On April 10th, 2022, the Baltimore Orioles played the fourth and final game of their season-opening series against the Tampa Bay Rays. The game was mostly insignificant, besides the Rays finishing off the sweep to begin the season 4-0. Tampa’s offense jumped all over Baltimore starter Tyler Wells, scoring four runs in just an inning and two-thirds. Once Orioles Manager Brandon Hyde had seen enough, he removed Wells from the ballgame and replaced him with six-foot-eight, 285-pound reliever Felix Bautista, making his major league debut. In his four-out appearance, Bautista recorded two swinging strikeouts, a groundout, a lineout, and a weak single. This game would only be a preview of what was to come. Over the next two seasons, Felix Bautista’s incredible stature and blazing-fast velocity allowed him to establish himself as one of the league’s most dominant relievers.
2022 - The First Year:
The 2022 Orioles were in the closing stages of a massive rebuild. The team struggled record-wise and was out of the playoff race early in the season, but new talent and fresh faces were creeping their way into the lineup. First Bautista in April, then Catcher Adley Rustchman’s highly anticipated debut in May, and top-ranked infield prospect Gunnar Henderson arrived in August. Bautista took advantage of the opportunity to pitch regularly on a fourth-place team. Before long, he had become a staple in the Baltimore bullpen.
Bautista’s first year in the big leagues would end with him recording 65.2 innings in 65 appearances. His strikeout rate in 2022 was 34.8%, twelve points higher than the league average and good for 3rd among all pitchers with at least 250 batters faced. Bautista’s walk rate, at 9.1%, was slightly higher than the league average of 8.2%, though it was nowhere near the highest rate in the league. This 25.7 K-BB% ranked in the 90th percentile for pitchers with at least 60 innings pitched in 2022.
It was an impressive rookie season for Bautista, who had become himself as one of the league’s premier relievers. Looking forward to 2023, and now in a back-end bullpen role, he would be put to the test, responsible for closing out the Orioles’ closest games.
2023 - Among the Best:
2023 brought success for everyone affiliated with the Orioles. The seemingly endless rebuild had finally come to fruition, and the team was finally competitive. The offense was chugging, the pitching was stable, and the vibes were immaculate. At the heart of it all was Felix Bautista, whose success in 2022 carried over into 2023 without interruption. In this season, Bautista appeared in 56 games and recorded 33 total saves. In 61 innings, he struck out an incredible 46% of all batters he faced, double the league average of 23%. His 16.9 strikeouts per nine innings was the best among pitchers with at least fifty innings pitched. This is the second highest K/9 rate in the past thirty years, behind only 2022 Edwin Diaz. And while his walk rate of 11% was higher than the league average, the 35-point difference between his K% and BB% was among the best in the league. High strikeout rates contributed to an xERA and xBA ranking in the 100th percentile. His success in 2023 led to a spot on the American League All-Star roster, where he struck out two batters in his first All-Star game appearance.
Bautista had more strikeouts in five months during 2023 than some starting pitchers for the entire year. He struck out three more batters than Guardians Ace Shane Beiber despite having less than half the innings. Kyle Freeland, the Rockies’ primary starting pitcher, notched 16 fewer strikeouts than Bautista in nearly triple the innings.
The 2023 Orioles won 101 games, their most since 1979, but were then swept in the divisional round by the Texas Rangers. Unfortunately, Bautista’s season was abruptly cut short by a UCL tear in late August. Orioles General Manager said the loss created “a massive hole” and that “It’s going to be tough to replace him” (Dubroff). Bautista successfully underwent Tommy John surgery in early October and is expected to return for Spring Training in 2025.
Despite the injury forcing him to miss more than a month of the season, Bautista’s 2023 campaign can only be described as sensational. He became so beloved in Baltimore that the team prepared a hype video to be played when he was called in for relief, a practice only provided to the most elite relievers in the league. His outings were dubbed “Mountain Time” from his size-inspired nickname, The Mountain.
Although the “Mountain Time” mantra was just a creative promotional theme, sometimes it seemed like Bautista really could change the speed of time. With a four-seam fastball averaging over 99 miles per hour and a nasty wipeout splitter that could drop at any second, Bautista’s one-two punch was unlike any other in the league. Yankees Second Baseman Gleyber Torres once described an at-bat against Bautista: “It’s really uncomfortable” (Mintz).
Repertoire Breakdown:
Bautista most frequently throws his four-seam fastball, accounting for over 70% of all his pitches in 2023. His four-seamer ranks lowest among major league pitchers with just 7.2 inches of vertical movement. It doesn’t move much, but it doesn’t have to because Bautista’s average fastball velocity is 99.5 mph, which ranked in the 99th percentile across the entire league in 2023. Furthermore, Bautista’s size gives him the second-highest vertical release point in the majors, at 6.95 feet above the ground. This height is almost a foot taller than the league average. Rather than being at eye level like most other pitchers, batters must look up to find Bautista’s release point, making this an even more uncomfortable at-bat.
Bautista’s success is reflected in the statistics. In 2023, he recorded a 1.48 ERA and 35 ERA- (which standardizes ERA across the league, where 100 is the league average), both second lowest for relievers with at least 60 innings pitched. A 1.88 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) mark in 2023 was the best for relievers with at least 40 innings pitched and 2.4 runs below the league average.
Bautista also leads the league in categories like xBA, xSLG, and xwOBA. He ranks highly for expected statistics because his pitch velocity and movement induce a lot of swings and misses with few barrelled balls. Only 6.7% of swings against Bautista’s pitches resulted in an exit velocity at or above 95 miles per hour, the second lowest across the league in 2023. This is helped by his second pitch, which is even more lethal than the fastball.
Bautista’s second most frequently thrown pitch is a split-finger. Bautista threw his splitter approximately 25% of the time in 2023, and it served as a putaway pitch to follow the four-seamer. His splitter’s 39.2% Putaway Rate (PutAway%) ranked highest among major league pitchers with at least 50 plate appearances, nearly six points higher than the second-ranked pitcher. Once Bautista would throw his four-seam fastball and work the count to two strikes, he would throw the splitter and bait the batter into thinking it was another fastball, then the pitch would drop and result in a whiff. The whiff rate on Bautista’s split-finger was 60.2% in 2023, ranking in the 100th percentile.
The scariest part of Bautista’s splitter is the release point, which, at 6.90 feet, is the tallest in the league and nearly exactly the same as his fastball. Bautista himself said it best, “The fastball and splitter come out at basically the same angle. The only difference is that the splitter drops off much more significantly than the fastball…so I think any time I’m able to…be uniform in the way I throw my pitches, it’s able to be much more effective for me…” (Maguire).
As you can see from this Baseball Savant 3-D visualization showing Bautista’s fastball (red) and splitter (teal), the release point is nearly identical between the two pitches. By the second set of baseballs (yellowish), the hitter needs to recognize the pitch, which is only about 100 milliseconds after its release. By the third set (pink), the hitter must commit to either swinging or not swinging. This is extremely difficult for batters facing Bautista because the pitch paths are still very similar at this point. Only after the hitter has committed does the splitter drop significantly.
The graph above shows observed movement based on the initial vector of the pitch out of Bautista’s hand, and the fastball and the splitter appear to move in nearly the same direction. This results in many late swings and misses because hitters simply do not have enough time to identify the pitch and decide whether to swing.
Bautista also has a slider, but it is utilized far less than the other pitches. It is only thrown about 5% of the time, and in 2023, all 47 sliders out of Bautista’s hand were thrown to right-handed batters.
Bautista doesn’t need to rely on pitch movement to fool hitters. Instead, he uses his size and strength to overpower them and induce weak contact, if any. However, this does come at a cost as, like many other flamethrowers, Bautista struggles with his control. His 2023 walk rate ranked in the 17th percentile among all major league pitchers, and he threw seven wild pitches in 2023, ranking in the 95th percentile. Bautista’s control is his kryptonite.
But control can be developed. Velocity and power are natural gifts only awarded to a select few, and Bautista puts his talent to good use.
Conclusion:
As baseball teams continue to dig into advanced analytics to gain a competitive advantage, Felix Bautista finds success using rather traditional methods. At six-foot-eight inches and 285 pounds, he was naturally gifted with strength and power, more so than any other reliever in the league. Bautista uses his large, intimidating figure to play with time, producing a blazing-fast four-seamer and a nasty wipeout splitter over 10 miles per hour slower.
Although Bautista’s UCL tear is always a scary injury, especially for pitchers, he is poised to return and be an authority on the mound. So, we wait until 2025, when, hopefully, Bautista can repeat his previous performances and return to dominating even the league’s greatest hitters as baseball’s most powerful reliever.
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