David Ortiz: A Minnesota Retrospective

It's not that he went unsigned for a long time, it's that there wasn't a fierce market for him.  He was cut, sat around a month, and signed for 1M.  I don't know what your point is - there was some huge market for him?  That everyone (the same people who didn't want to trade for him) really wanted him but just couldn't get him?

 

He then shared time with the husk of Jason Giambi for a couple months.  

 

Ortiz was an extremely smart gamble by Epstein because he saw that Ortiz's depressed value around the league was due to the Twins and their ridiculous approach with him.  But he had significantly depressed value, that's just how it was.

He "sat around for a month" including the holidays, and he was likely out of the country at the time making signing with a new club a little more difficult, and he was released about halfway through the offseason after most teams had made their early moves and now had to be more judicious about their roster choices.  It's quite possible he could have signed earlier, if he really wanted to or was worried about it, but chose to wait it out for a month, which seems perfectly reasonable.  For all we know, he was immediately contacted by a few clubs with guaranteed offers, and thus was able to take his time to consider the best fit, which turned out to be a consistent big market contender willing to give him a decent shot.

He also signed for more than you indicate, $1.25 million, and my unscientific arbitration estimate would have put him at $1.9 mil (same service time and very similar numbers to Jeremy Giambi, who was $115k ahead of him in arbitration the previous winter and signed for $2 mil for 2003).  That's a discount, but it's not huge.  It's also possible that a lousy team was willing to give him closer to his arbitration salary but he chose Boston's offer instead, especially if his Twins experience made him put a higher priority on a good relationship with management.  (And Boston had a good hitter's park and a good record with hitters at that time too.)

As for him signing to "share time with Giambi" for a couple months -- no, that's not accurate either.  In 2002, the Red Sox had a gaping void at both 1B (Tony Clark, 47 OPS+) and DH (Carlos Baerga, 82 OPS+).  Giambi and Ortiz were both on track to be full-time starters if healthy until the Boston was able to score Kevin Millar around the start of spring training, which necessitated a creative playing time adjustment for numerous players including Ortiz.

I'm not saying Ortiz was a hot commodity around the league -- obviously given the general circumstances he was in, he wasn't.  But he wasn't quite as valueless as a lot of retrospectives would have you think.  The fact that he got a guaranteed deal, for as much as did, where he did (a starting job or close to it on a strong, respected Boston club), immediately casts doubt on the Twins assertion that he was less valuable than potential backup utility infielders Jose Morban and Chris Gomez (both added to the 40-man roster in the month after Ortiz's release).

It was immediately a bad decision, no hindsight required, although obviously Ortiz's career unfolded more favorably than even Boston could have anticipated.

Letting Ortiz go was a mistake, I don't think anyone disagrees with that.  But people often forget the context of such decisions.  Ryan attempted to trade Ortiz that offseason and got nothing for him.

Unfortunately, you too are missing some context around the move.  Ortiz wasn't being offered to other club in trade in a vacuum -- it was no secret that Twins management didn't see eye to eye with Ortiz, the same management was enamored with Mientkiewicz, and LeCroy was out of options and had no defensive position to play.  Trading for Ortiz under those circumstances would have been foolish.

As an analogy, think about Plouffe this past winter.  If the Twins offered him in trade, with Sano, Park, and Mauer all on the team, other teams would have been foolish to give the  Twins anything of value for him.  If the Twins had taken a different route and released Plouffe, and a contending team picked him up for ~$5 mil, would that have justified the Twins move?

Also, it is commonly mentioned that the Twins non tendered Ortiz, but I actually think he was released.  See this contemporary news report of the transaction:

http://www.keloland.com/news/article/other/twins-release-ortiz

 

Twins release designated-hitter David Ortiz... He must pass through release waivers before becoming a free agent.

Non-tendered players don't have to pass through waivers.

Which is an important distinction, because a non tendered player can be re-signed by his former club at any salary the two sides can agree on.  A released player can do the same, BUT he couldn't be added back to the team's 40-man roster before May 15th.

So the Twins burned a huge bridge there.  This wasn't about money (the Twins had $2 mil in their pocket to sign Kenny Rogers after the Milton injury anyway), this was about kicking Ortiz to the curb.

First, 650,000 is a 33% discount.  That's not insignificant.

The Twins signed Chris Gomez for $500k a few weeks later to be the BACKUP utility infielder (they were already paying Denny Hocking a cool million).  The league minimum was about $300k.  The difference between Ortiz's arbitration value and his "true market value" was something like Chris Gomez, or two league-minimum salaries.

Another way to look at it, even after getting released, Ortiz still got a $300k raise over 2002.

Second, the team was willing to accept Morban for Ortiz (partly due to money reasons as well) - if Ortiz had any value at all around the league....you don't think someone was willing to toss them the equal of that?  C'mon.  Having someone over the barrel for financial and roster reasons is the perfect time to target a player if you think they have value.  The Twins were literally willing to give him away (and did!) and couldn't find anyone willing to even toss them a bag of balls for him.  

You are assuming a lot of things here.  Epstein actually later said he talked with TR about trading for Ortiz but the asking price was quite high.

Here's the article with the Epstein quote:

http://mobil.totalfitness4you.com/big-man-big-personality-the-oral-history-of-david-ortizs-mlb-adventure

 

 

Theo Epstein, Cubs general manager; Red Sox GM 2002-11: I had been talking to Terry Ryan about the possibility of trading for him earlier in that offseason. They asked for a pretty good prospect, and it started to have the feel that maybe if he couldn’t trade him that David was going to end up on release waivers rather than getting tendered a contract. So I wasn’t surprised to see him on waivers.

The rest of the quote sheds some light on why it took a month to sign him.  Ortiz was playing in the Dominican that winter, and the team ran him through several workouts down there.  And it suggests that his relationship with Boston coaches and teammates was a important factor in landing him.

I guess I side with what makes more sense and the version does not says that the team would ultimately kick him to the curb for nothing while sticking to high trade demands to the bitter end.

You're giving TR way too much credit here, I think.  Despite his nickname of "Trader Terry" he doesn't have a reputation for making frequent trades or selling guys cheaply.  (And where he has sold guys cheaply, like Scott Erickson, they have usually been veterans on expiring guaranteed contracts.)  We've seen it recently with Fien, Milone, Duensing, Jordan Schafer -- TR is generally pretty committed to retaining arbitration players.

I think it is absolutely possible that he either wanted a good return for Ortiz, or he was willing to release him, with no middle ground.  In fact, not selling low in trade on guys like Ortiz is probably how he keeps his reputation as a tough trader.

Again, I'll agree with the general sentiment that Ortiz was far from a hot commodity, but the circumstances of his departure from the Twins had less to do with that, or with money, than it had to do with the hubris of Twins management, judging a player more about his personality and non-conformity with the "Twins way" rather than talent, performance, value, etc.

This is spot on. I believed then, and to this day, that TK had a lot of influence at the time, and TK couldn't go more than two sentences without saying something disparaging about Ortiz.

I wouldn't put it entirely on TK, though.  He was probably just the highest profile Ortiz critic in the Twins organization at the time (at least through 2001).  I am pretty sure Gardy, Ullger, and even TR weren't just following TK's lead, but actively shared his views.

It's pretty well-documented that the Twins organizational structure of that era wasn't exactly conducive to finding and developing Latin American players.

I agree with this paragraph completely, but the context of his release doesn't lend itself to the narrative that the Twins gave away a diamond.  They couldn't trade him, he signed for less than his likely Arb. figure, and he made less money than middle relief guys and utility infielders.  He had pretty poor value and all the context supports that.

I think we are getting bogged down by semantics, but generally agree.  Ortiz did have poor value (although not quite as poor as other posters often claim ), but lots of players have poor value at times.  It's not necessarily grounds for immediate release.  It was an unusual move, even at the time, even when the market didn't fully bear his likely arbitration salary.

Even the budget-conscious Twins don't usually make moves like that.  But they did it here, which suggests it had little to do with money, Ortiz's market value, or the presence of Mientkiewicz/LeCroy/Morneau.  Bringing up those things only seems to excuse the Twins, and distract from the root causes of the unusual decision (causes which may still be at work in the Twins front office and decision making processes).

3 pages into this topic, and I'm stunned that nobody has brought up the elephant (no, not calling Ortiz an elephant), but would Ortiz have thrived nearly as much here as in Boston?  He did seem injury prone (fair or not) during his time here.  There are many speculations as to how he overcame those injury problems via chemistry.  True?  Certainly not proven.  But let us not forget, A-Rod has never tested positive either, but most are willing to call him guilty.  

A-Rod actually confessed to steroid use twice: publicly in 2009, covering his years in Texas (2001-2003), and again privately in 2014 in the DEA investigation into Biogenesis, covering the years 2010-2012.

The only blemish on Ortiz's record is a report that he failed the supposedly private, nonbinding 2003 tests.  He never admitted anything, and I don't think it was ever even reported what he tested positive for.  Not saying that he did or didn't use, but it's a much, much different case than A-Rod.

Testing with penalties began for players in 2004, so if Ortiz has used performance enhancing drugs to any great effect in his career, he also probably has the longest record for evading a positive test or any kind of discipline.

As for the issues the Twins had with him trying to use the whole field, it must have made some sense to him, as he's put holes into the Green Monster, on the occasions he didn't hit it over.  

This gets brought up a lot, and while Ortiz has certainly had hits off of or over the green monster, he has been a fantastic pull hitter in Boston.  I have yet to see any stats to suggest that Ortiz's success is significantly more dependent on opposite field hitting than other great power hitters.

I think Fenway helped him some, but I think the rampant cheating on those Boston teams at the time may have helped him a lot.  Some of the stats on that team indicate it was a damn pharmacy in that clubhouse.

I don't know -- it was a weird statistical era.  We were still coming down from "sillyball" which I think had offensive-boosting factors that went well beyond performance-enhancing drugs.  I am sure players were a lot looser with substances back then, but I'd be hesitant to judge any player or team from just a stat line.

And like I said, testing with penalties began in 2004, covering almost the entirety of Ortiz's Boston years -- if it was really a "pharmacy" in that clubhouse, wouldn't we have seen more failed tests?  Manny failed in 2009, but he was gone from Boston and entering the bizarre denouement of his career at that point.

Even under a stricter and more advanced testing regime, Ortiz is still dominating the sport at age 40.  I don't think it's crazy to think he could have similarly dominated naturally at age 30.  Heck, Ortiz has had virtually the same effectiveness from ages 36-40 (155 OPS+) that he had from ages 27-31 (156 OPS+).

It's impossible to know, it's also just really alarming the kinds of career years those Boston teams had in those eras.  

 

Millar, Muehller, Nixon, etc. - either it's the most amazing collection of career years at once or something fishy.  Since we know several guys from that team were caught later, my money is on fishy.  But it's purely speculation.

Okay, this is just factually incorrect.  Millar didn't have a "career year" in Boston, in fact his career OPS+ was 127 before he ever came to Boston, and his peak with the Red Sox was 117.  His is almost the perfect theoretical aging curve.

Nixon and Mueller had career years there in 2003, but that's about it for "career years" from Boston regulars in those years, so I'm not sure what your "etc" means.  Nixon's in particular doesn't seem that out of line considering he was only 29 years old and had other good years too.

Also, there was only one guy on that team who was "caught later", Manny Ramirez in 2009:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_suspended_for_performance-enhancing_drugs#Players_who_were_on_major_league_rosters

Jeremy Giambi admitted PED use in connection with BALCO, although he was barely a footnote in Red Sox history -- he didn't even last the 2003 season on the active roster.

I have no doubt there were PED users in that clubhouse, particularly prior to 2004, but I have serious doubts whether it was as widespread as you claim, or whether it was particularly more egregious in that clubhouse as compared to the rest of the league.  Particularly as it relates to Ortiz, who has a long history of clean tests and consistent performance.

Interesting to bring up Millar, though -- he had a 131 OPS+ in 2002, and an even better 2001 (and it wasn't hard to see with traditional stats either, Millar topped .300 both years with 16-20 HR), but the Marlins were trying to sell him to Japan the same winter that Ortiz was released.  Both appeared to be rather undervalued assets at the time!

At least in the Marlins defense, they almost certainly were selling Millar for financial reasons, as opposed to the Twins straight up release of Ortiz.

We know that Manny and Ortiz were taking things that would later be banned by the sport in 2003 and that Manny continued to take them.  Giambi was taking them.  Millar, Muehler, Varitek, and Nixon had career home run hitting years.  Damon's power numbers spiked the next year.  Mark freaking Bellhorn in 2004. 

Millar had a raw HR high in Boston, but it was a function of playing time -- his HR rate was no different that year than an earlier year with Florida.  Varitek's "career high" was only by 3 HR, amid a long career of pretty consistent power hitting.  Nixon hit 27, 24, and 28 HR from 2001-2003 in his age 27-29 seasons -- which one of those stands out as the "career HR hitting year"?  Damon's HR rate in Boston was basically the same as in Kansas City.  Mark Bellhorn hit 27 HR for the Cubs in 2002 -- not sure how hitting 17 HR for Boston two years later is key evidence for PED use...

PED witch hunts based on relatively minor changes in HR totals went out of fashion some years ago, I think.