By Andrew Lipsett
Some combination of seeing recent pictures of David Ortiz looking like he’s about to kill something just to watch it die and a friend sending me this link have geared me toward thinking about the scariest hitters playing the game of baseball today. This group doesn’t necessarily correlate with ‘the best’, though it sometimes does; it’s simply a list of the guys who most strike fear into my heart when I’m watching (or, inversely, those that I imagine to strike fear into the Sox’ opponents.
Gary Sheffield
It might be the crazy eyes, or it might be my complete lack of understanding regarding the physics of his swing (seriously, how can a man – chemically enhanced or no – do that stupid bat wiggle yet still get around on every pitch he’s ever thrown?) but no matter the cause, there’s no question my heart beats a little faster when a Sox pitcher stares him down in the box. Sheffield hits the ball damned hard, and you can almost see it coming when he does; he gets truly zoned in on a pitch, and I don’t care where it is: if he sees it well, he’ll turn it into a bullet that only the left fielder, if anyone, can catch. He’s getting old, and he’s getting hurt, and he’s getting fingers pointed at him, and I don’t care; with runners on second and third, two down, two runs up in the ninth, there’s no one on the Yankees I’d like to face any less than Sheff.
Vladimir Guerrero
Unpredictability is the key here. Your only hope is to walk him, and you better do it intentionally; I’ve seen Guerrero take ankle-high pitches four inches off the plate and turn them into souvenirs for the kid in row 10 of the opposite field bleachers. He’ll swing at anything, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anyone hit the ball harder. Even worse, for a perennial 40 HR threat, Vlad very rarely strikes out; his single season high was 95 back in 1998, and only once since has he ever struck out more than 80 times. He walks more than you’d expect him to, but not prodigiously; last season he posted an IsoD of a little over .80, which is strong, but not once you factor in his 26 intentional passes. The bottom line is that if you throw it, Vlad can hit it, and when Vlad hits it, the best thing to do is either duck or pray.
Frank Catalanotto
Proof that this doesn’t have to mean big, crazy, or strong. Frank Catalanotto is a tiny tiny man – at 6’0″ (my height) he weighs less than I do, and I’m not exactly portly. He’s never hit more then 13 homers in a single season, he’s not a great OBP guy… hell, he doesn’t even run very fast. What he does do is find a way to kill you (as long as you’re wearing a Red Sox cap). When he comes to the plate against the Sox, especially in a situation where a base hit will hurt, you can take it to the bank. In the recent Jays-Sox series, Cat went 3-6 with 3 RBI against the Sox, and scored as many runs; last season, during which the Jays turned the tables on the Sox in their season series, Catalanotto hit an astounding .327/.389/.633 against us, including a full quarter of his total 2005 HR’s (8). I liked him better when he played in another division.
Albert Pujols
Remember that home run he hit in game 5 of last year’s NLDS? The one that won the Cardinals the game? The one off Brad Lidge, that I was worried would actually break one of those big windows in the back wall of Minute Maid Park’s left field? If Albert Pujols had never hit another home run, that one would still put him on this list.
Jorge Cantu
A face like that scares children, but it’s his bat (and, okay, his face too) that scares me. Also his legs; for a second baseman, he has tree trunks. He seems to tower over everybody, looking for all the world like Freddy Krueger’s more athletic little brother, and you know instinctively that he could crush the next thing he sees. And then possibly devour you in your sleep.
Barry Bonds
Maybe no longer applicable, but up until very recently, do you think there was a pitcher in the world that didn’t get cold sweats thinking about Bonds in the batters box? Barry Bonds, in his most recent prime, narrowed his strike zone about a half-ballwidth on either side, and he’d never ever swing at anything that didn’t fall within his own personal zone. If your control was dead perfect, you could strike him out. If you missed both strike zones – Barry’s and the umpires – he walked. If you put it in his, it landed in a bay somewhere. Barry simply didn’t make outs. It just didn’t happen. Never in the history of the game of baseball has one man altered so many game plans.
Jim Thome
I still get cold sweats thinking about Jim Thome in a Cleveland Indians uniform. I still get stunned when I look up his stats from any year in the late 1990’s and see that he never once hit 200 homeruns in a season; all I can ever remember him doing is hitting jacks. I hated Jim Thome. Even now, 4 seasons after his last with Cleveland, I hate him. When he visits Fenway this season, I might hide. That’s how much Jim Thome scares me.
David Ortiz
You knew I was saving this one for last, didn’t you? I think we don’t quite understand how terrifying David Ortiz is. Those of you who watched the World Baseball Classic – seeing David Ortiz on a team you didn’t necessarily care about – may have altered your perception slightly; to us he’s the big lovable superhero who swoops in in the ninth inning, hits a dinger, throws his helmet, and jumps into a big pile of teammates. To other teams? He is the Executioner, the righteous hand of God, and they are sinners. And he smites them, constantly. He smites them very very far into the bleachers, and then he stands there for a while, and it’s almost not grandstanding. It’s just another day at the office. David Ortiz just might be the scariest hitter who ever played the game.
