JUPITER, Fla. — After a summer season that he began undrafted and pitching for the Fond du Lac Dock Spiders and ended relieving for the Cardinals’ Class A affiliate, Ryan Loutos had one of the few professional contracts for a Washington University ballplayer, his first pro win and a phone call to return from the Cardinals front office.
The analytics department had a project, and an official knew of Loutos’ computer science background. Ƶ wanted to advance an accessible app to allow minor leaguers easier use of data. Loutos could help. He would work for the Cardinals before he’d pitch for them.
Yes, they’d pay.
No, it wasn’t a hint, exactly.
“I could read between the lines a little bit,” Loutos said. “I’m a pretty self-aware guy for the most part. When I’m in Palm Beach, and I’m signed as (an amateur) free agent and I have a 5 1/2 ERA throwing 90-92 mph. I know what I need to do to improve. I know what I could do. But I also know from their shoes what they see: ‘OK, let him play for a while. See what happens. Worst-case scenario, we maybe offer him a job in the front office. Best-case scenario, maybe he’s in the big leagues someday.’”
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As the Cardinals begin full-squad workouts Monday at the Roger Dean Stadium spring training complex, Loutos is in the clubhouse, not a cubicle. His fingers are gripping seams, not writing code. He’s wearing a spring uniform, and it’s not a polo shirt and khakis. Loutos, 25, is in big league camp for the second consecutive spring because that same offseason the Cardinals called, he got to work.
They had an offer. He had a plan.
While Loutos helped the Cardinals develop “Chirp,” their in-house app, he developed as a pitcher, adding strength and velocity. He went from 92 mph to 97 mph and then from Class A to Class AAA. That 5.56 ERA in his debut season shriveled to 3.96 in 2022 and 2.57 in the invitation-only Arizona Fall League. The Cardinals see the 6-foot-5 right-hander as an “emerging prospect,” and that someday scenario Loutos mentioned could be soon.
“He’s put himself on that path,” said John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations.
Development
Loutos (pronounced like Lou-tos, as in “The Lou”) became the first Washington University player since 1997 to sign a professional baseball contract. It came days after the amateur draft and weeks after he was one of the top pitchers in NCAA Division III.
Loutos drew scouts to Bears games as he lifted them into the Division III World Series. His senior year, Loutos went 11-1 with a 1.33 ERA and a school-record 116 strikeouts in 94 2/3 innings. He left Washington U. with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, no certainty of being drafted and a place with the Dock Spiders in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
Loutos spun 17 innings there before the Cardinals signed him.
Matt Bayer, the Cardinals’ project director within baseball analytics, played ball at Washington U., hit .346 as a junior and knew all about Loutos. The right-hander had done some work for Rapsodo, the advanced pitching tech company based in St. Louis and spreading through baseball.
After graduation, Loutos had a well-paying job offer and a chance to “go live like every other 22-year-old in the city of Chicago.” But, he said, he opted to pursue baseball while he could. He understood if the Cardinals felt he was “closer to working in the front office than getting a place on the 40-man roster at that point.”
The opportunity to work on Chirp intrigued him. He wouldn’t be collecting or analyzing the data or even seeing the proprietary information. He would be building some of the framework of the app. If pitch selection is the information and pitch execution is the evaluation, he was the mechanics — how the data gets delivered. He also would be able to offer the Cardinals analytics department feedback from players.
“It made a lot of sense because it’s for the players and A: He’s a player with this ability and also that viewpoint,” general manager Michael Girsch said. “And B: He’s surrounded by players who can talk to him as a teammate and help us make it better.”
Chirp, which Cardinals players have been and are now using, gives them instant access to their bullpen sessions and their games. It can include high-speed camera video, Trackman data and pitch-by-pitch breakdowns — all of it packaged and available with a click of the app. It also is a resource. One of the projects Loutos worked on was building a pitch grip library.
“Say, if I’m working on a sinker, I can go and look up sinker and you can see maybe we have 100 sinkers in there,” Loutos said. “I want to see righties with high three-quarters arm slot that throw the sinker. Then I can see all of the pictures of those grips.”
Loutos worked on the project through the 2021-22 offseason, while establishing himself as a prospect in 2022 and into January 2023.
He got two checks each payday that summer.
“I got a lot more to code than I did to play, which is funny,” he said.
Launch
But he got a lot more out of that offseason than the job and a savings. At the same time he helped program a way to aid pitchers’ use of data, he put some of that data to work. He authored a step-by-step process for the winter. The focus: “Gain velo.” Loutos added between 5 and 8 pounds, and while training at St. Louis-based Premier Pitching and Performance (“P3”), he increased the power and efficiency of his movements. As the season neared, he hit 97 mph.
“My throwing volume was a lot higher because at that point I need to take that risk of throwing a lot more or else I’ll go back and still be throwing 90-92 mph and getting shelled, right?” he said. “So it’s worth the risk or else I’m just going to keep repeating the same results. I was teaching my body what it felt like to move fast, and the more I threw the absolute crap out of the ball, the more my mechanics synced up. It was turning strength into power into pitching.”
Loutos followed that power back to Class A, where he made nine appearances before a promotion to Class AA Springfield (Missouri). He reached Class AAA Memphis that season and along the way continued to “refine my arsenal” to complement the fastball. He wanted more sweep to his slider, more consistent shape to it. He fiddled with a change-up before abandoning it. He tried a variety of grips.
After all, he knew just where to look for suggestions — Chirp.
Loutos finished the season in Fall League with 13 strikeouts and four walks in 14 innings against some of the tops prospects. Last May, as he reached Triple-A, he had a 1.84 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 14 2/3 innings. But summer soured. In July, the right-hander allowed at least a run in every appearance, had an 11.93 ERA in 14 1/3 innings. He allowed 30 earned runs in a stretch of 17 appearances.
“Great spring training, great first half and dumpster fire middle, then kind of a strong finish,” Loutos said. “When things are going well, you neglect some mechanical flaws because things are going well. But if you look back at the trends I was having — ‘velo’ was slowly dipping, mechanics were slowly getting a little bit weird. It’s very slowly, then all at once.”
The Cardinals, experiencing their own slowly-then-all-at-once troubles, cycled through pitchers while Loutos struggled, promoting teammates from all around him. But not him.
He found himself in a front office mindset.
“I think this is one of those things that you deal with if you’re a guy in my shoes,” he said. “You play GM a little bit. As a player, that’s not a good idea. When you play GM, you just put more pressure on yourself to make it perfect. To be perfect. Your failures become bigger deals. And your successes become bigger deals. That’s not the way of a good relief pitcher. I definitely fell into that trap.”
So he went back to what he did before.
He came up with a plan.
Loutos closed the season with nine scoreless appearances in his final 16. Eleven of the 20 earned runs he gave up in that stretch came in two outings. And then he unplugged. He took a few trips this winter. He went home to Barrington, Illinois, and spent time with family. He returned to a trainer up there and retraced the steps of building strength. He received the invitation to big league camp as a sign of confidence that someone else thinks he’s close, too. He started a part-time job programming for P3 and did not go back to a similar role with the Cardinals.
The next work he hopes to deliver for them is on the mound.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime-type thing I get to do,” Loutos said. “I’m going to view things through gratitude. All of these things that have happened and for all the things that could happen — I’m going to measure that in gratitude. I didn’t even know I was going to play college ball, so I didn’t know I was going to play pro ball, and I didn’t know I’d be in big league camp or I’d have a chance to pitch in the big leagues. I am going to be unflappable in my gratitude. I am just basically viewing it all as house money. When I’m in that head space, that’s when I’m the best.
“I’m pretty lucky.”