After Big Papi went all Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style on the Phillies for the second time in three days by ripping out the team’s still-beating heart with another clutch walk-off hit, I entered into a debate with Robin about why, for the love of all things holy, do teams still pitch to Ortiz with the game on the line. My thought, of course, was the shadow lurking on deck, in the form of Manny Ramirez. You know him, you love him and despite the Manny moments, he is an all-time offensive monster, worthy of any pitcher’s (and manager’s) fear and respect.
So I decided to look into it. What effect does Manny have hitting behind Ortiz? It reminds me of the situation in 1961: Roger Maris, despite hitting 61 homers, had no intentional walks, because pitchers feared Mickey Mantle and would always pitch to Maris to avoid a situation where they’d have to face Maris with a runner on. In the past two years, the situation against the Red Sox has been the same: pitchers think, “walk Ortiz to get to Manny? Yeah, I love that plan. I love it so much I’d be glad not to be a part of it.”
With that in mind, I decided to project Ortiz’s numbers from 2004 and 2005 and then just from 2005 to see what would happen to Ortiz’s stats without Manny coming up behind him. Then, just for fun, I turned things around and projected Ortiz’s numbers if Manny hadn’t missed any games over the past two seasons. Here are the results:
Using both 2004 and 2005 to project in 155 games (his average number between the two years):
Without Manny:
AB R H 2B HR RBI BB AVG OBP
540 92 155 29 34 132 114 0.287 0.412
With Manny (not missing any games):
AB R H 2B HR RBI BB AVG OBP
600 108 180 45 45 145 86 0.301 0.389
While the OBP isn’t as good, every other significant category goes up immensely.
I then decided to run projections just based on 2005. Hey, it’s baseball and while the fans all know how good Ortiz is, it took the people in charge awhile to figure that out:
Without Manny:
AB R H 2B HR RBI BB Avg. OBP
506 99 139 30 30 99 169 0.274 0.456
With Manny (not missing any games):
AB R H 2B HR RBI BB Avg. OBP
582 124 189 42 50 157 97 0.323 0.420
What these splits show me is that the league finally discovered in 2005 that Ortiz always beats you in a big spot and stopped letting him unless absolutely necessary. Also, if Manny hit behind Ortiz every game last year, the MVP debate would have been short and sweet. Look at that second set. 124 runs, 50 homeruns, 157 RBI and a .323 average. Now that, DH or no, is an MVP season. Ortiz has basically reached a level of respect just a step below the Barry Bonds of a few years ago.
Conclusion: with Manny out of the lineup, no one in the league is silly enough to give Ortiz the chance to do damage; without Manny, Papi leads the league by about 60 walks. With Manny in the lineup, you get the normal Ortiz, a guy who averages basically 40 homeruns and 130 RBI a year. For a manager, it’s picking your poison; tough to do when both options will kill you.
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