North Shore Nine

Our Sophomore Series continues our look at Pirates’ sophomores, specifically the ones who are the most likely to be contributing to the club moving forward. Each player’s profile will look at the following:

• Where they came from (draft, FA, trade, etc.)
• How they played in their minor league seasons
• How they performed in their first taste of major league experience
• How each player is projected to play this year based on ZIPS projection, Steamer projection, and the Baseball Reference projection
• Some insight/speculation on what can affect the player entering the season

A few quick notes for the armchair quarterbacks: one of the players that is being spotlighted still holds his rookie status for this season, and another is technically entering his junior season, albeit only his second with the Pirates.  Furthermore, one of these players is sadly injured and will be missing the season due to said injury, but as he remains an important piece of the future, he will be covered in this series as a bonus profile in this initial offering.  These profiles will be released weekly, so stay tuned.

Luis Ortiz:

Ortiz signed with the Pirates in 2018 as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic, working his way up through the organization, including work in AA and AAA in 2022. In 2022, he was not ranked on the MLB Pirates Top 30 prospect list; however, he entered the rankings in 2023 jumping all the way to 8^th as well as making the Baseball America pre-season listing at #74 overall. 

He began the 2022 season with the Altoona Curve, making 24 appearances with 23 of them being starts. In those games, he went 5-9 with a 4.64 ERA striking out 126 and walking 34 while registering a 1.172 WHIP. This led to a September 1 move to the Indianapolis Indians. There, he made 2 starts throwing 10 innings giving up 4 hits, walking 4, and striking out 12 batters. He was then put on the taxi squad, being called up to the Pirates on September 13^th. Where he started the night game of a doubleheader. In his first MLB start, he threw 5 2/3 innings, giving up one hit and walking 3 while striking out 5. He was returned the next day to Indy, only to be recalled 4 days later on the 18^th to finish the season with the Pirates. He made three more starts in the 2022 season, the first two of which looked promising, the last being a blowout where he was pulled after facing 8 batters and only recording 2 outs.

2023 was another bounce-around season for Ortiz, who did not break camp with the Pirates.  Ortiz started at Indy before being recalled to the Pirates on May 9^th where he made 11 starts before being demoted back to the Indians on July 5^th. He remained in Indy until August 23^rd when he was brought back to Pittsburgh to finish the season. His overall stats while in Indianapolis were decent. He went 4-4 with a 4.61 ERA walking 27 while striking out 54 and compiling a 1.394 WHIP.  In his two stints with the Pirates, his stat line was as follows: 5-5 with a 4.78 ERA walking 48 while striking out 59 and compiling a 1.696 WHIP. He struggled with walks in ’23 more than he had at any other time in his career. This showed in his MLB percentile rankings where he ranked poor in K%, BB%, Hard-hit%, xERA, xBA, and Avg. Exit Velocity. The three areas in which he was above average were his Fastball velocity, his GB%, and his Extension.  As with many young starting pitchers, the issues with control are what have hurt Ortiz the most. Moving into the 2024 campaign Ortiz has the chance to make the back end of the Pirates rotation; however, he will need to take some big steps to remain there. So, what do the crystal balls predict for Ortiz in 2024?

As expected, the big three projections do not agree on what Ortiz is capable of this season. ZIPS has the most favorable projection with him getting his walks under control and upping his strikeout totals. Both Baseball Reference and Steamer also agree that his SO/BB should improve, though they do not have it improving as much, at 1.89 and 1.71 respectively compared to the 2.08 of ZIPS. Regardless, this would be a vast improvement over the 1.23 he put up last year.  All three projections also have him bring his WHIP out of the 1.696 range to more a respectful 1.4 to 1.5 range. While none of this is indicative of a great starting pitcher, that is not the expectation for Ortiz in his sophomore season.

If Ortiz could pitch in the majors more like he had as he progressed through the minors that would be a worthy goal and a solid expectation. At 24, Ortiz is nearly at the make-or-break point of his career. He has steadily been building up his endurance, throwing progressively more innings each year. That, coupled with some tweaks on how he approaches batters, could be a defining factor in his progression. He has made 4 starts over the winter throwing for Aguilas in the Dominican Winter League. For the sake of Pirates fans’ sanity, we will not look at those results. The only positive out of that experience was he only walked 2 batters and struck out 9 in his 6 2/3 innings of work. If that is a trend to continue for him moving into the MLB season, then Ortiz could see himself in the back end of the rotation when the team breaks north for the year.