Jul 24, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; A Milwaukee Brewers fan celebrates after defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-1 at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports
The Milwaukee Brewers acquired RHP Luis Ortiz from the Texas Rangers in a deadline deal. What kind of pitcher did they get?
Who Is He?
Luis Ortiz was drafted with the 30th selection of the first round in 2014 by the Texas Rangers from high school in California.
The Rangers started him with their Arizona Rookie League team, and he simply dominated there, making 6 appearances, 5 starts, throwing 13 1/3 innings, with a 2.02 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and a 3/15 BB/K ratio. The team decided to push their young righty and moved him up to low-A Hickory in the South Atlantic League, an aggressive promotion for a college player in his draft year, let alone a high school player.
Yet, Ortiz thrived, making 3 appearances, one start, going seven innings, with a 1.29 ERA and 1.00 WHIP. Overall on the season, he had 20 1/3 innings, a 1.77 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and a 6/19 BB/K ratio.
The Rangers sent Ortiz back to Hickory in 2015, and he once again dominated outside of a flexor strain injury that cut his season to only 13 starts. In those 13 starts, he threw 50 innings, allowing a 1.80 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and a 9/46 BB/K ratio. The Rangers wanted to get him a bit more work and sent him to the Arizona Fall League, and he threw five innings of relief, allowing one run and striking out three batters while walking only one. Due to this performance, he made all the major top prospect lists this past offseason, ranking #64 at Baseball America, #73 with MLB.com, and #68 with Baseball Prospectus.
Ortiz has simply kept performing this season. He started the season with High Desert in the notoriously hitter-friendly Cal League, and he posted a 2.60 ERA and 1.05 WHIP over 27 2/3 innings with a 6/28 BB/K before being promoted to AA Frisco in the Texas League, another hitters’ league. His numbers there weren’t as eye-popping, as he went 4.08 ERA and 1.36 WHIP over 39 2/3 innings with a 7/34 BB/K ratio.
Since the trade to Milwaukee, he’s been with Biloxi in the Southern League and looking dominant again, with a 0.73 ERA in 3 starts and 12 1/3 innings, with a 1.14 WHIP. In the midseason rankings, Baseball America had him at #74, Baseball Prospectus moved him up to #48, and MLB.com had him at #59.
Next: Ortiz's scouting report
Luis Ortiz strands 2 more BayBears on base in the 4th and is through 4 shutout innings on 2 hits. Biloxi up 1-0, B4. pic.twitter.com/N9562PVtve
Size/Stature/Delivery Ortiz is listed at 6’3 and 230 pounds. He’s certainly all of that, and probably could lose 20 pounds or so of “bad weight”, though he’s athletic enough off the mound that it really doesn’t affect him, frankly. He’s a right handed pitcher.
Ortiz pitches from the first base side of the rubber. He has a high 3/4 arm slot, though he has some arm extension on his release that creates some deception in that hitters likely aren’t used to seeing the ball from that release point with that arm angle.
Ortiz has an easy motion and works quickly. He works the low part of the zone and with his size on the mound, he gets good angles for this as well.
In spite of his size, I did note that Ortiz comes out of his delivery in good fielding position and made two solid plays on balls, one ruled foul after he’d made an excellent bare hand grab and throw to first.
Pitches Ortiz’s bread and butter pitch is his fastball that he runs from 92-97. He has very good movement on the pitch, allowing him to move the ball around the zone and get swings on the pitch, but his best use of his fastball is when he gets it down in the zone. He has some natural arm side run on the ball that is more pronounced lower in the zone, and that makes the pitch really difficult on lefties.
I noted on the fastball that from the wind up, he gets more velocity, but possibly a touch less movement. From the stretch, he gets a tick less velocity as he can’t get his significant mass behind the ball to generate that velocity, but he does seem to get a bit more run on the ball, especially low in the zone. The fastball became a great double play weapon when he had runners on base.
His slider is something that I’ve seen grades of 55-60 on, but I honestly think there’s a lot more ceiling there. He has great control of the pitch, which is rare for such a young pitcher to have such control of his breaking pitch. He runs the pitch in the 82-86 range, and he got excellent break on the ball, and it seemed to me that he got even better break on the ball on the edges of the zone, making it even harder to hit for batters.
Ortiz’s change is the pitch that he’s been working on since his draft, and in the games I saw, he’s made some big improvements on the pitch from last season even. He’s always had good arm deception with the pitch, with a fastball/change that you can’t distinguish by arm movement, but his change previous to this year didn’t move similarly to the fastball, and that could make it easier to pick up and led to him getting hit a bit on the pitch. This year, he’s getting good depth with the pitch when he works it low in the zone. He runs the pitch up there in the 81-84 MPH range in the games I saw on a stadium gun.
Physically they bear no resemblance, but when I watch Ortiz, I’m reminded a lot of Ervin Santana, both the best and worst. Santana in general lives on excellent control with a dynamite slider along with a fastball right in the same range as Ortiz. Santana has had a lot of issue working with his command, however, as he can put the ball in the zone and near the zone just fine, but when he misses his spots in command, he mises into the zone, and that allows his stuff to just get crushed.
Santana has had a later resurgence by changing how he pitches (no PED comments here), but he’s found that using his changeup more has helped him to keep hitters off of his fastball and allowed him to spot the fastball better for swing and miss. The slider can then play up for weak contact, whether on the ground or in the air. His HR/FB has gone from a career 11 percent before he made these changes to around nine percent since, and that’s kept a lot more balls in the park. He’s totaled 42 home runs allowed in 70 starts across the last three seasons after allowing over 20 each season of his career before that.
Ortiz has already begun working lower in the zone, and he does attribute some of that to working with new organizational mate Matt Garza, who has a similar fastball and slider, though Garza also adds a very effective curve in his repertoire, whereas though Ortiz has a curveball listed in his arsenal, I did not see a single one in 5 starts watched.
I’d wager Ortiz will be given a shot to show he can make the rotation during spring training next year, which is pretty incredible stuff for a guy who will not be 21 until September 22nd. The Milwaukee Brewers are publicly very excited to have Ortiz in their organization, and they definitely should be!
