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.

season	PA	KpP	BHpP	KpBH	GB	LD	FB	PU	HRFL
2007	409	57	78	80	99	118	94	100	125
2008	211	70	110	68	105	112	93	76	64
2009	687	107	48	221	114	92	88	74	51
2010	658	97	64	170	106	102	98	75	71
2011	531	119	55	233	115	87	90	65	89
	2496	96	64	174	109	100	92	77	78

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	#	MPH	Swing	Whiff	Foul	B:CS	IWZ	Chase	Watch	nkSLG	GB%	LD%	FB%	PU%	HR/FL%
Change-up	118	86.5	0.483	0.175	0.333	2.8	0.390	0.319	0.233	0.500	54%	25%	14%	7.1%	9.1%
Fastball	112	91.7	0.384	0.000	0.465	1.5	0.491	0.228	0.422	0.652	26%	26%	39%	8.7%	13.3%
Sinker	377	92.3	0.406	0.137	0.458	2.2	0.472	0.246	0.388	0.613	50%	18%	26%	6.5%	7.4%
Slider	424	85.4	0.526	0.269	0.350	2.3	0.517	0.337	0.247	0.588	42%	12%	29%	16.5%	20.0%
	1031	88.8	0.462	0.191	0.393	2.2	0.483	0.289	0.316	0.591	44%	17%	27%	11.1%	13.6%

"+" style with 100=average, 10 pts.=10% of league average

Type	#	MPH	Swing	Whiff	Foul	B:CS	IWZ	Chase	Watch	nkSLG	GB%	LD%	FB%	PU%	HR/FL%
Change-up	118	104	96	59	114	78	89	95	90	107	110	139	54	108	125
Fastball	112	99	90	0	107	88	88	100	117	122	72	124	115	93	185
Sinker	377	101	95	115	121	116	87	102	105	124	96	95	108	148	110
Slider	424	102	112	84	111	96	106	105	71	119	93	71	100	194	256
	1031	101	104	91	105	105	93	108	89	117	98	89	93	150	192

Scouting style with 50 as avearge, 10 pts.=1 standard deviation

Type	#	MPH	Swing	Whiff	Foul	B:CS	IWZ	Chase	Watch	nkSLG	GB%	LD%	FB%	PU%	HR/FL%
Change-up	118	56	47	38	55	56	44	48	47	48	54	39	38	51	47
Fastball	112	49	43	34	54	52	41	50	57	43	42	42	55	49	40
Sinker	377	52	47	52	60	48	41	51	52	43	48	52	52	54	49
Slider	424	53	58	45	55	51	54	52	39	44	48	58	50	64	30
	1031	53	56	46	56	47	39	56	40	40	49	56	47	61	29

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.

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