Trade details: Pirates acquire 1B Spencer Horwitz from Cleveland for RHP Luis Ortiz, LHP Josh Hartle and LHP Michael Kennedy
This is certainly one of the strangest deals I can remember, as Spencer Horwitz is suddenly a hot commodity, which is unusual for a 27-year-old first baseman with middling power and fringy bat speed.
Cleveland acquired Horwitz after lunch and flipped him to Pittsburgh for three pitchers before they even got to their fourth meal. Meanwhile, the Pirates needed a first baseman, and I think they still do.
I’m not a Horwitz believer, as you may have guessed. He did play some second base last year for Toronto but was not good there, so he’s a first baseman who has maybe average power and whose strongest skill is his plate discipline — he walks a lot, doesn’t punch out, and doesn’t chase. His hard-hit rate and average exit velocity were both below average last year, unsurprising for someone with fringy bat speed (at best) and no real history of hitting for any power.
Horwitz was 26 this past season and hit 16 homers between Triple A and the majors, besting his previous career high of … 12. He also didn’t hit lefties at all in the majors in 2024, and was mediocre against them in the minors in 2023. It’s not impossible for a 27-year-old player to improve, but usually what you see in a player that age is what you get, and I see a platoon first baseman who has to get on base at a very high clip to make up for his lack of pop.
Horwitz does address Pittsburgh’s biggest offensive problem last year, getting guys on base, as they ranked 14th out of 15 teams in the NL in OBP at .301. Pittsburgh’s second-biggest problem on offense last year, however, was their lack of power; they finished with the third-fewest homers in the NL at 160, ahead only of two non-contenders in Miami and Washington. This isn’t going to move that needle, and it comes at the position where it’s easiest to find power other than DH.
The Guardians get back two intriguing if low-probability pitching prospects along with a big-league swingman.
Left-hander Michael Kennedy pitched at 19 this year, mostly in Low A, showing 55 (out of the 20-80 scouting scale) control and average command, working with a fringe-average fastball at mostly 88-92 that plays up a little due to his command and a low release height along with an average slider and change. He’s still got some projection left and should see his velocity increase in the next year or two, although so far he hasn’t gained any velocity since high school. He walked just 6 percent of batters he faced in 2024 and struck out 37 percent of lefties. There’s mid-rotation upside here if he does get to that velocity projection.
Lefty Josh Hartle was a potential first-rounder after his sophomore year at Wake Forest, but his junior year in 2024 was a disaster and he fell to the third round after posting a career-worst 5.79 ERA. He’s a finesse lefty who previously had shown above-average control and had a 55 changeup in his five-pitch mix, but when his velocity dipped a half-grade he couldn’t overcome it. I have speculated before that he overused his cutter in his junior year, and that also brought his performance down, as it’s not as effective as the changeup. If time and a new approach get him back to where he was in 2023, this is a steal.
Right-hander Luis Ortiz made 15 starts and 22 relief appearances for the Pirates in 2024 and his overall production was worth 3.0 bWAR, which is nothing to sneeze at and shows at least in part the value of that in-between sort of role. He didn’t see any deterioration in his strikeout or walk rates when working as a starter, and has just a modest platoon split, giving up more power to left-handed batters.
He succeeds with good carry on a four-seamer that plays up because he extends well over his front side, and the cutter he added in 2024 effectively replaced his changeup as the pitch to keep hitters off the fastball. He also lowered his arm slot, getting more tilt to his slider, which was previously more of a downward-breaking pitch, and improving the attack angle on the four-seamer and sinker.
Some of Ortiz’s success last year was driven by a .243 BABIP, itself the result of him reducing how often hitters squared him up; his FIP was almost a full run above his ERA at 4.25 and FanGraphs, which uses FIP in its WAR calculation, had his WAR at just 1.0 last year. He’s clearly going to see some regression if his strikeout rate remains at 19 percent, and I think it’s more likely that he’s a good back-end starter or swingman than that he’s a three-win guy going forward, but Cleveland’s real core competency as an organization has been working with and improving pitchers, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see further adjustments here. And they need his innings, as they only had three healthy starters on the roster before the deal, one of whom, Ben Lively, had a 4.66 FIP last year and has a career ERA in the majors of 4.80. Getting Ortiz, who isn’t even eligible for arbitration for two more years, plus two high-risk high-reward left-handed pitching prospects, for Spencer Horwitz is just tremendous for Cleveland.
(Photo of Horwitz: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
