SEATTLE — As Fred McGriff, Darrell Evans, Carlos Delgado, Dave Kingman, Jeff Bagwell, and others will attest, hitting 400 home runs doesn’t guarantee a spot in Cooperstown.

It does, however, represent a pretty impressive milestone, especially for a guy who was traded by the Mariners to the Twins, and eventually released because he was viewed as a platoon player about to make too much money for the Minnesota payroll.

For David Ortiz, who was at 399 entering Thursday night’s game against Seattle, what is also remarkable about the feat is the way he has approached his status as a baseball senior citizen. He has decided that he is going to play harder than ever, and not pace himself as most 36-year-old players tend to do.

He does not want to “pick his spots” but rather play hard all the time, run the bases aggressively, take care of his body, and play out the final two years of his career at the top of his game, not just going through the motions.

At 36, he is the Red Sox’ best offensive player. Still.

There will be other columns devoted to whether Ortiz should be in the Hall of Fame debate, but those shouldn’t come until he finally calls it a career after the 2014 season.

Seattle is the city where many believe the greatest DH in history played. Edgar Martinez had an amazing career, but he did not receive much support for the Hall, likely because of the perception of him as a one-dimensional player. But a .312 career batting average, two batting titles, a career .933 OPS, and 145 RBIs to lead the American League in 2000 cannot be ignored.

Ortiz has a .284 career average with 399 homers and 1,319 RBIs. His .927 OPS includes a 1.028 this season, which would mark the fourth time in his career he has topped 1.000.

Sometimes the positional aspect of the Hall can be overstated. We did not vote Ted Williams into the Hall of Fame because of his defense.