Through the first two-plus months of the 2015 MLB season, the sluggish start of Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz has been one of the hottest topics in the baseball community. Ortiz’s slump has also stirred a few memories of a not-so-distant time ago when some believed that he was washed up after a pair of back-to-back disappointing seasons in 2008 and 2009. The all-world DH ultimately quieted his critics by averaging 30 home runs and about 3.0 fWAR per year between 2010-2014.

So, could Big Papi have yet another comeback in him at the age of 39? Well, it is not exactly a slam dunk, but Ortiz may have more than enough left in the tank to turn things around this year. Plus, he may not even be performing quite as badly as some think. Ortiz has certainly had his share of issues, which has made Boston’s struggles as a team all the more frustrating, but there are still more than a few positives, especially when considering what he has been doing lately.

For starters, Ortiz may only be slashing a disappointing .229/.313/.414 with nine home runs, a .310 wOBA and a 94 wRC+ at the moment, but he has not lost his ability to get on base via the walk. While his BB rate is down quite a bit from his career mark of 13.1 percent, it still sits at a very healthy 11.3 percent.

It does appear that pitchers are going after him a bit more than they did last year, as the percentage of pitches he has seen in the zone has risen from 39.3 to 41.2 percent over that time frame, but he is still seeing 4.12 pitches per plate appearance, which is good enough to rank among the top 10 in the AL.

While his swinging strike rate is up a bit, Ortiz’s current 15.8 percent K rate is actually right on par with the mark he had last year, and this could very well be the fifth straight year that he finishes the season below the league average in that department. His contact rate is also down a bit at 78.6 percent, but the bigger problem may actually be the type of contact that he has been making.

According to Fangraphs, 45 percent of the balls that Ortiz put into play last season were classified as having been hit hard. This year, that number has fallen to 33.7 percent. Although that is still good enough to rank 21st among 85 qualified hitters in the AL, it indicates that he hasn’t quite been hitting the ball with Ortiz-like authority as often this season.

Plus, 14.3 percent of the balls he has put in play have been hit softly, which would be a four-year high at this rate. His .235 BABIP suggests that he hasn’t had much luck finding holes this year either.

Obviously, the other issue that many have been pointing to is the shift that opposing teams employ on Ortiz, which could easily help to explain his low batting average. Still, although Ortiz is a .283/.378/.543 lifetime hitter and has batted .300 or better six different times during his tenure with the Red Sox, it is safe to say that he is known mostly for his prolific power. For Ortiz, getting back to being a run producer should be a bigger priority than hitting for a high average again.

Last season, at the age of 38, Ortiz’s slash line fell to .263/.355/.517 after posting a stellar .309/.395/.564 in 2013, so perhaps one could have seen the drop in his BA coming. However,  he hit 35 home runs, which was his highest total since 2007. Most of his homers were hit on balls that were located on the middle part of the plate.

Ortiz is still showing an ability to crush pitches in those areas this season, albeit to a lesser extent on the pitch down the middle and middle-in.

By and large, Ortiz’s power still remains intact, which is another positive to take away from what he has shown so far this season. On Saturday, he hit a 444-foot blast off of Toronto Blue Jays knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, which was his second-longest homer of the season. The following day, he hit a 389-foot shot off of Marco Estrada, which was career home run No. 475, trying him with Willie Stargell and Stan Musial for 29th on the all-time list.

In spite of Papi’s aforementioned hard contact issues, he can still hit the ball a really long way.

According to ESPN’s Home Run Tracker, Ortiz’s home runs are traveling an average true distance of 406.6 feet, which is up from 401.5 a season ago. It is very interesting to note that the average speed off the bat has also gone up a tick, rising from 104.3 mph to 105.2 mph, which should help lay to rest some of the concerns about his ability to hit the ball hard.

Five of his home runs have actually come on the road, though all but one of his long balls would have cleared the fences at Fenway this year.

For whatever reason, Ortiz just isn’t hitting the ball in the air as much this year. When he does hit the ball in the air, his 14.3 percent HR/FB shows that he is doing a decent enough job of converting his fly balls into homers, but he is still well below his career mark of 18.4 percent. His ISO is still well above league average at .186, but it is also way down from his career mark of .259. While it is clear that the power is still there, he hasn’t been able to show it off as frequently, even though he certainly did take a few steps in the right direction over the weekend.

Last year, Ortiz had a 45.7 percent fly ball rate, which was the sixth-highest mark in the AL. This year, he has a 36.0 percent fly ball rate, which would be a career low, and his ground ball rate of 43.4 would be a career high. His 20.6 percent line drive rate is almost identical to his career mark of 20.1, which is quite interesting.

Last year, if the pitch was thrown down the middle or high in the zone, there was a pretty good chance that Ortiz would be hitting the ball in the air.

Unless the ball was pitched low in the zone or below, he wasn’t hitting too many grounders.

This year, he is not hitting as many fly balls on pitches that are right in his wheelhouse. While he has shown that he can still homer off of these pitches, he is just not doing it as much as he needs to.

Likewise, the percentage of ground balls he has been hitting on these pitches has increased. Again, as power hitter, he should be hitting these balls in the air.

The results of Ortiz’s batted balls this season are certainly puzzling, but many have speculated that a mechanical issue could be at fault, which might help to explain why he is getting on top of so many pitches and hitting them on the ground. Of course, the concerns about the fact that Ortiz is 39 years old are not likely to dissipate any time soon either.

One final red flag worth pointing out is the fact that Ortiz is only hitting .209 with a .396 slugging percentage against four-seam fastballs this season, even though he has hit four home runs against the pitch. He has struggled even more against sinkers, hitting only .167 with a .278 slugging percentage. Ortiz has always been a good fastball hitter, so this will certainly be something worth keeping an eye on.

His numbers against fastballs could very well normalize, but the struggles he has had up to this point naturally raise questions about his age and bat speed.

Nevertheless, Ortiz has still displayed raw power, a below-league average strikeout rate and a keen eye at the plate this year, which indicates that there should be plenty of hope for him going forward. If Ortiz stays healthy and makes the needed adjustments at the plate, which he now appears to be doing, he should be just fine. Look for Big Papi to notch his 14th consecutive 20-plus homer campaign by season’s end.

* All statistical information courtesy of Baseball-Reference, Brooks Baseball, ESPN.com and Fangraphs

Brad Faber is a Senior Writer and Sabermetrics Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Brad_Faber, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on LinkedIn or Google. 

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