Big Papi could have one of best last seasons ever as Red Sox offense clicks

The Red Sox in 2016 are scoring runs by the truckload, and the ageless David Ortiz is a big part of it.

How does a team contend despite a sub-optimal rotation? The Royals last season proved it can be done, as they barged to the belt and the title despite a lacking corps of starting pitchers. For them, it was elite fielding, a lineup that didn't strike out, and a lockdown bullpen. The 2016 Red Sox are taking a different approach, as they're just beating the stuffing out of the ball. The Sox rank a middling eighth in the AL in rotation ERA, and their $217 million offseason addition, David Price, is presently running an ERA of 6.00. Still and yet, the Sox are playing .629 ball and neck-and-neck with Baltimore at the top of the AL East standings. As mentioned, that's thanks largely to the offense.

Coming into Friday's action, the Red Sox lead the AL in runs scored. Actually, they're not merely leading the AL in runs, they're dominating the AL on that front. The Sox are tops in the junior circuit with a whopping 5.91 runs per game. In second place are the Rangers, all the way down at 4.74 runs per game. If that pace holds up over a full season (it probably won't, but go with it for now), then the Red Sox will outscore those second-place Rangers by 190 runs. As mentioned, they're dominating on this front.

In related matters, they're also batting a mighty .295/.355/.485 as a team. That's a good slash line for a first baseman, let alone an entire squad. Heck, the Sox even rank second in the AL in stolen bases. No, the team BABIP of .346 isn't sustainable, but this indeed profiles as a strong offense moving forward. They've run a high contact rate and a low swinging strike rate, and there's nothing out of line about their home runs as a percentage of fly balls, which can be an indicator of fluke-ish performances. Best of all, they've done while facing high velocity this season -- in fact, only the Rays' hitters have faced harder average fastballs on average.

A lot of things have gone into this early offensive excellence. High-ceiling youngsters like Jackie Bradley Jr. and Xander Bogaerts have delivered in a big way. Travis Shaw is running a .926 OPS at third base. Dustin Pedroia remains productive. Hanley Ramirez looks like he's on his way to a bounce-back season. And then there's David Ortiz.

The Sox' DH/warrior-poet/philospher-king has previously said he's going to retire after the 2016 season. That's understandable. After all, he's 40, he has three World Series rings, he's likely headed to the Hall of Fame, and he'll wind up earning more than $150 million in salary. Maybe the man wants to do other things.

So if this indeed turns out to be Ortiz's last season, then it's turning out to be one heck of a final act. Coming into the weekend series, Ortiz in 32 games this season is batting a robust and age-defying .319/.401/.672. Papi's nine homers rank fifth in the AL, and his OPS+ of 184 is good for third (and if it holds up, it would be a career-high). Yes, it's surprising to see a hitter who should be in his deep decline phase author those kinds of numbers, but bear in mind that Ortiz has long defied our notions of what aging hitters can do. After all, since his age-35 season, Ortiz has hit a combined .293/.383/.561 (153 OPS+). Suffice it to say, this isn't your typical 40-year-old hitter who's clinging to a roster spot out of an outgrown sense of ceremony. Rather, Ortiz in 2016 is a lineup fulcrum for a contender.

All of this raises the matter of the best final seasons in MLB history, as hitters go. The gold standard, of course, will probably always be Shoeless Joe Jackson's 1920 campaign, when he put up OPS+ of 172 and WAR of 7.6. Jackson of course was suspended and later banned for life for his alleged role in the Black Sox Scandal. Next on the list of great final seasons is probably Jackson's teammate Happy Felsch, who batted .338/.384/.540 while manning center field for those 1920 White Sox. His career met the same fate as Jackson's.

The Baseball-Reference Play Index tells us that 20 position players have put up a WAR of at least 3.0 in their final seasons. The list is dotted with such luminaries as Roberto Clemente (4.8 WAR), Jackie Robinson (4.5 WAR), Barry Bonds (who of course may have been informally blacklisted ... 3.4 WAR), Hank Greenberg (3.4 WAR), Kirby Puckett (3.1 WAR), and Ted Williams (3.0 WAR in just 390 plate appearances).

As for Big Papi, he's already at 1.5 WAR, so he's halfway to our list with barely 20 percent of the season in the books. If he manages to maintain this pace, then he's going to wind up with almost 7.0 WAR -- i.e., just shy of Shoeless Joe's heap-topping mark. To be sure, Ortiz isn't likely to continue producing at such a level, but he's already banked a lot of value. Even with a substantial level of decline over the remainder of the season, he's going wind up with one of the best last hitter seasons ever. That said, the intact skills (his hard-hit rate is up this year, and he ranks fifth in MLB in average exit velocity off the bat) and recent history all suggest he's more than capable of running a .900 or greater OPS the rest of the way. In other words, absent injury go ahead and put Papi on this list of great final seasons.

As he'd surely agree, though, the more important matter is that he's a core producer for a team with legit designs on the postseason. Not bad for a 40-year-old on the cusp of retirement. And who's to say the man can't change his mind?