The Texas Rangers had two players in their minor league system who were named the player of the month for July, 2025 — first baseman Abi Ortiz, who was Texas League Player of the Month, and Deward Tovar, who was Arizona Complex League Player of the Month.

Tovar is a 19 year old outfielder out of Venezuela who mostly has played right field this season. This is his first year stateside, and for the year he slashed .313/.434/.536 in 136 plate appearances, with 40 Ks against 23 walks. In July, he slashed .319/.440/.623 in 84 plate appearances over 18 games, with a .474 BABIP, 27 Ks, and 14 walks.

But Abi Ortiz is who this post is really about, so let’s move on to him.

A quick recap on Ortiz’s history…he was signed as a 19 year old undrafted free agent out of Florida SouthWestern State College in 2021, and went to the DSL that summer, slashing .233/.419/.581 and getting some run for his batted ball metrics. He went to low-A for 2022 and didn’t hit much, slashing .226/.308/.380 with 93 Ks in 331 plate appearances, and got negative run, such that we pretty much forgot about him.

He had a very good 2023 season, however, starting the year back in low-A but earning a promotion after just 29 games and spending the bulk of the season at high-A. Between the two levels he slashed .294/.371/.619 in 454 plate appearances, with 33 homers, 49 walks and 126 Ks. He was back on the map.

His 2024 season at AA Frisco was pretty meh, as he slashed .243/.328/.432 in 476 plate appearances, with 18 homers, 50 walks and 104 Ks. He was Rule 5 eligible for the first time, but as a first baseman with a middling performance in AA, it was an easy decision to leave him off the 40 man roster.

Returning to AA for 2025, Ortiz was a mixed bag for the first half of the season, and generally disappointing — a 885 OPS for the month of May was bookended by a 658 OPS April and a 532 OPS June. As of June 30, Ortiz was slashing .218/.331/.374 in 284 plate appearances over 65 games, with nine homers, 36 walks and 73 Ks. I stopped paying attention to him.

And thus, I was surprised to see that Ortiz was 1) promoted to AAA at the beginning of this week, and 2) was named the Texas League Player of the Month for July.

Ortiz went beast mode in July, slashing .341/.400/.682 in 95 plate appearances. And it wasn’t a BABIP-driven surge, either — he had a .338 BABIP to go with seven homers, eight walks and just 14 Ks.

The 14 Ks jumps out at you, given Ortiz’s history. Up to June 30, his K rate this year was 25.7%. It was 21.8% for Frisco last year. It was 27.8% in 2023, his big year between low-A and high-A.

In July, however, he had a 14.7% K rate. To put that into perspective, out of 157 qualified major league batters this season, only 26 have a K rate that low. And if we look at his final 16 games in AA — July 12 through August 3 — Ortiz struck out just six times in 68 plate appearances, a ridiculous 8.8% K rate in that stretch. This year, only Steven Kwan, Jacob Wilson, Nico Hoerner and Luis Arraez have a K rate below 9%. Only those four, plus Alejandro Kirk and Nolan Arenado, have a K rate below 10%.

I would love to know what happened — I would have to assume that something changed, that Abi Ortiz didn’t go from striking out a quarter of the time to striking out barely half that often while doing everything the same way he’s always been doing it. Hopefully one of the beats talks to Ortiz, or one of the minor league hitting coaches, or someone in the front office, and can provide some insight here.

Anyway, Ortiz got moved up to AAA at the beginning of this week, which seemed like an odd move at the time, given his overall AA slash line this year, but which makes more sense when you look at the dramatic uptick in performance the previous month, along with the fact that Ortiz is 23 and was repeating AA. He has hit the ground running at AAA, going 7 for 13 with 4 homers, 2 walks and 3 Ks in his first four games there. And yes, those four games have been in Albuquerque, which is extremely hitter friendly, but still.

Since July 12, Ortiz has as many homers (9) as strikeouts. Since July 1, between Frisco and Round Rock, he is slashing .345/.402/.718 in 122 plate appearances. Its a rather dramatic upturn for him.

I really don’t know what to expect from Ortiz at this point. He could continue to rake, he could crater, he could do anything in between.

But the recent performance — and in particular, the dramatic improvement in his strikeout rate — has made him a much more interesting prospect than he was six weeks ago.