You wanna crown em…! 2026.2 - Player of the year for 2025

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SHORTSTOP STEPS UP BIG TIME

If there was a poll going into the 2025 campaign for which batter would post the best WAR numbers on the team there would be a chorus of names, Adilmar Hoffman, German Lanfranco, maybe Mike Hunter or Paul McKinney. You probably wouldn’t have seen many votes for young shortstop Cisco Ortiz. Most would have been wrong as the 23 year old racked up 3.4 points of WAR to lead the team.

Going into the season Ortiz was a young prospect that the team had mainly used as a defensive replacement late in games. He appeared in 43 games over 2 years prior to ’25 and put up impressive numbers. 29 hits in 98 atbats, good for a .300 average. 2 HR’s and 11 RBI’s in 66 atbats in 2024. Ortiz entered 2025 competing with incumbent SS David Vera who just finished up a .292 season playing 47 games at SS. Veteran Paul McKinney was also a possibility depending on how things shook out in spring training. Ortiz hit .351 during spring and took the starting job straight away.

Ortiz played 155 games in ’25, 153 at SS. On the year he batted .293 with 11 HR’s and 66 RBI’s, mainly form the 7th and 8th spots in the order. What surprised team scouts is that he had 32 walks versus only 99 strikeouts, a great ration for a young player who is known more for his defense. Speaking of which, he committed only 4 errors all season and had a +4.1 ZR with a 1.014 EFF and 4.41 Range. He earned an all-star nod at the midway point of the season and finished 3rd in Omar Epps voting.