At Home Plate - Anything Goes: Ortiz, Red Sox and Peavy

At Home Plate

Written by Adam Adkins (Contact & Archive) on May 23, 2009

Let’s start with David Ortiz, who hit his first home run in like a million at-bats Wednesday night. The evidence is overwhelming -- and not confined to that homerless streak -- that Big Papi’s days as a productive DH are over. The bat speed and pitch recognition both appear to be gone, which would mean he’s not even an AA hitter anymore. Can those two things slump? Pitch recognition can, sure, but bat speed?

Is Ortiz already done?

Photo by Keith Allison, used under creative commons license.

That’s gotta be tied to injury. Has Ortiz’ wrists or knees or obliques or whatever other injury he’s had over the past several years destroyed him? He’s now injury prone, and not in the Johnny Damon “I can play hurt and be productive” kind of way.

Ortiz’ career OPS+ rates, from 2003 until now: 144, 145, 158, 161, 171, 123, 65. Notice the arc there? It’s likely he peaked, and his decline is being amplified -- big time -- by the injuries. Can Ortiz OPS+ around 110? I’d say he could, but I’d be a bit surprised if he did, truthfully.

White Sox fans, be glad you didn’t get Peavy. He’s overrated, you would’ve hideously overpaid for a guy no better than, oh, Andy Pettitte. I won’t hark on Peavy’s overratedness (It’s The Park, Stupid), but be thankful.

Seriously. I know he’s regarded as in the class of Santana, Sabathia, Lincecum, et cetera, but he’s freaking not. Alright? He isn’t. If you wanna get hardcore with me about it, I tweet @adkwriter. But I can’t go and on about a topic like this, it’s so obvious.

Oh eff it, I will. You must realize Peavy’s home park is as big as Mother Russia. Home runs go there when they get terminal cancer. Also, he’s pitched in far and away the worst division in the bigs for his entire career. Remember the year the Pads won the division with a .500 record? The NL West sucks.

So, take a home park where home runs go to perish, toss in some awful competition, and you can take a good pitcher and make him appear great.

Peavy’s allowed 135 home runs; 41 of them come from Petco. That’s low. Do you think Peavy has made such a small percentage of his starts at home? It’s unlikely.

Be happy, Pale Hose fans. Peavy’s not that much better, or even any better at all, than Mark Buehrle.

Not to harp on Boston, but how good are they, really? I realize that they have gotten nothing from Ortiz, but it’s not terribly likely they’ll get anything from him anyway. I also realize Jon Lester has been terrible, but PECOTA only liked him for, I think, like a 4.70 ERA. Tim Wakefield hasn’t been good, but I think we all know that he can just go at anytime. I know Josh Beckett has sucked, but frankly, Beckett is a hideously overrated pitcher anyway. Okay, dude has had two years of over 200 IP; one of those years was good (2007), and one was bad (2006). He’s had two very famous and very dominant postseason runs. He’s had several years of low inning totals and mediocre production (2004, ’05, ’08). That is not the resume of a great pitcher. It’s the resume of an inconsistent pitcher.

Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay have been otherworldly. Neither one is a superstar by any means, and it’s really unlikely that either one can OPS over one-thousand for the year. The GGOW’s (Greek God of Walks, Youkilis) OPS+ is an astounding 207.

Can anyone come up to help? Dustin Pedroia is getting on-base (really good!) but not providing power (bad, but not really bad). Varitek, sadly, is unlikely to provide anything better than terrible. If Nick Green is your shortstop, that’s bad. Mike Lowell is only hitting to the tune of a 112 OPS+, which is not great, especially since his defense cannot be stellar anymore due to the injuries. Ellsbury might not hit enough to be a major leaguer, and Drew has been better than usual but is injury prone.

Jon Papelbon is what he is, only with a couple more baserunners. It’s only 18 innings, but he’s walked 10 batters. That’s likely a fluke.

Can this Red Sox team, as currently constructed, win a title? The pitching will improve, but how much? Can Lester, Beckett and Brad Penny provide sub-4 ERAs? I really don’t know. Can they stay healthy? What will John Smoltz provide, if anything? Is Dice-K going to be alright after his long layoff?

There are a lot of what-ifs with the Red Sox. This might be a Yankee fan hoping here, but I doubt this team can win 90 games. If I’m nuts, again, @adkwriter at twitter, we’ll have it out.

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