Jim Donaldson in the Projo Sox Blog questions the Red Sox reluctance to move David Ortiz down in the lineup:
As I wrote Sunday, Francona is loyal (which is a virtue) to a fault (which isn’t good.)
There’s no way that Boston’s best lineup has a No. 3 hitter who hasn’t hit a homer all year and is barely batting above the Mendoza line.
The thing is, Ortiz, as DH, has to be in the lineup. If he isn’t, than the Sox should get rid of him — and they can’t do that because he’s an old 33, he isn’t producing, and he’s being paid $12 million this season and next.
So, as tired as Francona may be of answering the same questions, we ask again: “If you’re going to play Papi, why not put him in the No. 7 slot?
My guess is Francona won’t make this call, the front office will. I expect that call to come soon, as Ortiz’s sample size is starting to show significance. David is a career .285 hitter; the probability of a .285 hitter collecting no more than 27 hits in 133 at bats is .02, or one in fifty. That also puts it outside the 95% confidence interval (95% of the time we would expect a .285 hitter to collect between 28 and 52 hits in 133 at bats). Ortiz is just moving out of the realm of the slow start and into the realm of a different level of production.
The front office will make the call so that Ortiz still believes Francona has his back. Terry will be able to say to David, “I fought to keep you third, but I’m being forced to move you by Theo.” That way, if David works out of the slump, he’ll know Francona will move him back to the top of the order.
Mitch Williams is getting to be my favorite yapper on MLB Network. He’s cocky and obnoxious and often insufferable. He also comes up with interesting remarks. I’d sure rather listen to his comments than to, say, Harold Reynolds’ pablum.
Anyhoo, he said that Ortiz should make a couple adjustments for slowing reflexes: open his stance some so he doesn’t have to turn as much to get to the fastball, and switch to a lighter bat for more bat speed through the zone.
He also dismissed moving Ortiz in the order as a cosmetic change unlikely to improve David’s production.
Moving Ortiz down in the order wouldn’t be something that was supposed to improve his production. The intention would be to give someone with more OBP potential more at-bats.
David, I think it would make more sense to look at Ortiz’ April and May BA to test significance. Just from memory, he often has slow starts, and it’s quite plausible that this is just a slightly exaggerated slow start. (My best guess is that it’s not, but the hypothesis that it is just a slow start can’t be excluded by testing significance on the hypothesis that his lifetime avg. is his April/May avg.)
Should have clarified that one of the other MLBN talking heads suggested a move in the order as a psychological advantage for Ortiz. Take the pressure off, he’ll hit better, blah blah blah.
Williams didn’t buy it. I don’t either. Ortiz has to make the necessary older-player adjustments (and I’m not talking about chemical assistance) or he’ll just stink somewhere else in the order.
Ortiz isn’t a particularly slow starter. Over 2006-2008 he put up a .906 OPS in April. That was below his July and August numbers but hardly horrible.
He hits about .274 over April-May. Yes, that would delay significance, but he’s still headed in the wrong direction. I would say it’s less of a slow start and more of a normal pattern of less offense in colder weather.
And let’s face it, the problem didn’t suddenly arise over the past six weeks. Ortiz’ OPS declined an alarming 190 points last year compared to 2007, to its lowest level since 2002.
He was still fairly productive at .876, so the problem wasn’t so glaring. This year he’s fallen off the table to .610.
I don’t think it’s a slow start. I think it’s slower reflexes.
Given normal regression, there’s no way in hell he finishes the year with a .293 SLG. A dropoff like that is just too historically obscene. I’d buy .500, maybe even .450 – minimum, but assuming anything lower is just stupid. That suggests that once he corrects whatever needs correcting he’ll start raking again, getting that average up in line with expectations.
The Sox need that production from this southpaw batting 3rd. JD’s 450 PA is ill-suited there and Youk, Bay and Lowell are all righties.
David: How do you calculate the confidence intervals here?
@Benjamin Kabak: I use Excel. Binomdist(133,27,.285,true)
Moving Ortiz down in the order will improve production at the top of the lineup, while still giving a very expensive and potentially valuable player every opportunity to rebound. My guess is that, short of a quick rebound, it’ll happen sometime soon. I wouldn’t be surprised, really, if Ortiz suggests it himself. He’s prideful, but he’s also a team guy.
I’ve been an advocate for keeping Papi where he is, but there have been a couple of really lousy at-bats in same situation in the past week: top of the Sox order facing a reliever (Arredondo last week, Ryan last night); everybody who hits in the inning — and I mean everybody — hits the ball hard except Papi. He taps out weakly once, and strikes out on a bad pitch once. That’s not statistically significant, but it sure is disturbing.