Big Papi vs. Father Time

I have to start with a confession: I love David Ortiz. I’ve had him on my fantasy team in my most important league in three of the last four years. I like his stats, of course, but I also like the way he claps his hands when he’s preparing to hit, the way he sets up in the box, the way he rambles around the bases after launching one into the outfield. I like the big smile on his face when things are going well. There may not be such a thing as a clutch hitter, but I like to think that when it comes to the mythical clutch hitter, Big Papi is the clutchiest of them all. In short, Big Papi es mi hombre.

Unfortunately, David Ortiz will be 39 years old in 2015. In Major League Baseball, 39-year-olds generally do not hit well. They generally don’t field well, either, but that doesn’t matter to me and Big Papi. We’re all ‘bout that bat, ‘bout that bat, no fielding…

Last year, there were two 39-year-old position players in MLB—John McDonald (.171/.256/.197, 38 wRC+) and Jose Molina (.178/.230/.187, 23 wRC+). There were three 40-year-old positions players in MLB—Bobby Abreu (.248/.342/.338, 100 wRC+), Ichiro! (.284/.324/.340, 86 wRC+), and Derek Jeter (.256/.304/.313, 73 wRC+). There were zero 41-year-old positions players, one 42-year-old—Jason Giambi (.133/.257/.267, 48 wRC+), and one 43-year-old—Raul Ibanez (.167/.264/.285, 61 wRC+). Overall, in 2014, players aged 39 and up combined to hit .220/.280/.281, for a wRC+ of 60. They were just terrible at hitting, is what I’m saying.

Of course, just because those chumps were terrible at hitting at an advanced age doesn’t mean my boy Big Papi will be terrible at hitting at an advanced age. He’s already at an advanced age and he has been pretty darn good over the last few years, unlike the Jose Molinas and John McDonalds of the world.

David Ortiz hit .263/.355/.517 last year, good for a .369 wOBA and 135 wRC+. He was worth 2.4 WAR. The previous year, he had 3.8 WAR, so last year was a somewhat significant drop-off (63% of his previous year’s total WAR). That .369 wOBA was the lowest for Ortiz since 2009 and second lowest since 2003. In other words, in 2014 David Ortiz had the second-lowest wOBA in the 12 years he’s played with the Red Sox.

So what does that mean for 2015? Can Big Papi hold off Father Time once again or will he fall off a cliff at 39 years old?

To get to the bottom of this all-important question, I decided to start with the Similarity Scores list for David Ortiz that can be found at Baseball-Reference.com, along with his #1 ZiPS comp.

Baseball-Reference.com’s most similar batters to David Ortiz through age 38:

Frank Thomas

Fred McGriff

Paul Konerko

Willie McCovery

Willie Stargell

Jason Giambi

Todd Helton

Jim Thome

Reggie Jackson

Gary Sheffield

 

ZiPS top comp: Rafael Palmeiro

Paul Konerko has retired, so he’s no good to us. We’ll use the other players in a not-overly-mathematical attempt to determine how David Ortiz might do in 2015.

First, here are David Ortiz’ relevant statistics from last year, when he was 38 years old:

YEAR	PLAYER	PA	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	wOBA	wRC+	WAR
2014	David Ortiz	602	59	35	104	.263	.355	.517	.254	.369	135	2.4

 

And here are his 10 comparable players in their age 38 seasons:

YEAR	PLAYER	PA	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	wOBA	wRC+	WAR
2006	Frank Thomas	559	77	39	114	.270	.381	.545	.275	.392	139	2.5
2002	Fred McGriff	595	67	30	103	.273	.353	.505	.232	.366	125	2.5
1976	Willie McCovey	251	20	7	36	.204	.283	.336	.132	.279	76	0.2
1978	Willie Stargell	450	60	28	97	.295	.382	.567	.272	.415	161	3.6
2009	Jason Giambi	359	43	13	51	.201	.343	.382	.181	.328	98	-0.1
2012	Todd Helton	283	31	7	37	.238	.343	.400	.162	.327	88	0.0
2009	Jim Thome	434	55	23	77	.249	.366	.481	.232	.368	119	0.8
1984	Reggie Jackson	584	67	25	81	.223	.300	.406	.183	.315	95	0.0
2007	Gary Sheffield	593	107	25	75	.265	.378	.462	.197	.368	123	2.8
2003	Rafael Palmeiro	654	92	38	112	.260	.359	.508	.248	.369	119	2.5
	AVERAGE	476	62	24	78	.252	.353	.471	.219			1.5

 

Four of these players were coming off much worse seasons than Ortiz just had, so perhaps they are not great comps, but we’ll keep them in the mix for now.

Here are these same 10 players in their age 39 seasons:

YEAR	PLAYER	PA	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	wOBA	wRC+	WAR
2007	Frank Thomas	624	63	26	95	.277	.377	.480	.203	.373	127	1.9
2003	Fred McGriff	329	32	13	40	.249	.322	.428	.179	.324	98	0.4
1977	Willie McCovey	548	54	28	86	.280	.367	.500	.220	.372	129	2.1
1979	Willie Stargell	480	60	32	82	.281	.352	.552	.271	.385	137	2.7
2010	Jason Giambi	222	17	6	35	.244	.378	.398	.154	.343	97	0.0
2013	Todd Helton	442	41	15	61	.249	.314	.423	.174	.322	87	-0.9
2010	Jim Thome	340	48	25	59	.283	.412	.627	.344	.439	177	3.1
1985	Reggie Jackson	541	64	27	85	.252	.360	.487	.235	.368	129	1.5
2008	Gary Sheffield	482	52	19	57	.225	.326	.400	.175	.322	92	0.0
2004	Rafael Palmeiro	651	68	23	88	.258	.359	.436	.178	.340	105	0.3
	AVERAGE	466	50	21	69	.261	.356	.473	.212			1.1

 

As a group, these players had better triple-slash numbers in their age 39 seasons, but with an average of 10 fewer plate appearances and less production in runs, home runs, and RBI, along with a drop in WAR from an average of 1.5 to 1.1.

That’s not too bad, though. They didn’t fall off a cliff, like one might expect from a 39-year-old player. Taking what these players did from age 38 to 39 and applying it to Ortiz’ stats from last year, you would get a line in the vicinity of this for David Ortiz in 2015: 589 PA, 48 R, 32 HR, 91 RBI, .272/.359/.519.

(Note: David Ortiz scored a ridiculously low number of runs last year—just 59 despite getting on base over 200 times. It would be unlikely that he would score at such a low rate two years in a row, especially with the Red Sox’ improved line up).

Okay, let’s go back to those comparable players and whittle down the sample size to ridiculous levels. Let’s use only those players who had between 1.5 and 3 WAR in their age 38 season. Say goodbye to 1976 Willie McCovey (0.2 WAR), 1978 Willie Stargell (3.6 WAR), 2009 Jason Giambi (-0.1 WAR), 2012 Todd Helton (0 WAR), 2009 Jim Thome (0.8 WAR), and 1984 Reggie Jackson (0 WAR). That only leaves us with four players, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

One of those remaining four players is Gary Sheffield, who stole 22 bases when he was 38 and 9 bases when he was 39. That doesn’t seem like something David Ortiz could do, so I’m going to reluctantly toss Gary Sheffield aside as a comparable player to Big Papi. Down to just three comps, I went looking for others. I found Carl Yastrzemski and Brian Downing. Yaz had 2.4 WAR at age 38, just like David Ortiz, and is left-handed, like David Ortiz, and played some first base, like David Ortiz. Yaz also played left field and even center field at age 38, so he’s not the best comp, but he’ll do for now. Brian Downing was a full-time DH at age 38 and had 1.9 WAR, close enough to Big Papi’s 2.4, so I’ll keep him also, despite his right-handedness. That gives us five comparable players look at.

Here is David Ortiz’ age 38 season again in case you forgot from a couple minutes ago:

YEAR	PLAYER	PA	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	wOBA	wRC+	WAR
2014	David Ortiz	602	59	35	104	.263	.355	.517	.254	.369	135	2.4

 

And the five comparable players when they were 38 years old:

YEAR	PLAYER	PA	AB	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	wOBA	wRC+	WAR
1978	C. Yastrzemski	611	523	70	17	81	.277	.367	.423	.146	.355	115	2.4
1989	Brian Downing	610	544	59	14	59	.283	.354	.414	.131	.348	120	1.9
2006	Frank Thomas	559	466	77	39	114	.270	.381	.545	.275	.392	139	2.5
2002	Fred McGriff	595	523	67	30	103	.273	.353	.505	.232	.366	125	2.5
2003	Rafael Palmeiro	654	561	92	38	112	.260	.359	.508	.248	.369	119	2.5
	AVERAGE	606	523	73	28	94	.273	.362	.477	.205			2.4

 

So, how did this group of four perform in their age 39 season?

YEAR	PLAYER	PA	AB	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	wOBA	wRC+	WAR
1979	C. Yastrzemski	590	518	69	21	87	.270	.346	.450	.180	.349	105	2.2
1990	Brian Downing	390	330	47	14	51	.273	.374	.467	.194	.376	138	2.1
2007	Frank Thomas	624	531	63	26	95	.277	.377	.480	.203	.373	127	1.9
2003	Fred McGriff	329	297	32	13	40	.249	.322	.428	.179	.324	98	0.4
2004	Rafael Palmeiro	651	550	68	23	88	.258	.359	.436	.178	.340	105	0.3
	AVERAGE	517	445	56	19	72	.266	.358	.453	.187			1.4

 

This group lost 1 WAR and saw drops across the board but, again, it wasn’t a cliff dive. They retained some value. If David Ortiz ages like these four players, he would have a 2015 season that looks a bit like this: .257/.351/.491, 45 R, 25 HR, 80 RBI.

So, based on this minimally-scientific study that is by no means meant to replace Steamer or ZiPS or the Fans projections, it would appear that David Ortiz will hit somewhere between the two following batting lines in 2015 (shown along with the average of the two projections from above):

 

COMPS	PLAYER	PA	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG
10 Comps	David Ortiz	589	48	32	91	.271	.359	.519
4 Comps	David Ortiz	514	45	25	80	.257	.351	.491
Average	David Ortiz	551	47	28	86	.264	.355	.506

 

Or if you prefer a much more mathematical model, there’s always Cairo, Davenport, Marcel, Steamer, ZiPS, and the Fan projections, along with the average of this all these projections:

SOURCE	PLAYER	PA	R	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG
Cairo	David Ortiz	569	69	23	69	.296	.376	.509
Davenport	David Ortiz	492	61	20	79	.266	.355	.459
Marcel	David Ortiz	561	67	28	87	.276	.362	.513
Steamer	David Ortiz	601	84	26	91	.277	.366	.496
ZiPS	David Ortiz	537	59	29	88	.277	.363	.526
Fans (32)	David Ortiz	590	89	28	92	.280	.369	.507
Average	David Ortiz	558	72	26	84	.279	.365	.502

 

And there you have it—David Ortiz in 2015, not over the hill just yet.