{"id":95203,"date":"2026-01-09T21:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T21:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95203\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T21:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T21:40:12","slug":"yankees-claim-reliever-kaleb-ort-to-add-bullpen-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95203\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees claim reliever Kaleb Ort to add bullpen competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees\u2019 general lack of activity this offseason has given them plenty of wiggle room on their 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

They took advantage of that on Friday by claiming righty reliever Kaleb Ort off waivers from the Astros.<\/p>\n

Ort, the former Red Sox who spent the last two years in Houston, will join the mix to compete for a spot in the Yankees\u2019 bullpen this spring. He becomes the first external addition to the 40-man roster this offseason who has MLB experience \u2014 the only other outside add being Rule 5 draft pick Cade Winquest, who will also be in the bullpen competition.<\/p>\n

\"KalebKaleb Ort #63 of the Houston Astros pitches against the Colorado Rockies. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Set to turn 34 next month, Ort is coming off a season in which he posted a 4.89 ERA in 49 appearances with the Astros. He struck out 49 batters in 46 innings but walked 27, leading to a career-high walk rate. <\/p>\n

Some of his underlying numbers were better, with an expected ERA of 3.41 and an expected batting average against of .188.<\/p>\n

Ort was sharper in 2024, pitching to a 2.55 ERA across 22 outings, with 26 strikeouts and four walks in 24 \u2154 innings.<\/p>\n

At his best, Ort offers some swing-and-miss potential with a hard fastball, one that averaged 96.4 mph last season, which ranked in the 83rd percentile. The four-seamer averaged 97.5 mph in 2024. <\/p>\n

He also throws a sweeper, cutter and changeup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees\u2019 general lack of activity this offseason has given them plenty of wiggle room on their 40-man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20,9,11,10,321,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-95203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}