Braves News: Charlie Morton Signs for 1-year, $15M
The Atlanta Braves continue to work on their starting rotation this offseason by adding another veteran to the staff in Charlie Morton.
Things finally come full circle for Charlie Morton as he returns to the team that drafted him in the Atlanta Braves on a one-year deal worth $15 million.
He was taken by the Braves in the third round of the 2002 draft out of Redding, CT.
After pitching 74.2 innings during his rookie season with Atlanta in 2008, they then traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates along with Gorkys Hernandez and Jeff Locke for Nate McLouth.
Morton spent seven seasons with the Pirates and was really good from 2011-2014 when he was healthy.
He was then traded to the Phillies but made only 4 starts for them in 2016.
But the righties career really took off when he signed with the Houston Astros in 2017. He went 14-7 that year with a 3.62 ERA in 146.2 innings with 163 strikeouts while helping lead Houston to a tainted World Series.
In that World Series, he gave up just 2 earned runs on 5 hits and 1 walk with 11 strikeouts in 10.1 innings. And as far as we know, the Astros pitchers weren’t cheating.
The following season he was even better for Houston and made his first All-Star appearance.
But at age 35 in 2019 he had his best season as a professional with the Tampa Bay Rays posting a 3.05 ERA in 194.2 innings with 240 strikeouts and he finished third in the AL Cy Young vote.
He was really good in the postseason for the Rays that season as well giving up just 1 earned run in 2 starts.
Morton wasn’t as dominant for the Rays in a shortened 2020 season with a 4.74 ERA in 38 innings with 42 strikeouts. But he was great in the postseason again giving up just 1 run in 5 innings against the Yankees and allowing zero runs over two starts and 10.2 innings against the Astros.
The Dodgers did get to him in the World Series scoring 5 runs on 7 hits over 4.1 innings, but he was all set to redeem himself in Game 7 if Kevin Cash didn’t … well, we won’t go down that path.
Over the last 10 years he’s never posted an ERA above five and he’s had an ERA under four in six of those seasons, so you have to feel pretty good about this move if you’re a Braves fan.
It is a little worrisome that he’s 37 and never pitched more than 200 innings in a season. In fact, from 2011-2019 he averaged just 128 innings per season. And his fastball velocity has dipped each of the last two seasons.
But, looking on the bright side, he’s thrown at least 146.2 innings from 2017-2019 and he’s still getting hitters out regularly.
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With Morton, the Braves get a veteran in the rotation who has plenty of playoff experience and seems to be getting better as he gets older.