Luis L. Ortiz has long been a guy who has been looked at favorably by Stuff+ models, but real-life results did not quite follow. He had a breakthrough season in 2024 with the Pirates with a 3.32 ERA in 135 2/3 innings, but it was accompanied by poor peripherals and underlying metrics.
There are plenty of cases of this mold of pitcher when looking purely at their stuff can get you into trouble, see Edward Cabrera or Bobby Miller. Control and command are often what hold these guys back. But what is interesting about Ortiz’s last season was the strides he made in his pitchability and continuing that into this year. With the addition of a cutter beginning last season, it provided him a pitch that he commanded the best (111 Location+) and a pitch that he can use on the inner half of the plate against lefties.
Figuring Out Lefties
Debuting in 2022, things looked pretty rosy for Ortiz, albeit in only 16 innings. He was striking guys out at an above-average clip, sitting 98.5 MPH and touching 100 MPH on his two fastballs, and inducing weak contact. Along with a strong breaking ball, his Stuff+ came out to an exciting 108. Even early on, however, there was a noticeable dip in effectiveness when facing the opposite hand.
The disparity became more drastic in 2023 when his unideal fastball shape lost a few ticks in velocity and his slider quality regressed. Factor in his poor command, and you get some really poor results like a 2.7 K-BB%, one of the nine worst marks by a starter since 2015 (min. 80 innings). Fast-forward to 2024 when he implemented a cutter into his arsenal, and we can see an evident improvement in his results against left-handed hitters. Furthermore, throwing multiple fastballs as a starter is becoming more and more important, and the cutter helped against righties as well.
Sometimes, throwing a lesser pitch by physical characteristics can be beneficial for these types of pitchers. One obvious reason is that he struggled to consistently command his four-seam in prior years, and the cutter offered an alternative that he seemed to feel more comfortable with. Prior to the cutter addition, he didn’t really have a pitch to threaten lefties in on the hands to jam them for weak contact and foul balls. As a result, in these specific zones, lefties punished him for a 0.387 xwOBA in 2022 and 2023. The cutter, along with improvements in his other pitches, reduced that mark to a 0.316 xwOBA in 2024 and so far in 2025. He was also just more aggressive in attacking the inner third of the plate in terms of percentage of pitches in those locations (14% → 20.3%).
Not all the improvement can be attributed to the addition of one pitch, as there are a variety of factors at play. But perhaps his cutter helped in that hitters were looking for his four-seam or sinker and applying the appropriate swing for that pitch. Instead, the pitch cut glove-side and helped miss the barrel in some instances. It served as his best Zone% pitch, which despite its poor 86 Stuff+, helped it rate as his best pitch and one of the better cutters in baseball by PLV.
Ultimately, it helped him be one of the biggest season-to-season reducers in walk rate (12% → 7.6%) and enabled him to go farther into games. It was his most relied upon pitch early in counts, and when he got behind, so there was clearly a sense of comfort and confidence with it. Still, so far in 2025, it is his most-used pitch when he falls behind in the count.
Potential for Whiffs?
When the 26-year-old righty got dealt to the Cleveland Guardians this offseason, it was intriguing to think about how they would mold him in the way they’d like. Similar to other sinker and slider type pitchers, Ortiz throws from a lower arm angle of 23°. Ortiz’s stuff hasn’t translated into much of anything in the swing and miss department, but with how Cleveland has developed starters, it left open the possibility that they could tap into something.
So far through four starts, Ortiz’s SwStr% is up from 10.1% to 14%, and all pitches except his changeup have improved in this area. We are still dealing with a small sample size, but it is currently three pitches with above-average marks in addition to maintaining the improved walk rate.
The two pitches that jump out are his most-used pitches in his four-seamer (34%) and slider (23%). With his slider, he added about two more inches of drop while maintaining the same velocity. His four-seam is getting more movement both vertically and horizontally compared to 2024 and is throwing it almost one tick harder (96.7 MPH). What is pretty remarkable about his four-seamer right now is the number of whiffs it is getting in the zone. It is currently 2nd in baseball in terms of Whiff% in the zone only behind MLB’s ERA leader, Tyler Mahle (min. 20 PA). That pitch has helped Ortiz be one of the biggest year-to-year improvers in Zone Contact% and rank top 15 currently (79.1%). His lower arm angle likely plays a role in creating deception and helping it play up, although it has conceded some whiffs for damage with 2 homers given up already on it. But the four-seam has played a crucial role in finishing hitters off so far with a 28.2% PutAway%.
It is interesting, however, to compare his four-seam locations from this year to last year so far. He did a better job of consistently locating it in the top third in 2024, but did not get near the same number of whiffs as 2025, where he is still in the heart of the zone a bit too often. But it looks like he’s focused on getting it high and tight to righties and then high and away to lefties. Location+ needs a larger sample size to be truly trustworthy, but it preferred 2024’s fastball locations (106) compared to 2025 (86) despite the increase in whiffs. We will see which direction this trends in due time.
Ortiz is within the prime age range for when starting pitchers find their stride. He found a pitch that he could command more effectively last season, and now, with a new organization, perhaps he is unlocking some of his raw stuff. It still hasn’t all been pretty, even with these under-the-hood improvements, as the ratios are still bloated with a 5.48 ERA and 1.41 WHIP. The peripherals are at least kinder to him this year and point to better days with a 3.80 SIERA. Furthermore, it’s notable that his career high for strikeouts in a game prior to this year was seven. In his two most recent outings, he had ten and eight. Ortiz is an interesting case of stuff under performers, but maybe Cleveland has found something. I wouldn’t be totally shocked to see him pitch near a 4.00 ERA level with a strikeout per inning moving forward. Or he could revert to who he has been for most of his career.
