Checking in on David Ortiz
Posted by Andy on May 18, 2009
Following up on my post about Ortiz from a couple weeks back, here's where his homerless streak stands:
StreakStart Streak End Games AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BB SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Teams +-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 1998-09-12 2000-06-07 52 143 10 34 10 0 0 19 34 14 1 0 .238 .304 .308 .612 MIN 2002-04-18 2002-07-04 42 127 10 31 11 0 0 19 20 12 0 0 .244 .299 .331 .630 MIN 2008-09-23 2009-05-14 37 142 16 30 12 1 0 16 33 20 0 1 .211 .314 .310 .624 BOS 2000-07-08 2000-08-16 34 120 20 40 12 0 0 19 22 16 0 0 .333 .403 .433 .836 MIN 1998-07-18 1998-08-23 29 100 14 19 5 0 0 10 25 16 1 0 .190 .308 .240 .548 MIN 2000-09-08 2000-10-01 20 68 5 14 5 0 0 3 14 8 0 0 .206 .289 .279 .568 MIN
The streak is now the third-longest in terms of games but just 1 shy of his career long in terms of plate appearances. Ortiz did not play this weekend against the Mariners. Unless he homers in his next game (likely against the Blue Jays tomorrow) he will probably match his career high for homerless PAs (recall that the streaks above show only complete games without homers so it's likely that they miss a few PAs at the beginning or end of each streak.)
The more I see of Ortiz, the more I am convinced that he still has a wrist injury. It's just about unprecedented for a guy to drop from 20+ homers to zero homers unless there's something significantly inhibiting his swing. I don't think skills could diminish so quickly--not naturally, and not even if this were a case of terminating use of banned substances--not do I think the lack of Manny hitting behind Ortiz would cause his homers to fall to zero.
I'm not a Red Sox fan, but I hate to see a good guy like Ortiz go down this way. It's my sincere hope that he's got a nagging injury that hopefully can still heal up. Nobody plays forever and everybody's skills diminish eventually, but it's too soon for Ortiz to go out like this.
Incidentally, Ortiz is not the only guy experiencing a total power outage so far this season:
Cnt Player **PA** HR Year Age Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Nyjer Morgan 161 0 2009 28 PIT NL 34 138 22 42 2 3 17 16 1 25 3 2 2 0 10 5 .304 .384 .362 .746 *7/8 2 David Ortiz 157 0 2009 33 BOS AL 34 130 14 27 10 1 15 20 1 30 3 0 4 3 0 1 .208 .318 .300 .618 *D 3 Chone Figgins 157 0 2009 31 LAA AL 34 132 24 36 4 1 8 20 0 23 0 3 2 1 15 2 .273 .364 .318 .682 *5/D 4 Orlando Cabrera 154 0 2009 34 OAK AL 33 139 15 31 4 0 10 10 0 11 0 3 2 2 1 3 .223 .272 .252 .524 *6 5 Placido Polanco 153 0 2009 33 DET AL 33 140 16 37 13 1 15 9 0 12 1 2 1 6 0 1 .264 .311 .371 .682 *4 6 David Eckstein 153 0 2009 34 SDP NL 37 132 14 32 10 1 10 13 0 10 2 5 1 0 1 0 .242 .318 .333 .651 *4 7 Bobby Abreu 150 0 2009 35 LAA AL 34 130 13 39 6 1 14 19 2 17 0 0 1 0 13 0 .300 .387 .362 .749 *9/7D 8 Russell Martin 146 0 2009 26 LAD NL 34 121 18 34 6 0 15 24 1 26 1 0 0 5 5 3 .281 .404 .331 .735 *2 9 Akinori Iwamura 143 0 2009 30 TBR AL 36 128 15 36 12 0 12 12 0 25 1 0 2 0 8 1 .281 .343 .375 .718 *4 10 Emmanuel Burriss 142 0 2009 24 SFG NL 36 128 11 33 3 0 6 11 0 21 2 1 0 1 10 3 .258 .326 .281 .607 *4
Some of the names on this list aren't too surprising. Before 2009, Morgan had just 1 career HR in about 300 PAs. Chone Figgins had 26 career HR in about 3,000 ABs, or about 5 in a 162-game season. Cabrera hasn't had more than 10 HR in a single season since 2003. Same for Polanco since 2004. Eckstein has 32 HR in more than 4,000 career ABs and no more than 3 in a season since 2005. Iwamura has had 6 and 7 homers in his two seasons in MLB although he did have some monster HR totals in Japan.
Bobby Abreu is a significant surprise. True, his power has seemed diminished ever since he won the Home Run Derby at the All-Star game in 2005. However he's still averaged 17 HR per season since and yet has 0 so far this year.
Russell Martin is the other big surprise. In his 3 seasons before 2009 he's averaged 14 HR but has zippo so far this season.
Interestingly, Abreu and Martin are both hitting just fine, with BAs and OBPs right around thier career norms. They both just have no power at all so far this year, with no homers but also low 2B totals.