How many HR will David Ortiz hit in 2010? 25? 30? 35? 8? If he gets playing time then he should be a decent source of Runs and RBI no matter what and his BA will probably be poor to average so the question of his power really means a lot when considering his fantasy value.
So I took a look at Big Papi's record over at Hittrackeronline and found some interesting results. First, he led the majors in "lucky" HR's, which isn't good. But all of those six "lucky" HR's were hit at Fenway, where lefties are bound to get a little extra here and there so hopefully it's nothing to worry about.
Next I charted out Ortiz' HR's by distance and found something hopeful; by the end of the season Papi's HR's were going almost thirty feet farther on average than they were in the beginning of the season. That's a big jump but those numbers include all of his "lucky" HR's which probably shouldn't really be in the equation since they would not have been HR's in most ballparks on a neutral day. After I threw out those "lucky" HR's Ortiz' HR distance still trended up from the beginning of the season to the end, by about ten feet. That ten feet is not inconsequential and if it represents a real growth in power by Ortiz then I would expect that we don't really have to worry about a repeat of last year's April and May in 2010 from Big Papi.
