Comments on: It’s only because I’m in a pissy mood that I’m letting myself do this. (Or: the old Manny, Ortiz, and PEDs debate)

By: The Feeding the Monster Blog — In which the author discusses Boston, the Red Sox, the media, and very occasionally popular music. » I sympathize with his frustration…but come on

Wed, 02 May 2007 15:27:44 +0000

[...] This shows, more than anything that a) Curt would do well to do what I try to do when I get really upset: write down the first thing that pops into my head and then throw it away (I’m not always as successful as I might like) and b) he has very little understanding of the media. [...]

By: dbvader

dbvader — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:54:09 +0000

HR/AB is misleading because it doesn’t account for a batter’s increase in walks. A better statistic to track increase in HR hitting would be HR/PA. Ortiz has increased his walk % every year from 2004 through 2006, which means his HR/AB will increase at a greater rate than his HR/PA solely because he walked more.

By: mhaof5555

mhaof5555 — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:41:23 +0000

As it seems as if the only remaining arguement is that Ortiz is the only player to leave the Twins and hit for more power, why don’t you accuse Carlos Beltran under the same principle.

He left the Royals and now is hitting for the best power of his career, save that brief stretch on the Astros. Other Royals haven’t left and become massive boppers. The reason is that the Royals suck and don’t have many good players because they are a small market team. Thus, when their players leave they still won’t be very good.

The Twins during that period and in general don’t target young power hitters as it doesn’t fit there plan. They get young, fast, defensively sound players who if they eventually leave the twins will become old, average speed, defensively sound players.

Ortiz has always physically been a monster. Who else has come through the Twins system that has the look of a masher.

By: Ogie Oglethorpe

Ogie Oglethorpe — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:00:30 +0000

Just because I can’t stand seeing this repeated time and time again. Steroids help muscles heal or repair faster. When you exercise or lift weights your muscle fibers tear. When they heal or “repair” they get bigger. Hence the term “tear and repair”. One of the biggest benefits of steroids is the fact that the repair period is much faster. This allows you to workout more because the recovery period is shorter. This will do nothing to help your knee joints recover. In fact most athletes who use steroids blow out their ACL because their body’s muscle mass increases so rapidly that their tendons are unable to effectively support this increased stress created by the added mass. As far as HGH is concerned I have heard that it increases your muscle mass, bone density and in Bonds’ case sharpened his eye sight. This does nothing for your tendons or joints except possibly make them worse for the same reasons that steroids make them vulnerable. If Ortiz’ problem is his knee joints how does this help him? If something existed to fix these problems then why are people getting hip and knee replacements regularly?

By: kpw

kpw — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 16:23:08 +0000

The biggest flaw in this dude’s logic is that you would have sold a hell of a lot more books with a title like “FEEDING THE MONSTERS: How Buttloads Of ‘Roids and HGH Took Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz To The Top.” It’s a testament to your journalistic integrity that you searched your soul and found some way to resist.

But this is definitely one of those slippery-slope thingies. Now, every sensationalist seamhead who treats ballplayers like stat-producing robots (but at the same time, yammer about the “purity of the game”) will want a crack at you, thinking that they’ll get it. Playground rules apply: take a deep breath, don’t retaliate, and for gawd’s sakes say no to drugs.

FWIW, as a lifelong Twins fan, I don’t hate Ortiz for “sucking for us.” I watched him every day for nearly three seasons and had enough sense about me to realize that he was a bad fit for TK’s system — he had fewer than five years of ML experience, he was better than good for simply moving runners over, and he rarely had the green light to swing away. But he hasn’t changed much as a player since the late 90’s: the ball still explodes off his bat, he still can’t field, and he still strikes out 20% of the time (and looks bad when doing it).

By: pepsicorp

pepsicorp — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 16:12:49 +0000

Yeah, there is no question that the Twins approach during the TK era was different and emphasized using the whole field. And much blame is being heaped retroactively on the twins coaching staff. However, this skirts the issue - Ortiz is the only player that left the Twins and became a significantly better power hitter. A 10ab hr increase is pretty incredible and can’t just be blamed on coaching.

pepsicorp: you’re done. You’ve tried to make your point a whole slew of times. Now you’re just repeating yourself. I’m sick of banging my head against the wall; I’m sure other people here are too. If you have something new, original, or even mildly interesting you want to add to this or any other discussion, I’d welcome it. If not, go seek out Bring_Back_Pedro (aka 2004_champs). You two can sit in the corner and shout at each other until you get bored.

– Seth

By: giantglass

giantglass — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 15:43:56 +0000

Hey pepsicorp, if Seth is done answering your inane posts, then I guess the least the rest of us can do is pick up the slack … and let your own team’s star player shoot your stupid f—ing argument about Ortiz to pieces.

From a March 2006 article in the St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press, the Globe equivalent for the Twins:

Kelly’s intolerance of young players who didn’t take quickly to his program are just as famous as the free-swinging ways of some of those recent Twins hitters.

“It was like you were in the army,” Ortiz said.

[Tony] Oliva said that since he left as hitting coach, the team has stressed the “big part of the field” to the neglect of teaching hitters how to react to — and drive — inside pitches.

[Torii] Hunter said he was watched in batting practice to make sure he was following the prescribed program.

“If I didn’t go to right field in batting practice and I pulled a lot, it was, ‘Oh, he’s not ready today.’ That’s the word I would get,” Hunter said.

Even Scott Ullger, Kelly’s hitting coach for three years and Gardenhire’s for four, admitted the emphasis at the major league level shifted to a more rigid discipline when the World Series core cycled out in the ’90s and younger, raw hitters began coming through — then shifted again when Gardenhire took over and told his hitters with power to air it out more often when ahead in the count.

Hunter decided to ignore what he had been coached to do even before Gardenhire took over. After struggling with Kelly’s program and batting .207 with no homers seven weeks into what would have been his second full season in 2000, Hunter was demoted to Class AAA.

“I stopped listening to everybody and just started swinging,” said Hunter, who batted .368 with 18 homers in 51 games at AAA before being called back up.

He then hit .332 with five home runs in 93 at-bats the rest of the season and followed that with consecutive career highs of 27 homers in 2001 and 29 in 2002.

Just for anecdotal evidence’s sake, here’s how the article begins:

One day early in David Ortiz’s big-league career with the Twins, the hulking slugger put on a jaw-dropping power display during batting practice before a game against Detroit at the Metrodome.He sent pitch after pitch into the right-field upper deck, to the delight of several Twins and Tigers players.

The show came to a sudden stop when manager Tom Kelly rose to the top of the dugout steps and yelled at him to knock it off.

“That’s the way it was over there,” said Ortiz, now one of baseball’s premier sluggers with the Boston Red Sox. “They make you be a little (expletive) hitter. If you don’t be a little (expletive) hitter, you don’t play.”