Getty
Kaleb Ort on the mound.
The New York Yankees struggled with their bullpen for most of last season. At the trade deadline last season, general manager Brian Cashman made a series of moves to overhaul the relief corps. But the bullpen was still bad, with a bloated 5.57 collective ERA in the five weeks after the deadline.
Cashman has tried to tinker around the edges of the bullpen in an effort to get 2026 started on the right track in the relief pitching department, but Wednesday, the Yankees lost one potential, hard-throwing addition just 19 days after adding him to their roster.
On Jan. 9, the Yankees claimed 33-year-old Kaleb Ort, whose four-seam fastball has been clocked as high as 101 mph, off the waiver wire once the Houston Astros designated him for assignment to make room on the roster for newly signed free agent starter Tatsuya Imai.
But Wednesday, the Yankees had the tables turned when the Los Angeles Angels grabbed Ort from them, also using a waiver claim. The Angels announced the move on their official transactions ledger.
Ort Had Previous Yankees Stint
Ort’s journey to the major leagues, and through them, has been an unusual one. In 2016, he was pitching for the Joliet Slammers of the Frontier League, a minor league designated as an “MLB Partner” even though none of the 16 teams are affiliated with MLB clubs.
The Arizona Diamondbacks signed Ort off the Slammers roster after he struck out 61 in 61 innings that season.
But Ort never pitched for Arizona, which released him the following March. That’s when his first stint in the Yankees organization began, as Ort signed a minor league free agent contract with New York.
Ort never got a call-up to Yankee Stadium, despite a solid season across three minor league levels in 2019 when he struck out 78 in 50 1/3 innings with a 3.40 ERA all out of the bullpen.
After the 2020 season — which at the minor league level was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic — the Boston Red Sox selected Ort in the Rule 5 Draft.
Best MLB Season Came With Houston
It was the Red Sox who gave Ort his first chances at becoming a big leaguer. He debuted in September 2021 and went on to pitch in 47 games over three seasons with Boston, which hung on to him despite a 6.27 ERA and 10 home runs allowed in 51 2/3 innings. In a Sept. 14, 2022, appearance against his previous club, the Yankees, Ort’s fastball was clocked at 100.7 mph.
But the Red Sox put him on waivers after the 2023 season, and he was claimed by the Seattle Mariners. After a couple more waiver claims, Ort ended up with the Astros, and it was in Houston that he put up his best single major league year, 2024, when he threw 24 2/3 innings in 22 games with a 2.55 ERA and 26 strikeouts against just four walks.
Ort Now Heads to Angels
The Astros designated Ort for assignment earlier this month, and on Jan. 9, the Yankees put in a waiver claim and reunited with the well-traveled right-handed reliever.
“He becomes the first external addition to the 40-man roster this offseason who has MLB experience,” wrote Greg Joyce of the New York Post at the time. “The only other outside add being Rule 5 draft pick Cade Winquest, who will also be in the bullpen competition.”
But Ort did not last long. On Jan. 23, when the Yankees claimed former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Michael Siani off the waiver wire, they DFA’d Ort.
Less than a week later, the Angels announced that they had claimed the hard-throwing journeyman off the waiver wire. Whether Ort is able to stick around in Anaheim remains an open question, however.
Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin
More Heavy on Yankees
Loading more stories