Kaleb Ort is a 33-year-old right-handed reliever whose Major League career began in 2021 with the Boston Red Sox. He saw only a cup of coffee in 2021, but over 2022 and 2023 he struggled to find success in Boston’s bullpen. In 25 games for the Red Sox in 2022, Ort posted a 6.35 ERA. The following year in 2023 was similar. Across 21 games (including a couple of opener “starts”), he recorded a 6.26 ERA. Those back-to-back seasons yielded a combined 51⅔ innings with an ERA around 6.27. In October 2023, Boston waived Ort, and he bounced through several organizations before landing with Houston in mid-2024.
Ort finally showed flashes of potential after joining the Astros. In 22 relief appearances for Houston in 2024, he pitched 24⅔ innings with a 2.55 ERA. That stint was by far his best in the majors to date, including 26 strikeouts against just 4 walks and an exceptionally low 0.81 WHIP. Ort’s improved results in 2024, however, came with some caveats. All seven earned runs he allowed that year came via solo home runs. In other words, despite the sparkling ERA, he was still prone to the long ball, and he benefited from an extremely low batting average on balls in play (.161 BABIP) and zero multi-run homers. Overall, through the first four seasons of his career (2021–24), Ort owned a 5.00 ERA over 69 MLB games, a reflection of the early struggles in Boston offset slightly by the brief Houston breakout.
The 2025 season saw Ort stick with the Astros for a full campaign, setting career highs in workload. He made 49 appearances (46.0 innings) out of Houston’s bullpen, going 2–2 with one save and a 4.89 ERA. Superficially, this was a clear regression from his stellar 2024 stat line. His WHIP climbed to a more pedestrian 1.35 in 2025 (versus 0.81 the year prior), as his walk rate spiked and he allowed more traffic on the bases. After issuing almost no free passes in 2024, Ort’s walk rate ballooned to 13.9% in 2025. That wildness was a major factor in his performance decline, as he handed out 27 walks, roughly five per nine innings. On the positive side, his strikeout ability remained intact: Ort fanned 49 batters in 46 innings (25.3% K-rate), only a bit lower than the 28.0% mark from 2024. In fact, his strikeout minus walk percentage (K–BB%) dropped from an elite ~24% in 2024 to just 11% in 2025, highlighting how much the control regression hurt his effectiveness.
Under the hood, advanced metrics suggest Ort’s true performance in 2025 wasn’t quite as poor as his ERA. His Statcast expected ERA (xERA) was 3.40 in 2025, well below the actual 4.89. Similarly, opposing hitters managed a .316 wOBA (weighted on-base average) against him, but his expected wOBA was only .288 which indicates that the quality of contact he allowed was more in line with a mid-3.00s ERA pitcher. In fact, Ort’s hard-hit rate and exit velocities were roughly league-average. He yielded a 37.9% hard-hit rate in 2025 (balls hit ≥95 mph) with an average exit velocity of 89.3 MPH, essentially on par with MLB averages (~37% hard-hit, ~88–89 MPH). This suggests he wasn’t being knocked around the park aside from the occasional homer. Notably, Ort actually cut down on the home runs in 2025 compared to prior years, allowing 1.57 HR/9, down from a very high 2.55 HR/9 in 2024. Instead, it was the free passes and some poor sequencing that inflated his ERA. His left-on-base rate was only ~71% (a bit below average), meaning more of the baserunners he allowed ended up scoring than one would expect by chance. That, combined with the walks, helps explain the disconnect between his solid xERA and bloated real ERA.
Another factor in Ort’s 2025 performance was a stark platoon split. He was deployed mostly as a righty specialist and thrived against same-handed batters. Right-handed hitters batted a paltry .188 against Ort in 2025, with a .628 OPS in 101 at-bats. Against left-handed hitters, however, Ort was hit much harder. Lefties put up a .254 average and .866 OPS, including a .524 slugging percentage. This split is not entirely surprising given his pitch arsenal (heavy on a fastball/slider combo, which tends to be less effective to lefty bats). It does suggest that if the Yankees use Ort in 2026, matchups will be important. Kaleb profiles better as a middle reliever used primarily against right-handed pockets of the lineup, unless he finds a way to better neutralize lefties.
Despite his inconsistent results, Ort’s raw stuff is intriguing. He is power-armed, averaging 95–96 MPH on his four-seam fastball. In fact, at times he’s sat in the upper-90s with the heater. The fastball also features above-average “ride” (vertical break); in 2023 his four-seamer had about 17–18 inches of induced vertical break, giving it strong carry through the zone. That helps explain why hitters have difficulty squaring up his fastball – during 2023, even when he was struggling overall, batters managed only a .298 xwOBA off Ort’s four-seamer while he was throwing it over 75% of the time.
Ort’s primary secondary pitch has been a slider, more specifically a sweeper. His breaking ball has roughly 14 inches of horizontal sweep, a big lateral mover. Analytics actually rated Ort’s raw stuff very highly: during his Red Sox tenure, he reportedly had the highest Stuff+ on the Boston staff at 128 (where 100 is average). This metric synthesizes velocity and movement, and a 128 suggests elite pitch quality on paper. However, as Ort’s early career showed, great stuff doesn’t automatically translate to whiffs or outs. Before 2024, his slider was getting hit hard and rarely missed bats (at one point in 2023 it had an abysmal 3.3% swinging-strike rate). The issue was that hitters could easily distinguish his two pitches, the high-riding fastball vs. the big sweeper, due to a large gap in velocity (12 MPH difference) and movement. Essentially, Ort’s fastball and slider had poor “tunneling”; batters could identify the slider early and either lay off or tee off.
To address this, Ort worked on expanding his arsenal. In mid-2023, he began incorporating a cutter to serve as a bridge between the four-seam and sweeper. The cutter sits in the low-90s and has more moderate glove-side movement, giving hitters a different look. By 2025 with Houston, Ort was relying on four pitches: a four-seam fastball about 54% of the time, the sweeper ~23%, a cutter ~14%, and an occasional changeup ~8%. This more diverse pitch mix likely contributed to his success against righties and helped prevent being a pure two-pitch pitcher. The cutter, in theory, “glues” his arsenal together by making the fastball and slider less predictable. Opposing hitters now have to also respect a hard cutter that lies somewhere between the other two in velocity and break. Yankees scouts undoubtedly took note that Ort’s overall package (95+ MPH heat, a sweeping slider, and a cutter) is that of a modern power reliever. Indeed, New York originally had Ort in their system years ago, and he’s now returning with refined weaponry.
The Yankees claimed Ort off waivers this January essentially as a low-risk depth move. He’ll come to Spring Training competing for a middle-relief job in a bullpen that has seen significant turnover. What can the Yankees realistically expect if Ort does log innings in the Bronx? The conservative projection would be that he performs as a serviceable but not standout middle reliever. Projection systems echo this: FanGraphs Depth Charts forecasts an ERA in the mid-4.00s (roughly 4.4) with a similar mid-4 FIP for Ort in 2026. In practical terms, that would mean he’s a slightly below-average reliever who can soak up middle innings. An ERA around 4.40–4.50 might not be glamorous, but it has value as a middle man, especially given the Yankees’ injury uncertainties in the bullpen. Ort’s strikeout ability (around 25% K-rate) should translate, but we can also expect some walks and a homer here or there to inflate his runs allowed. A reasonable expectation is that Ort could provide something like 40–50 innings with an ERA in the 4.00–5.00 range, a WHIP roughly in the 1.30s, and about a strikeout per inning.
As for upside, one can’t ignore the tantalizing elements in Ort’s profile. He has late-bloomer potential. Plenty of relievers figure things out in their 30s (as an example, the article that heralded Ort’s cutter mentioned how Dodger reliever Evan Phillips went from a 7.50 ERA early in his career to elite once he refined his arsenal). Ort likely won’t suddenly become a sub-2.00 ERA star, but there is an outside chance he outperforms expectations. In a best-case scenario, if he can recapture the pinpoint control he showed in 2024 (4.3% BB) and maintain his strikeout rate, he could morph into an effective middle reliever with an ERA in the threes. The raw stuff is there to miss bats and dominate in short spurts, upper-90s heat and a nasty sweeper can be closer-quality ingredients. The Yankees are surely hoping Matt Blake and the pitching group can help Ort “fully harness” that stuff. At the very least, he’ll be given every opportunity in camp to show that the 2.55 ERA version of Ort wasn’t a fluke. All told, New York can hope for a solid but unspectacular contributor and be pleasantly surprised if Ort’s nasty arsenal finally translates into consistent results. The metrics show it’s not out of the question, but only time will tell if he can deliver on that potential in pinstripes.
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