Is Joey Ortiz... Ok Now?!

Let's get this much straight: Joey Ortiz still is not a good hitter. You don't want to see him anywhere but the bottom of your team's lineup card, and maybe not even there. In the last 30 days, he's batting .222/.364/.296, with four doubles and no home runs. He's only come to bat 67 times, as the Brewers have given David Hamilton a share of his time at shortstop and shielded him from right-handed pitchers much of the time. That's not a good offensive player. If you saw those numbers and made an intrigued, almost happy "huh" sound, it's only because you're so used to execrable production from Ortiz, who has been infamously inept at the plate for the majority of the last two years.

Still, we have to reckon with his upturn in production a little bit, because we're likely to see the team reckon with the ramifications of a roster shakeup in the days ahead. Cooper Pratt will join the team Tuesday to make his big-league debut, and that will make him (for a spell, at least) one of the team's regulars. This isn't the kind of player whom you call up to moulder on the bench, even if it appears to have been a move prompted not by the proactive desire to install him permanently at shortstop, but by Luis Rengifo's apparent injury Sunday afternoon.

Pratt's playing time can't all come from Rengifo's (presumably) surrendered share. Some of it will come from Ortiz's, and/or Hamilton's. So we need to be able to answer the question now: Is Joey Ortiz, in some important sense, fixed? Or is he the one who should be unceremoniously shunted out of the way to make room for Pratt? Let's dig in.

Here's the most important fact about Ortiz getting better, as of about the middle of last month: it started with a concrete approach change. He has generally been a patient hitter (though, at times, a passive one, really), but he went to extremes of not swinging there, for a while. It worked, in that he started drawing walks at a healthy rate and getting on base much more often. But not swinging is not a long-term offensive strategy, especially for a player who doesn't strike any fear in the hearts of opposing pitchers.

As you can see from that chart, though, Ortiz began swinging at a healthy rate again, on or about June 1, and his production didn't suddenly plunge back into the depths. So, let's talk about how he's changed in terms of his setup and movements.

Here's Ortiz collecting a bloop hit against the White Sox on Opening Day.

The result was nice, but this isn't good process. This stiff, awkward, often lunging swing was Ortiz's norm throughout April, which is how he ended up running a sub-.400 OPS for a significant period. It wasn't working, so in the middle of May, the team and the player collaborated to try something new: a kind of factory reset. Here he is striking out against the Cardinals last month.

This looks like a default setting, doesn't it? His feet are even. His hand position is neutral. Everything is very bland. It's no more effective than his previous stance and swing—in the particular cases I've selected, it was less effective—but it does take some of the tension and blockage out of his eyesight and movement. Making Ortiz get into this uncomfortably neutral position helped him reorganize his strike zone a bit, and it broke a few bad habits.

Around the beginning of June, the slate cleared, Ortiz and the Brewers restored his preferences—but with a couple of important tweaks. Here he is truly hammering a ball, this weekend against the Phillies.

He got a little lucky here. He got a real meatball, right in his happy zone. The thing is, a couple of months ago, Ortiz didn't even have a happy zone at the plate. Although he's still no fearsome slugger, he's regained a sense of what he's looking for and what to do with it. What you can't spot for yourself in these videos, we can illustrate using some Statcast data on his stance and stride.

Note that after the cleansing switch to standing straight and level, he's back to basically the same set of angles and the same stride direction now as he had in April—but with his weight a bit more forward. You can see this in the videos, too. His weight starts more even, and he's less coiled into his back hip—not in a way that costs him the power hitters get from their back side, but in a way that loosens his front hip and leg to move more fluidly. He's also moving his head a bit less, which leads to both better swing decisions and cleaner contact when he does swing.

I'm not here to tell you the Brewers should trust Ortiz and return him to a full-time role. Some of the benefits and improvements we're talking about here are partially the product of having the platoon advantage more often than is typical. Some of them reflect the salutary discomfort of being less of a regular. When you get fewer reps, sometimes you swing less, and sometimes, that's exactly what needs to happen. Expanding a player's role after watching them improve when their role is reduced is often a mistake.

I am here to tell you, though, that Ortiz has made some material changes, even if they seem subtle. He's putting himself in a position to succeed at the plate again, even if it be in a limited way. Given the value he provides on defense, that's all the team needed from him. If Rengifo is out a while and Pratt takes up residence at shortstop, don't be surprised if Ortiz becomes a productive member of a platoon at the hot corner—and, for the second time in three years, one half of the best defensive left side of the infield in the entire National League.