What to Expect from Ramon Ortiz

With Big Z on the DL, Ramon Ortiz will make his first big league appearance since last May. He'll face Ross Detwiler, who is also making his first start of 2011 (a quick note on his stuff is at the bottom of this post).

Ortiz's 30 innings as a Dodger in 2010 were his first in the show since 2007. He spent 2008 in Japan pitching for Orix, returned to the States as a Fresno Giant in 2009, and bounced around AAA for the Mets and Rays after parting ways with the Dodgers in 2010. The Cubs will be his seventh major league team--not including the three clubs that never called him up.

Ortiz, to me, looks like a reliever. Sinker/slider without a ton of velocity. He doesn't walk many guys but has been more adept and getting ground balls outside of the majors. He's just average through his 2007 and 2010 stints, but solidly above average when pitching abroad or in AAA.

Look for a guy who will throw a lot of strikes, fool some guys with the off-speed stuff (on occasion), but generally gets hit harder than desired--more liners than grounders when things are not going his way.






From left to right, this next table shows league relative value for a few ratio stats. From left-to-right: strike outs per plate appearance (batter faced), walks+hit batters per PA, strike outs per walk+hit batter, and ground balls, line drives, fly balls and pop ups per ball in play, ending with home runs per fly ball+line drive.

The numbers are rolled-up by season (2008 does NOT include Japan) and give a fairly decent picture of how Ortiz has performed across winter ball, minor leagues and major leagues.

seasonPAKpPBHpPKpBHGBLDFBPUHRFL 20074095778809911894100125 20082117011068105112937664 20096871074822111492887451 20106589764170106102987571 20115311195523311587906589 24969664174109100927778
He's done well for Iowa this year.

Putting aside most of the data, the rest is major league and PITCHf/x-based.

Raw numbers:
Type#MPHSwingWhiffFoulB:CSIWZChaseWatchnkSLGGB%LD%FB%PU%HR/FL% Change-up11886.50.4830.1750.3332.80.3900.3190.2330.50054%25%14%7.1%9.1% Fastball11291.70.3840.0000.4651.50.4910.2280.4220.65226%26%39%8.7%13.3% Sinker37792.30.4060.1370.4582.20.4720.2460.3880.61350%18%26%6.5%7.4% Slider42485.40.5260.2690.3502.30.5170.3370.2470.58842%12%29%16.5%20.0% 103188.80.4620.1910.3932.20.4830.2890.3160.59144%17%27%11.1%13.6%
"+" style with 100=average, 10 pts.=10% of league average
Type#MPHSwingWhiffFoulB:CSIWZChaseWatchnkSLGGB%LD%FB%PU%HR/FL% Change-up11810496591147889959010711013954108125 Fastball1129990010788881001171227212411593185 Sinker37710195115121116871021051249695108148110 Slider4241021128411196106105711199371100194256 1031101104911051059310889117988993150192
Scouting style with 50 as avearge, 10 pts.=1 standard deviation
Type#MPHSwingWhiffFoulB:CSIWZChaseWatchnkSLGGB%LD%FB%PU%HR/FL% Change-up1185647385556444847485439385147 Fastball1124943345452415057434242554940 Sinker3775247526048415152434852525449 Slider4245358455551545239444858506430 10315356465647395640404956476129
In the limited big league sample, Ortiz has more pop-ups but gave up home runs. Strike throwing declined and he was really just average. Hopefully for the Cubs his AAA success will carry over, but I don't get a real warm-and-fuzzy feeling about this.

Detwiler is a tall and lanky lefty from St. Louis. He throws four pitches and will be making his 20th big league start.