Red Sox Diaries

The Boston Globe's Adam Kilgore wrote an interesting summation of the troubles David Ortiz has been having this year at the plate. Check it out here.

Taking a look at his season thus far, it's clear he's having a ton of problems at the plate. Kilgore highlights his bat speed as the main problem. Ortiz has been diagnosed with a case of late hands, not getting to a loaded position quickly enough -- hence the strikeouts on 87 mph fastballs. Bat speed undoubtedly declines as the player ages, and problems that deal with the wrist (like Ortiz had last year) and hands make it especially difficult to compensate. With Big Papi late on his swings, it becomes common sense for pitchers to pound him on the inside, making it harder for his hands to come through and for him to get his bat around in time. Speaking from experience, both on the mound and in the box, anything looks like it's coming in hard when jammed inside at the wrists.

Another interesting element of this is that Ortiz has never been able to hit power pitching that well. In his career against pitchers that strikeout or walk more than 28 percent of their batters faced, Ortiz hits just .214 with one home run every 18.9 at bats, both of which are well below his overall averages. (His baseball-reference.com splits can be found here.) He has always fed on guys who so-called finesse pitchers (who strike out or walk less than 24 percent of the batters they face), sporting a career .315 batting average and .584 slugging percentage. But last year, it wasn't just the flamethrowers that gave Big Papi trouble--he also only hit .267 against finesse pitchers (albeit that was depressed by an abnormally low .225 BABIP). It doesn't seem to matter how hard guys throw anymore--if they know to throw it at Ortiz's hands, he doesn't stand much of a chance.

So, with no bat speed and an inability to get to pitches covering half the plate, that spells the end of his career, right? Not necessarily. Big Papi needs to adapt and become a better hitter upstairs. He needs to be smart, lay off the inside pitches and swing at his pitch. Unfortunately, he hasn't been doing that. He's swinging at nearly 30 percent of all pitches outside the zone (28.3 O-Swing%) and over 50 percent of all pitches in general. That's not too bad, until you couple it with the fact that he's making record-low contact on his swings, at 73.7 percent, when he has generally hovered around 80 percent in the past.

Now that all the doom and gloom has been laid out, it should be clarified that his days as a productive cog in the middle of the lineup are not over. He can still drive the ball, the one silver lining in his struggles. In fact, his line drive rate is at 23.7 percent, higher than usual. He just needs to make more consistent contact with the ball, because clearly, he can still hit it hard. Here's an excellent example of how he looks when he's right. At 36 seconds into the clip, when the ball is halfway to the plate, he's loaded. The more important thing here though, is the location. He needs to hit HIS pitch. He's been lured by the fast one inside, when his hands are not quick enough at this stage of his career for that.

MLB.com has gone so far as to say he's heating up. I'm not quite sure about that, yet. He can still hit the ball hard when he gets one in his wheelhouse and he's the single most clutch player in the league. Big Papi just needs a few weeks for his mind to catch up to his body. Once he's at that point, he can start making steps back to the player he once was.

--Orangeandblack6