbers. Four of them are well known and well documented users of PEDs and one claims to be clean.

It's like we've seen this finger wagging Palmeiro bit before.

I don't care for Ortiz. I hate that a guy like Ortiz can stick around so long because all he has to do is waddle his way up to the plate a few times each game, take a few swings and call it a day. Whereas someone like Vladimir Guerrero, one of my favorites, has to hang them up due to his body breaking down. I'm a fan of the DH, but maybe there should be a "limit" on how many plate appearances a guy can make for a season/career as a DH.

Not quoting all that drivel, especially the specious part two.

It's not a sin to be so bad at a position that, in a 14 year career with a company, they hire five different people to do that job instead. I mean, it's kind of odd when those five guys collectively perform at a below average level (Ramirez, Napoli, Gonzalez, Youkilis, Millar combine for a -0.8 defensive WAR). But it's cool.

I coach, and while I love all my guys, there are some guys who aren't cut out to do certain things. Doesn't mean they can't do what they do well, but I'm not going to start claiming they're the best in the city.

To answer the comment about losing one's cool... lol. I'm not a professional baseball player. But, like I said above, I'm a middle school baseball coach; and somehow, nineteen 11-15 year olds have managed to deal with HBPs, errors, blown calls, etc without yelling at people or breaking things. I can't hold Ortiz to a standard that my guys can meet?

Hahahahahahaha!!!!!

Hahahahaha!!!!!

Like anyone is going to read that!

Papi just hit his 399th career double!

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It's not a sin to be so bad at a position that, in a 14 year career with a company, they hire five different people to do that job instead. I mean, it's kind of odd when those five guys collectively perform at a below average level (Ramirez, Napoli, Gonzalez, Youkilis, Millar combine for a -0.8 defensive WAR). But it's cool.

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First baseman don't have positive defensive WARs. I see that Mark Teixeira has a career dWAR of 0.1. But otherwise, most players look like these guys:

Mitch Moreland, career dWAR of -3.5
Eric Hosmer, career dWAR of -5.1
Chris Davis, career dWAR of -6.5
Miguel Cabrera, career dWAR of -13.5


Most first baseman waddle around out there. Hell, veterans at many positions relatively waddle around on the field. Defensive WAR is a tricky stat, as defense is normally best when a player is young. From a defensive standpoint, a lot of minor leaguers could come up and do a better job than their MLB equivalent.

David Ortiz is particularly terrible at defense. I'll give you that, but let's not act like first baseman are out there doing great defensive favors for their team, they're not. They're mostly all bad and don't deserve to be playing in the field.

Again, I realize David Ortiz is particularly bad at defense. But I think its a bit of an overplayed method to get around addressing just how damn good a hitter he has been.

He's in the top 10 among active offensive WARs and will finish with an overall WAR in the top 170 players to ever play the game.

I realize his defensive WAR would suffer even more if he played every game at 1B, but some of that would be set off by an increased offensive WAR and the numbers would still look pretty good for Ortiz.

DallasAg, the comparisons are fun to do, but Babe Ruth was hitting 40-50 home runs a season from his mid-twenties to his later 30s, too.

The point is not to say these guys are as good a player as Babe Ruth, but to say you can't just compare home run totals and decipher that a guy used steroids because his totals look like a known user. You just can't.



A more appropriate comparison, that I think is more useful although itself not infallible is home run %, the percentage of all plate appearances resulting in a home run.

Most players have an increase in their first few seasons, then the numbers stay pretty similar and then may tail off at the end.

Babe Ruth's, for instance, were pretty consistently between 7-9% of the bulk of his career. He had a 8.7% at age 32, and then declined from there.

Barry Bonds, however, had 1 year with a HR% of 7.8%, and was mostly at 6-7%, until his was 34, at which point he posted another 7.8%, and then in the last 8 years of his career, posted 4 seasons at 8.1% of higher.



Whose career profile does David Ortiz's resemble more?

Hint: Not poster boy for steroids.

6.1, 6.1, 6.6, 7.9 from age 27 to 30, and then never finished higher than 6.0 in the 10 years since.

Long post just to say that, as bad as many first basemen look when it comes to dWAR, Ortiz is still worse.

I don't think it's unreasonable to think the best players of all time should be at least replacement level in half of their skills.

Unless I misunderstood you, I have to disagree with the thought that his WAR would be at the same, or higher, level if he played 1B more. Subject to the wear and tear of playing 1B, he would be more worn down and his offensive numbers would suffer.

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Papi just hit his 399th career double!

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Huh?

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Papi just hit his 399th career double!

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Huh?

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Damn fat fingers! 599!

I'm not sure what Bonds (NL who played a decade before these guys) and Ruth (a guy who never played in any of the current AL parks nor faced any pitcher these guys faced) have to do with the comparison of statistics.

I presented two guys... who were at the same ages, for the same years played, in the same division, that played in the same parks, faced 13 out of 14 of the same pitchers and 13 out of 14 of the same defenses. The only exception for pitchers\defenses was they didn't face their own teams.

Ortiz went a HR for every 15.68 ABs over 17 seasons.
ARod went a HR for every 15.34 ABs over 16 seasons.

Translate that... to reach 100 HRs, it took ARod 1534 ABs and it took Ortiz 1568 ABs. A difference of 34 ABs.

ARod is known to have tested positive twice and Ortiz claims he is clean.

One is a natural home run hitter. The other needed roids. Your single comparison doesn't mean much. Papi hasn't had some dramatic change over his career and he has not been accused by players in the league as someone who takes roids.

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I'm not sure what Bonds (NL who played a decade before these guys) and Ruth (a guy who never played in any of the current AL parks nor faced any pitcher these guys faced) have to do with the comparison of statistics.

I presented two guys... who were at the same ages, for the same years played, in the same division, that played in the same parks, faced 13 out of 14 of the same pitchers and 13 out of 14 of the same defenses. The only exception for pitchers\defenses was they didn't face their own teams.

Ortiz went a HR for every 15.68 ABs over 17 seasons.
ARod went a HR for every 15.34 ABs over 16 seasons.

Translate that... to reach 100 HRs, it took ARod 1534 ABs and it took Ortiz 1568 ABs. A difference of 34 ABs.

ARod is known to have tested positive twice and Ortiz claims he is clean.

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Hey it rained YESTERDAY! There isn't a drought!

My kid got an A on that test! Our education system is perfect!

Hey, crime was reduced last week, out programs are working!

Hey, gas prices are down, what energy problem?

Hey, I posted an example, I am right!

Hey, I made an analogy, therefore it is true!