José Ortiz (second baseman)

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Baseball player

José Ortiz
Runs batted in		433
Stats at Baseball Reference
Teams
Oakland Athletics (2000–2001) Colorado Rockies (2001–2002) Orix BlueWave (2003–2004) Chiba Lotte Marines (2007–2008) Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks (2009–2011) Saitama Seibu Lions (2012–2013)
Career highlights and awards
Japan Series champion (2011)

José Daniel Ortiz Santos (born June 13, 1977) is a Dominican former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Oakland Athletics and Colorado Rockies and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Orix Buffaloes, Chiba Lotte Marines, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, and Saitama Seibu Lions.

Ortiz was originally signed by the Oakland Athletics as an amateur free agent in 1994. After spending several seasons in the minors, he had a breakout season in 2000, winning the Pacific Coast League Most Valuable Player Award while playing for the A's Triple-A farm club, the Sacramento River Cats. That earned him a September call-up to the majors, where he played in seven games for Oakland.

Before the 2001 season, Baseball America ranked him the best prospect in Oakland's farm system and the 34th-best prospect in baseball.^[1]

Ortiz started the year in Oakland, but was returned to the minor leagues two weeks later after batting .179 in his first 11 games. After a second brief call-up in May Ortiz was traded to the Colorado Rockies on July 25 as part of a package that brought Jermaine Dye to Oakland.^[2] Ortiz was installed as the Rockies starting second baseman, replacing Todd Walker (who had been traded to the Cincinnati Reds). Ortiz batted .255 the rest of the way, with 13 home runs in just 204 at bats in 53 games.

Ortiz opened the 2002 season as the Rockies' starter at second again, but his power numbers declined substantially. By mid-June, while he was hitting .244, Ortiz had just one home run through the same number of games (53) in which he'd hit 13 home runs the year before. Ortiz was sent down to the Triple-A Colorado Springs Sky Sox and was replaced at second by Brent Butler. After hitting .333 with 6 home runs in 26 minor league games, Ortiz was brought back up in September. He hit .281 in 12 games down the stretch, but failed to hit a home run the rest of the year.

Ortiz was not offered a contract by the Rockies after the season, and rather than catch on with another major league club, Ortiz signed with the

Ortiz returned to the BlueWave for