Cherington: Ortiz 'productive and durable'

In a press conference to announce David Ortiz' two-year deal, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington said that the team's knowledge of Ortiz' Achilles injury and the lack of major injury history made the team comfortable with giving him a multiyear pact.

"As with any player, you've got to get to the bottom of the health and figure out what sort of risk is involved there, but our benefit is that we know David so well," Cherington said. "No. 1, we know how hard he's going to work to put himself in the best position to play and be healthy. Since we worked with him so well, we know what happened with the Achilles this year, and we feel in working with David to identify some things that we can do proactively to help him, and he's feeling a lot better now. 

"It's not a concern moving forward any more than it would be for any player. As we approached this, we looked at the body of work, the track record, and he's been incredibly productive and durable over the course of his career. He's been one of the more consistent and durable and productive players in the game over a long span of time, so that gave us the comfort to do a two-year deal, which was important to David."

The GM also said that after trading Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to the Dodgers, he spoke to Ortiz about the team's future. Cherington said it was communicated to Ortiz that retaining him was a major part of that. 

Said Cherington: "We would have wanted David back no matter where the roster was."

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