USA Today sums up the story of Pedro Martinez alerting Theo Epstein that the GM should sign David Ortiz after the Twins cut the slugger free. Ortiz should have been on the radar of lots of teams at that point, given the stupidity of the Twins to not realize David’s talent.
Easy to say now. At the time, though, no one was falling over themselves trying to sign David Ortiz. In fact, the Red Sox expected Jeremy Giambi to be their DH when the 2003 season started. You can say the Twins were “stupid”, but they were far from the only ones.
David Ortiz’s career OPS+ when the Red Sox signed him was 108. In other words, not much more than ordinary. And he was a lefthanded hitter in a park that was totally the opposite of accommodating to him. There was no reason to believe he was going to get much better.
Unless, of course, you knew that he had begun juicing.
Yankees considered signing Ortiz but with Giambi at 1B and Nick Johnson at DH Cashman felt he had no room for him and ignored the Bosses suggestion to sign him