A Healthy Joey Ortiz Will Be a Top Milwaukee Brewers Hitter

Despite some significant struggles at the plate after June last season, Joey Ortiz had the fourth-best fWAR (3.1) on the 2024 Milwaukee Brewers. While much of that value came defensively, where he played a phenomenal third base, Ortiz's bat was an enormous boost to the club's offense with a .275/.380/.455 slash line through June. Unfortunately, he was dealing with a neck injury and landed on the injured list on July 3, ultimately sapping his offense for the rest of the season.

With tremendous range, a rocket arm, and aggressive fearlessness, Ortiz continued his Gold Glove-caliber defense, despite the physical setback and offensive disappointment. Contributing so much to the Brewers' run prevention philosophy, at a position he only sparingly handled in his minor league and amateur career, ensured Ortiz's spot in the lineup most nights, making him look worse offensively than he normally would be. And while he should be the everyday shortstop for Milwaukee in 2025 (other potential ideas floating around) and Ortiz will easily be a better defender than Willy Adames, few will appreciate his impact and importance to the club unless he produces on offense.

Skeptics will say Ortiz's .835 OPS across his first 73 games last year is small-sample noise. So does that make his .624 OPS in his final 69 contests untrustworthy? While it would be difficult to predict a season-long OPS over .830 for Ortiz, his neck injury and the effects on him after he returned are quite stark, not only in how his production dropped but also in how he approached hitting.

He was not Joey Ortiz following the IL stint - at least not the type of disciplined hitter he had always proven to be. While his power potential took some time to be realized in the minors, his pitch selection and ability to work walks while limiting strikeouts were key strengths. The following graphs give you a glimpse into how he changed as a hitter after the injury, leading to far worse production.



Through those first 73 games, Ortiz had a terrific 14.7 K% while holding an equally great 13.5 BB%. But quickly after returning to the field, Ortiz's walks and strikeouts violently split in the worst possible way. This resulted in a spike to 20.2 K% to finish the season and a dip to his 11.0 BB%. He didn't just randomly become a shell of himself; his swing decisions also changed and torpedoed his offensive profile.



If a player succeeds with a particular philosophy or strategy at the dish, you typically don't flip that script upside down. That is what is happening in this graph post-injury. As a refresher, O-Swing% is a percentage of pitches outside the strike zone a batter swings at, while Z-Swing% is for pitches swung at within the zone. It's easy to see in the graph Ortiz's steady climb in chasing bad pitches while subsequently letting strikes go by - and at an extremely alarming rate starting at the end of August.

Many people might fail to recognize how an injury and its aftereffects can alter what a hitter thinks, sees, and feels each time in the box. Just because you're back from injury doesn't mean you're the same player. Even slight changes for a hitter can create huge problems. Any one reason - or multiple - could have led to such a swing-decision change:

• Head/eyes in different locations due to neck discomfort or concern
• Slower bat speed (or perception of it) caused by the injury and/or time off
• Altered stance to accommodate physical change or bat path difference
• Mental hurdles

To the last point, as he found himself chasing more pitches, Ortiz might have started to overthink and feel that swinging less would help. That could be a major contributor to the severe drop in swinging at strikes, where he was simply in "take mode" in most cases until he got to two strikes. That has its own set of problems. With all of these potential factors, particularly how he became a completely different hitter in the second half, it's only fair to take an optimistic view of his first half and what it could mean for 2025.

Ortiz finished the 2024 campaign with 11 home runs and 25 doubles in 511 plate appearances. He isn't going to replace Adames's 32 homers or .462 slugging, but with a healthy season, he has plenty of pop and a better OBP to create as much value overall in 2025. Could Ortiz get to 18-20 home runs and more than 30 doubles? Tack those onto a .335 OBP (he was at .329 last year), and you can see why Ortiz is more important to the Brewers' offense than many likely believe. And, of course, spring training stats don't matter, but it's nice to dream big on a guy with a .348/.423/.696 line with a home run, a double, and two triples in 26 plate appearances in the exhibition season.

So what do you think? Did the injury and lasting impact play a bigger role than many think in 2025? Will Ortiz take a step forward and push the Brewers' offense to another level? I'm betting on it.