Joey Ortiz in July

[LA2]

On 7/27/2022 at 8:20 PM, RVAOsFan said:

If this guy finishes this season the way he started last season before injury that would be huge.  Farm is looking really deep.

That smooth and fluid grab, spin/leap/arc-throw to first was simply beautiful. Wow. Is he generally rated a ++ defender?

[RVAOsFan]

16 minutes ago, LA2 said:

That smooth and fluid grab, spin/leap/arc-throw to first was simply beautiful. Wow. Is he generally rated a ++ defender?

Not sure about rating but I know Tony has said recently he is the best pure short stop we have in the system.

[seak05]

37 minutes ago, LA2 said:

That smooth and fluid grab, spin/leap/arc-throw to first was simply beautiful. Wow. Is he generally rated a ++ defender?

He’s generally thought of as a plus defensive SS yes. He’s not going to keep up this recent hot stretch, but if he can hit .280/.320/330 he’s an everyday major league starter 

[Hank Scorpio]

3-5 today with a grand slam to right center field.

[Tony-OH]

I was at the game today and Oritz is looking very confident at the plater. Very balanced and seeing the ball well. Even in a ground out, he had like a 12-pitch at bat against a guy throwing 96 MPH, fouling off pitch after pitch.

His home run was on a nice right-center grand slam and he had a double earlier in the game on a line drive over the CFers head.

Hard not to like what you see right now.

[Chaka Garcia]

With all of the infield talent coming up like Ortiz, what happens to older non prospects like Grenier, Bannon and Martin? Do they get released or moved to other positions to be super utility guys?

[Frobby]

37 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I was at the game today and Oritz is looking very confident at the plater. Very balanced and seeing the ball well. Even in a ground out, he had like a 12-pitch at bat against a guy throwing 96 MPH, fouling off pitch after pitch.

His home run was on a nice right-center grand slam and he had a double earlier in the game on a line drive over the CFers head.

Hard not to like what you see right now.

Fun game to attend!

Edited July 31, 2022 by Frobby

[waroriole]

 

[RZNJ]

41 minutes ago, waroriole said:

 

He hit .198 in April, .227 in May, and .204 in June.   I doubt his shoulder went from 80% to 100% in an instant.   More likely, he got into some bad habits/changed his swing a bit while recovering because the shoulder wasn't 100%.    His July was very impressive and he's one of the better hitters at making contact in the system.   Now the balls are starting to go somewhere where fielders can't catch them.     If Ortiz can have, at a minimum, an .800 OPS type of August he's a legit top 15 prospect again, in my eyes.   If he's over .900 I have to think he's top ten material.   After June 30, Ortiz was hitting .206 with a .596 OPS.    After July 31 he's at .258 and .730.

Edited July 31, 2022 by RZNJ

[JustLearning]

On 7/27/2022 at 8:40 PM, seak05 said:

And he just hit another homerun. I think he's heard that Norfolk is nice in August or something 

 

On 7/27/2022 at 8:50 PM, JimGinSP said:

Vavra up to O’s, Ortiz up to Tides?

With Henderson and Westburg, I'm not sure there is room for Ortiz. Not that I know how people are selected for trades in the minor league system, he may have better luck with a different team. 

[interloper]

From Jon Meoli's latest newsletter, which was all about Ortiz:

Quote

Ortiz’s hand placement wasn’t allowing for the optimal creation of loft when it came to how his barrel moved through the zone. He doesn’t remember the first time he carried this in-season adjustment into a game, only that it was “intense” to be standing in doing something completely foreign to him, and that around the beginning of July it started to click.

“It was just kind of a hand position thing, understanding what my hands are doing as far as when I’m swinging, making sure they were in a good position to be able to hit the ball in the air a little more consistently,” Ortiz said. “I feel like at the beginning of the year, I was hitting the ball hard, just a lot of stuff on the ground. Especially now, in Double-A, I see it – balls on the ground are outs, for sure. If you’re not getting the ball in the air at a consistent angle, then they’re going to be outs. You’ve got to make sure you’re hitting the ball in the air with a certain velocity coming off the bat.”

The results this month show his efforts are paying off. His grand slam Sunday was his fifth home run of the month after hitting four in the first three months. He had 19 extra-base hits entering July, a month when he hit 13. 

 

[Tony-OH]

17 hours ago, RZNJ said:

He hit .198 in April, .227 in May, and .204 in June.   I doubt his shoulder went from 80% to 100% in an instant.   More likely, he got into some bad habits/changed his swing a bit while recovering because the shoulder wasn't 100%.    His July was very impressive and he's one of the better hitters at making contact in the system.   Now the balls are starting to go somewhere where fielders can't catch them.     If Ortiz can have, at a minimum, an .800 OPS type of August he's a legit top 15 prospect again, in my eyes.   If he's over .900 I have to think he's top ten material.   After June 30, Ortiz was hitting .206 with a .596 OPS.    After July 31 he's at .258 and .730.

He's hitting the ball with more authority more consistently now. It appears to me that he just needed some time to get his timing back as well as the strength in the shoulder.

[Frobby]

On 7/31/2022 at 7:11 PM, RZNJ said:

If Ortiz can have, at a minimum, an .800 OPS type of August he's a legit top 15 prospect again, in my eyes.   If he's over .900 I have to think he's top ten material.   After June 30, Ortiz was hitting .206 with a .596 OPS.    After July 31 he's at .258 and .730.

And if he had a 1.000 August?   Right now he’s at 1.159 after last night’s display.  

I can’t find it right now, but somewhere you speculated about Ortiz finishing with an OPS over .800 and I posted some rough calculation of what he’d have to do the rest of the season in order to get there.   It seemed like a pretty tall order at the time, even though Ortiz had been hot for a good while.   As of today, he’s at .791 and there’s still 28 games to play.  The math no longer seems very daunting.  
 

[Filmstudy]

16 minutes ago, Frobby said:

And if he had a 1.000 August?   Right now he’s at 1.159 after last night’s display.  

I can’t find it right now, but somewhere you speculated about Ortiz finishing with an OPS over .800 and I posted some rough calculation of what he’d have to do the rest of the season in order to get there.   It seemed like a pretty tall order at the time, even though Ortiz had been hot for a good while.   As of today, he’s at .791 and there’s still 28 games to play.  The math no longer seems very daunting.  
 

With him turning 24 in July and the current hot streak, I'm surprised the Orioles have not moved him up to let him either succeed or fail forward in 100 or so AAA PAs.

[RZNJ]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

And if he had a 1.000 August?   Right now he’s at 1.159 after last night’s display.  

I can’t find it right now, but somewhere you speculated about Ortiz finishing with an OPS over .800 and I posted some rough calculation of what he’d have to do the rest of the season in order to get there.   It seemed like a pretty tall order at the time, even though Ortiz had been hot for a good while.   As of today, he’s at .791 and there’s still 28 games to play.  The math no longer seems very daunting.  
 

In the power rankings thread.  Thought about that last night.

The higher an OPS goes, the harder it is to move the needle.  His OPS is .716 two-thirds of the way through the season, so he’ll need to posi an OPS of about .968 the rest of the season to get over .800 for the year.   Pretty tall order.