The Proof

After opening MSN, I see a Ken Rosenthal article that is telling everybody who has speculated that David "Big Popout" Ortiz once took steriods to shut up. He also makes a case for people to stop speculating whether a player, active or not, juiced up during their career. I would think that this is a valid point because I wouldn't want people speculating that my favorite Yankees were on steroids, but the Mitchell Report beat Rosenthal's article to the punch.

Now I won't link the article because I don't want to increase its view count, but you can find it on the MSN homepage right now. It's under the sports section with the link reading, and I quote "Think this guy's on 'roids? Prove it" with a picture of the former #3 hitter for the Olde Towne Teame. And so here's the proof:

During his tenure in the Twin Cities (and before he had the batspeed to hit an inside fastball), Ortiz had a 162 game average of:
526 AB, 77 runs, 140 hits, 21 homers (20.65 if you want to get technical), 85 RBI, with a .266 Batting Average,

They're respectable numbers except for the fact that this was before he became a full time DH, and never played 162 games

Now lets look at Ortiz's stats from Boston ('03-'07) when he "magically" found the batspeed to hit that inside fastball. His .302, a 36 point improvement from his days with the Twins. An average 162 game season for Ortiz in Boston is a whopping 46 dingers and 141 ribbies. His slugging percentage (.461 in Minny) is a sky high .612. For comparison, in 2003, a roided-up A-Rod won the MVP with a slugging percentage of .610.

Finally, lets look at the past two years, and boy have they been a steep decline for Shrek. He hit only 25 homers last year, 12 less than his total in 2007, and 21 less than his average. This year he is making his residence south of the river of Mendoza, and if he were to play every game this year, he'd be on pace to hit a whopping 4 home runs.

So Ken Rosenthal, take your "innocent until proven guilty" shtick and shove it where the sun don't shine.