From 'tech guy' to big leaguer: Loutos called up by Cardinals
John Denton
@JohnDenton555ST. LOUIS -- Even though Ryan Loutos has been a steadily rising pitching prospect in the Cardinals¡¯ organization for the past two years -- largely by taking his fastball from 92 to 97 mph -- most of his Minor League teammates thought of him simply as their tech services help.
After all, it was Loutos -- a computer science graduate from Washington University in St. Louis -- who wrote most of the code for the app used by pitchers throughout the system while working for the Cardinals during the winter of 2021-22 before leaving to focus on pitching.
Loutos, 25, helped to build the framework for ¡°Chirp,¡± the app that allows Cardinals pitchers to view video of their performances, deep-dive data from outings and pitch-by-pitch breakdowns. When tech-challenged teammates had trouble navigating the app, they often turned to their teammate on the pitching staff.
¡°I¡¯ve definitely been that [tech] guy for all of my Minor League teammates for the most part,¡± said Loutos, who found out on Sunday that he was being called up to the Cardinals from Triple-A Memphis and could soon make his MLB debut. ¡°The players will come to me first because I¡¯m their friend and they¡¯re comfortable around me. I helped with some of [the pitching app], but all the people in the front office are so smart and so good at what they do. I learned so much from them.
¡°Because I know all the ins and outs [of the app], I was always the guy who players would go to. The No. 1 question was always, ¡®Why is my [velocity] so low on here?¡¯ Nonetheless, it was always good to know [the app] and be able to help out.¡±
These days, Loutos is more focused on his pitching than app development, and his rapid improvement in recent years made him a legit big league prospect. The 6-foot-5 right-hander was 1-0 with a 1.72 ERA and four saves in as many chances with Memphis. He struck out 18 in 15 2/3 innings, and found out from Memphis manager Ben Johnson on Sunday night that he was headed to St. Louis.
¡°My dad was the first call,¡± said Loutos, who expected to have 40 friends and family at Busch Stadium on Monday night when the Cardinals opened a series against the Orioles. ¡°I wanted to get my mind settled, so I packed up my things first, and right as I was about to click ¡®Dad¡¯ to call him, I was getting a call from him. I was wondering, ¡®How does he know? He doesn¡¯t know, does he?¡¯ But he had butt-dialed me. I re-called him and he was like, ¡®Are you kidding?¡¯ And I heard everyone in the background going nuts, so it was pretty cool.¡±
Despite a stellar baseball career at Washington University, where he led the Bears to the Division III World Series, Loutos wasn¡¯t drafted, and he always thought he would end up working in computer programming after college. The Barrington, Ill., product even accepted a job based in Chicago as a software engineer, but pitching wasn¡¯t completely out of his blood. He latched on with the Fond du Lac (Wis.) Dock Spiders, a collegiate summer league team, where the Cardinals saw his progress and signed him to a deal.
After some initial struggles at Low-A Palm Beach, Loutos determined that he had to increase his velocity from the low-90s if he was ever going to evolve into a legitimate big league prospect. Adding weight and strength while working at the St. Louis-based Premier Pitching and Performance clinic, he was able to rev up his fastball to 97 mph. Getting more sweep on his sweeper and more break on his curveball -- stuff he was able to accomplish via the ¡°Chirp¡± app he helped write -- led to his success this season while playing them off an improved fastball.
When he walked out onto the turf at Busch Stadium on Monday afternoon, some three-plus hours before the first pitch, Loutos thought about how far he had come -- both literally and metaphorically -- from his last visit to watch the Cardinals.
¡°I was just telling someone that during my first week of school at WashU, in the fall of 2017 for maybe a Cardinals-Cubs series, I was sitting all the way up high in the $10 tickets, and I remember [former Cardinals pitcher] Jack [Flaherty] running in from the bullpen,¡± Loutos said. And, now, how-many-ever years later, I¡¯m here. Never in a million years did I think I¡¯d be here.¡±