Major League Baseball

Meet Félix Bautista: The biggest player in baseball, and now its best closer

Updated Jul. 8, 2023 1:12 p.m. ET

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Jake Mintz

FOX Sports MLB Analyst

NEW YORK — Félix Bautista is not just big. He’s downright colossal.

Listed at 6-foot-8, 285 pounds, the Baltimore Orioles' All-Star closer is both the second-tallest and second-heaviest player in baseball. 

But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Even in a clubhouse full of physically distinct professional athletes, Bautista, who has earned the nickname "The Mountain," draws eyeballs. His shoulders go on for days, stretching east to west like a distorted picture on Microsoft Word. Seeing Bautista rise from a chair is reminiscent of a time-lapse of a redwood tree shooting toward the sky.

"Around 12 years old I started leaving everyone else behind," Bautista joked about his height, via team translator Brandon Quinones. "A whole group of us went to school together. But I just kept growing."

To be clear, the Dominican flamethrower is not chunky, or out of shape, the man simply takes up space. Too thick to be a power forward, too tall to be an outfielder, Bautista has found the perfect calling for his unique physique: chucking triple-digit heaters and locking down the ninth inning.

Since debuting at the start of last season, the 28-year-old skyscraper has been one of the best relievers in the world, allowing only 21 runs in 105 2/3 innings for a 1.79 ERA. In that span, 169 hitters have returned to the dugout distraught, discombobulated, with another strikeout to their name. 

Bautista has taken it to another level this season, forming the backbone of a shutdown O’s pen alongside fellow All-Star Yennier Canó. His four-out save in Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night was his 23rd of the season for the ascendant Orioles. 

In 40 frames, Bautista has posted a 1.13 ERA and a league-leading 50.3 strikeout percentage. It's a historically dominant pace, of course: Only three pitchers have ever struck out more than 50% of batters faced in a season (minimum 50 innings): Edwin Díaz (2022), Aroldis Chapman (2014) and Craig Kimbrel (2012).

"It’s really uncomfortable," explained Yankees infielder Gleyber Torres, who is 0-for-6 lifetime against Bautista with four strikeouts. "I mean, he throws 102, 101 every time, he has the nastiest split and really good command."

Like Torres said, the recipe for Bautista is straightforward: 100 mph heat at the top of the zone, tumbling splitters below it, acquire accolades, rinse and repeat. And there’s no secret to where "The Mountain" gets his fuel from — "more mass, more gas" is an eternal pitching truth. But while the raw stuff makes Bautista a big leaguer, his unicorn release point makes him generationally unhittable.

Bautista, after all, stands a few inches short of seven feet with a comparable wingspan and atop a 10-inch mound. So even when he strides forward and contorts his torso down to throw, he’s still throwing the baseball from an abnormally high angle.

A whopping 71.9% of Bautista’s pitches are thrown from at least seven feet, by far the highest average release point in baseball. It is a perceptual experience unlike any other, the closest thing in MLB to hitting a ball shot down an elevator shaft. Because he provides such a unique look with such a special fastball, Bautista can rack up swings and misses in the zone with his heater, giving him a lot more leeway when he gets behind in counts.

But it wasn’t always so simple for Bautista.

Originally signed by the Marlins in 2012, a young Bautista struggled to throw strikes in the Dominican Summer League as a teenager and was released by Miami after just two seasons. The Orioles picked him up a year later and thus began his climb up the minor-league ladder.

As a 23-year-old, Bautista came to play in the U.S. for the first time as a member of the 2018 Orioles' Gulf Coast League team in Florida. That summer, the GCL Orioles posted a hilariously bad 13-42 record, though a still raw Bautista was one of few bright spots. 

"They had him trying to be a starter," remembered O’s pitching prospect Drew Rom, who survived that 2018 complex league catastrophe with Bautista. "Once [current O’s GM] Mike Elias showed up, they put him in the pen and taught him to pitch and not just throw."

During the pandemic shutdown, Bautista grinded, adding strength, stamina and flexibility to his already mammoth frame, resulting in a velocity jump and improved command. When the dust settled in 2021, Bautista was a better version of the same pitcher. That year he posted eye-popping minor-league numbers across three levels, putting him on the cusp of the big leagues. The rest has been historic.

"I feel like I've always been able to move around well and have good mobility despite my height," he said, "and I've always been able to use that to my advantage."

After the final out of every save, Orioles All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman jogs out to the mound to embrace his battery-mate. Rutschman, a high school football standout, is listed at a broad-shouldered 6-2, 235. But when he skips out to congratulate Bautista after yet another successful ninth inning, Rutschman looks like a little kid rushing out to greet a parent who just returned home from work.

Another reminder of how Bautista’s height enables a near-nightly spectacle of baseball brilliance.

Jake Mintz, the louder half of @CespedesBBQ is a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He played college baseball, poorly at first, then very well, very briefly. Jake lives in New York City where he coaches Little League and rides his bike, sometimes at the same time. Follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.

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