The paths of Matt LeCroy and David Ortiz first entwined in 1998. Born just over a month apart in 1975, the 22-year-olds became teammates in the waning days of the season for the Twins’ affiliate in Salt Lake City. Both were viewed as power-hitting forces with a chance to develop middle-of-the-order power in the big leagues.

Their manager, Phil Roof, playfully cultivated shows of force for the duo for that Buzz team. He stuck Ortiz and LeCroy in the same batting practice group in order to take in the show.

“[Roof] put us in the same group and let us kind of go at it,’’ LeCroy, now the manager of the Nationals’ Double A Harrisburg team said during a recent visit to Portland, Maine. “We’d do it all the time — hit balls over the batter’s eye. He was lefthanded and I was righthanded. We’d always have fun with it.’’

Ortiz suggested that he “probably’’ had more power at the time than LeCroy, but the matter was close enough to give him pause in coming to an answer. And that moment of hesitation might help to explain how it is that Ortiz ultimately ended up becoming a Red Sox icon, perhaps in some measure thanks to LeCroy, the man who helped make Ortiz expendable to Minnesota.

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The mention of LeCroy to Ortiz elicits a 10,000-watt smile.

“That’s my boy,’’ beamed Ortiz. “LeCroy, he was so funny. Hilarious. He was always dancing around, trying to make sexy moves. Funny stuff.’’

LeCroy reciprocated the warm sentiments, recalling that he and Ortiz would sometimes baby-sit for each others’ kids in spring training.

“He made people laugh. He made me feel a part of that team, even though I was a young kid,’’ said LeCroy. “On the field, you could tell he could hit. Me and him were both power guys. We’d talk a lot about hitting and tried to help each other out.’’

Both were part of a fun-loving, up-and-coming core of young Twins at the turn of the century. By 2002, a playoff-bound Twins team seemed to view them as natural complements at designated hitter, with the righthanded LeCroy hitting .289/.347/.522 against lefties and Ortiz clubbing righties at a .299/.371/.548 clip.

Still, for a pair of players who aspired to larger roles, the timeshare proved challenging. And for a Twins team that had just moved beyond talk about franchise contraction, financial austerity suggested that a two-headed middle-of-the-order presence was no longer as appealing once Ortiz was due for a raise to north of $2 million through arbitration after the 2002 season.

“He was righthanded, I’m lefthanded, and they wanted to rotate all of us,’’ recalled Ortiz. “It sucked, man. It sucked. Too many young, talented players. It was an in-and-out situation, but it was what it was.’’

“Minnesota kind of did everything based on platooning,’’ confirmed LeCroy. “They just let him go because I don’t think they were going to pay someone to platoon. I was a lot cheaper at the time.’’

Obviously, Minnesota made a miscalculation about Ortiz. Indeed, LeCroy himself started to see traits of a special hitter when he and Ortiz were teammates in 2002.

“You could start to see the swing, the power, and he always had pretty good hand-eye coordination,’’ said LeCroy. “He swung at strikes. His strike-zone recognition was always good.’’

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In retrospect, it seems insane to suggest that the two could be comparable talents, but at the time, the matter wasn’t quite so clear. Indeed, the Twins might have been more reluctant to release Ortiz after the 2002 season if they hadn’t believed in LeCroy’s considerable potential.

Then 26, LeCroy was a former first-rounder who split his time between catcher, first base, and DH. Like Ortiz, he had a 30-homer season in the minors on his résumé. And the raw tools . . .

“He has awesome power,’’ Twins general manager Terry Ryan told the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 2002, shortly after the release of Ortiz. “He just needs more at-bats. We would like him to get more at-bats and see how much production we can get out of him.’’

And so the Twins made their fateful decision, releasing Ortiz to free a 40-man roster spot for the Rule 5 selection of utility infielder Jose Morban (who never played a game for the Twins) while also freeing more playing time for LeCroy.

In 2003, LeCroy ended up playing a career-high 107 games, hitting .287/.342/.490 with 17 homers. But the Twins moved away from a full-time DH model, instead using the position to give regulars a day off their turf, and so LeCroy never graduated into regular playing time with Minnesota.

He played parts of eight big league seasons with the Twins and Nationals, hitting .260/.326/.440 with 60 homers in 476 games. And now, he’s well into his second career in the game, having already spent time on a big league staff as the Nationals’ bullpen coach in 2015.

Ortiz left Minnesota and went on to forge an indelible place in baseball history. He signed with the Red Sox in January 2003, withstood a roster overcrowded with corner bats through the season’s first two months, and eventually emerged as the definitive player of the Red Sox’ 21st-century championship era.

Ortiz had an incredible impact on the Red Sox, arguably the largest of any player in franchise history, but being in Boston played no small part in his own emergence.

“It’s just a matter of him getting a legitimate opportunity to play every day against lefties and righties, he took advantage of it,’’ said LeCroy. “He definitely had pull power but then he went to Boston and the Monster made him into an incredible hitter. It showed him a source of power he hadn’t used much to the other side of the field. Once he did that, it was over.

“Once he got to Boston and realized how to use it, how it benefited him, you didn’t have anywhere to go to get him out,’’ he continued. “Being around people like Manny Ramirez made him a smarter hitter. Then coming up with all those big hits in those big ballgames, he got confidence. I think that’s something that really helped him put himself on a path that, to me, he’s going to be a Hall of Famer.’’

Now eight years removed from his last season as a professional ballplayer, LeCroy marveled at the thought not only of what Ortiz has done but what he still is doing. By virtue of their proximate dates of birth in 1975, LeCroy is particularly well-positioned to appreciate that Ortiz continues to be the same middle-of-the-order force he became in 2003.

“I’m 40. It’s hard for me to go out and hit fungos and throw [batting practice],’’ said LeCroy. “It’s amazing. I call him a genetic freak. He’s no Fabio or nothing with his body type, but just being able to continue at his age to hit home runs and be as productive as he is right now, it’s amazing.’’

LeCroy is reluctant to characterize himself as a catalyst for Ortiz’s career-altering change of teams. Mostly, he is simply thrilled for the career that his former teammate and good friend has enjoyed.

“A lot of people ask me, ‘You and him were competing?’ Nah. We weren’t competing. We were pulling for one another. I wanted to see him do really well. He’s done it,’’ said LeCroy.

“I’m just happy that I just got to play and compete with him. You just feel great for him. He deserves it. I’m just happy that I was able to have a little bit of a part in it.’’

Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on twitter at @alexspeier.