The Giants have signed 35-year-old RHP Ramon Ortiz to a Minor League contract with an invite to Spring Training.
From SFGiants.com:
Ortiz peaked between 2001-03, when he went 44-33 for Anaheim. He defeated the Giants in Game 3 of the 2002 World Series in San Francisco, allowing four runs in five innings in a 10-4 Angels triumph. That was his lone Fall Classic appearance.
By my count, is this the 2nd member of the 2002 Angels team that the Giants have now signed? The other would be Bengie Molina. Ortiz played baseball last season in Japan for the Orix Buffaloes but didn’t have much success. According to the article, he went 4-7 in 17 starts with a 5.82 ERA. Interestingly enough, former Giant Ryan Vogelsong — he was traded to Pittsburgh in the Jason Schmidt trade — also played with Ortiz last season on the Buffaloes.*
Edit: Looks like I made a mistake, Vogelsong never pitched for Orix in 2008, but he did pitch for the Hanshin Tigers. He’s signed with Orix for the 2009 season.
You can find some of Ortiz’s statistics with Orix here. His K/9 of 3.51 is pretty frightening. According to FanGraphs, from 2005-2007 Ortiz’s pitch selection was as follows — ()’s indicate velocity: Fastball 54.6% (90.9), Slider 31.6% (84.3), and Changeup 13.2% (84.2).
There really isn’t much to say about Ramon Ortiz. He’s got a very slim chance of breaking camp with the team and he’s most likely to go pitch in Frseno. He’ll provide some depth for the starting rotation and if someone gets hurt, you can shuffle him in with the Pat Misch’s of the team to throw some replacement-level innings.
Like the new look! Was hoping you’d do a post on Ortiz. I had forgotten about his appearance in the 2002 series.
Any word on Merkin Valdez? People seemed to be talking him up early last year, but then I think he got hurt. Last I remember, he spot-started that weird game in LA where Bochy ended up bringing Lincecum in in the second or third inning.
@Wax
Thanks, I figured it was about time that I made an actual logo for the site.
I think the last I heard Merkin would be reporting to Spring Training. Sounds like he’s healthy-ish. From the Giants website:
I wonder if he’ll ever throw 45+ innings in a MLB season.
There were also two ex-Giants on the 2002 Angels – Ben Weber and Dennis Cook. I think Weber was on the 2000 Giants, right? And Cook came up with the Giants in 1988 and was part of the Steve Bedrosian trade, along with Terry Mulholland and Charlie Hayes.
(To explain the username, by the way: when I first tried to register as jcb9, the password never arrived – looks like it got caught in a spam filter somewhere. So I had to reregister with a new username and email address. So.)
@Jcb9
Yup, I think you’re right. I always forget that Weber was a Giant. He had a few nice seasons of relief along the way in his career.
If you want, I can email you a password for the ‘jcb9′ account and you can login and change it.
Nah, this username kind of amuses me, so I’ll keep it.
Weber’s Giants career was pretty forgettable as I recall.
Yeah, he only threw 8 innings in 2000 for the Giants and then was claimed off waivers by the Angels. He then went on to post ERA+’s of 132, 174, and 163 from 2001-03. I think he was hurt in ’04 and was never the same again.
I keep reading your name as ‘likejcb9butter’.
Weber and Brendan Donnelly– two guys who broke into the majors at age 30 (!), excelled for the 2002 Angels, and burned out after a few seasons. Hmmm. In the words of Johnny Rotten, “Ever get the feeling you’ve just been cheated?”
On a previous point, the Angels still have 3 players from 2002: Figgins, Lackey, Shields. The Giants (for now) also have 3 guys who played in the 02 Series: Molina, Ortiz and Aurilia.
Actually, Vogelsong signed with Orix for the 2009 season. He never played with the Buffaloes last season. He spent 2008 pitching crappily for my poor Hanshin Tigers =(
@Zets
You’re right, thanks for correcting me. It looks like he had a 3.99 ERA last season for Hanshin.
For those who are interested, his Japanese stats are here:
http://www.japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=2203