You might have heard me mention something a few times on the air over the last couple of weeks concerning a study that the Red Sox commissioned to determine the age of David Ortiz back when they originally signed the Dominican slugger.

It’s from a passage in Seth Mnookin’s book “Feeding the Monster”, a tome published in 2006 that basically chronicled a history of the Red Sox centered around John Henry’s ownership group and the Theo Epstein-led Sox rise to prominence in 2004 and beyond.

In the book, Mnookin details a conversation he had with abstract statistical Jedi Master Bill James where James detailed a study the Sox conducted to try and determine Ortiz’s true age when they signed the Dominican-born slugger prior to the 2003 baseball season.

There have been many documented cases of Dominican ballplayers that turned out to be two years (or more) older than their stated age within the realm of baseball. It’s done for the most logical of reasons: a 17-year-old kid looking to live out his big league dreams, in a country where the birth documentation isn’t the greatest, is clearly going to look much better to major league scouts if they believe the prospect is a 15-year-old just coming into his baseball abilities with much more upside.

There was even an instance of an American ballplayer with the Red Sox named Rich Rowland fibbing about his age by two years, so it’s not solely a Dominican phenomenon – though it seems to happen in the DR with more frequency than other notable baseball hotbeds.

Ortiz’s stated age at the time was 27 years-old (and it’s now 33 years old) and Big Papi’s age has become a legitimate topic of discussion while watching the designated hitter consistently swing through 89-mph fastballs straight over the heart of the plate.

While I still find it hard to believe that Ortiz is truly “done” and will fade off into baseball oblivion this season, it’s clear that he’s been on a gradual decline over the last three seasons that’s led right into his 2009 campaign: .187/.281/.289 with a home run and 20 RBIs in 48 games this season.

Going back to a 2007 season that saw him "drop" to 35 home runs and 117 RBIs, Ortiz has experienced a steady decline in batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS that would be pretty consistent with mid-30's decline typically experienced around 35 or 36 years-old.

Could Ortiz just be another big-bodied bopper that flames out a bit earlier than your average baseball player?

Absolutely, he could and guys like Mo Vaughn, Cecil Fielder, Kent Hrbek and Lance Berkman (this year at 33?) are littered through the baseball annals as examples of beefy sluggers that were -- for all intents and purposes -- done or in serious decline by the age of 33 or 34.

We're seeing serious hard evidence of that -- and really have been for the last three seasons. The question now is what constitutes rock bottom for Big Papi, and what can the Sox expect over the next two seasons that they're still locked in to Ortiz for big money? Is there any possibility that Declining David Ortiz can pull himself together to at least pose some kind of threat from the left-handed side -- a lineup presence that the Sox desperately need if they're going to contend over the next four months.

Here’s the passage I mentioned from Mnookin’s book for those curious about Ortiz's age. I suspect that if the Red Sox were suspicious of this before originally signing him -- and with evidence of real decline upon us at a relatively young 33 years of age -- that Ortiz being two or three years older than his stated age is a real possibility. Without further ado:

Another name on the list belonged to a burly 27-year-old Dominican left-handed hitter: David Ortiz. The Minnesota Twins had released Ortiz in December – Gold Glove winner Doug Mientkiewicz seemed to have a stranglehold on the first base job in Minnesota – and Ortiz’s poor defensive skills and injury-riddled history made many teams wary.

Within the Red Sox, Ortiz intrigued virtually everyone involved in the discussions. One of the scouts loved his swing – it was, he said, a thing of beauty. After looking over his hit location charts, Epstein’s crew thought he was likely the type of player who would be able to take advantage of the left field wall in Fenway. Bill James liked the fact that, while he hit only .234 in 2001, his secondary average was almost .400 (“That’s my kind of player,” James says)

Dave Jauss, a scout who was down in the Dominican Republic for the winter, reported that in the winter-ball leagues on the island, Ortiz was a superstar, as big as Manny Ramirez or the Montreal Expos’ Vladimir Guerrero.

Finally Epstein was consciously trying to find players who could help make the Red Sox clubhouse a more positive place to be, and Ortiz, like Millar, had a reputation for being both outgoing and upbeat, which Epstein felt was crucial at that moment in the team’s history.

“We wanted to get guys who had a certain makeup,” Epstein says. “We wanted guys supportive of the other 24 guys in the clubhouse, who care more about team winning and losing than they do about their own stats.”
Epstein thought that Ortiz, like Millar, had the kind of loose personality that could help the team get through the season in a city like Boston.

That’s not to say the Red Sox didn’t have reservations. Most pressing were their concerns about Ortiz’s age – foreign-born players are known to claim to be younger than they really are so it will seem as if their peak years are still ahead of them, and Ortiz had given his age as 17 when he broke into professional baseball in the States a decade earlier.

Instead of simply throwing up his hands, Epstein asked James to see if he could find a way to determine anything further about Ortiz’s likely age.

“I did a study of his career progression up to that point, identifying historical players who had very similar career paths up to that point in time, and concluded that, on average, they were exactly the age that David claimed to be,” said James. “That was a fun little study. I had never done anything like that before.”

With that settled, Epstein made the move, acquiring the player that would change both Epstein’s and the Red Sox’s future. On January 22, 2003, the Red Sox signed David Ortiz to a one-year, $1.25 million deal.

“We knew he had breakout potential,” says Epstein. “He was a guy that brought more than just raw power – he used the whole field, he seemed to be closing up some of his holes, just knew how to hit. You put that all together in a ballpark that will reward those tendencies, and yeah, there was always the possibility that he’d become a star.”

Still, not long before the Sox signed Ortiz they had inked former Yankees pitcher Ramiro Mendoza to a two-year deal worth $6.5 million and, as Bill James notes, “We weren’t any more excited about the one than we were about the other.”