Welcome Back, Brandon Morrow
I’m not supposed to embed pictures or videos above the fold. (We have a fold.) So I’m going to get right to it, inserting an early page break so I can show you a clip from last night. Turns out Wednesday was Brandon Morrow’s 33rd birthday! He was asked by the Dodgers to handle the seventh inning of what would turn into a dramatic come-from-behind victory. Morrow set the Twins down 1-2-3. Below, a pitch that he threw to Brian Dozier.
How many of you realized Brandon Morrow was throwing 100 miles per hour in the major leagues? How many of you realized Brandon Morrow was in the major leagues?
The interesting part of the offseason usually wraps up around the middle of January. Sometimes there are late trades, or late-signing impact free agents, but by January’s final week or so, teams have a good idea how they’re going to look in spring training. It was at that time last winter the Dodgers gave Brandon Morrow a minor-league contract. It was one of several minor-league contracts. Every team brings in a whole lot of veterans on minor-league contracts, and most of them don’t turn into anything. Expectations are low, and players are desperate just to get a chance.
For Morrow, it’s been a long and challenging road. I don’t know how much detail I need to get into, because I think his story is fairly familiar, but he dealt with early mismanagement, and later health problems. Morrow became one of those roll-of-the-dice pitchers who everyone thought could be electric, if only he could stay healthy, which he didn’t. You know the guys. A few are always out there. Josh Johnson was a popular one. Morrow was another. He had biceps tendinitis in 2009. Forearm inflammation in 2011. An oblique strain in 2012. Nerve entrapment in 2013. A torn tendon sheath in 2014. In 2015, Morrow struggled with a shoulder impingement. Then he contracted valley fever.
Valley fever will get you, and it’ll get you for a while. Headed into 2016, Morrow couldn’t have a normal offseason, and then even during 2016, he didn’t have his full strength, having lost too much weight. Morrow threw 16 innings with the Padres, but he struck out just eight batters. His fastball was hanging around 95, but there wasn’t much more to it. Even in the minors, he got hit. For Morrow, it was another rough season, and he couldn’t have seen too many promising prospects.
The Dodgers saw *something.* Maybe it was just Morrow’s track record. Maybe it was that, in Morrow’s final 2016 appearance, his fastball averaged nearly 98. You don’t need much of a reason to give a guy a shot. Morrow had the offseason he wanted to have, and he’s regained all of his strength. He doesn’t, at least for now, feel any discomfort anywhere in his body. And so almost out of nowhere, Morrow is throwing like he did as a draft pick.
Morrow’s fastball has been holding at 98, sometimes brushing the triple digits. For perspective, I created the following plot. In here you’ll see average fastball velocities for everyone with at least 10 innings as a starter or as a reliever in both 2016 and 2017. Morrow is the point highlighted in yellow. I paired pitchers who remained in the same role, so as not to, say, hurt pitchers who’ve shifted into the rotation.
Morrow’s average fastball is up 2.7 miles per hour. That’s the biggest increase in the major leagues this season, and it would count as the 13th-biggest increase over the past decade. Brent Suter is up 2.6 miles per hour, to 86.9. Morrow is up 2.7 miles per hour, to 97.8. Lately, he’s been throwing even harder than that. You could ask Dozier about that if you wanted to.
His arm strength having returned, Morrow looks electric again. But this goes beyond just his raw stuff. Morrow has also made progress elsewhere — as he’s gotten older, he’s matured into something of an extreme thrower of strikes.
This used to be almost impossible to imagine. When Morrow was a rookie, he fell short of throwing 60% strikes. So far this season he’s been throwing 70% strikes. He owns one of the very highest strike rates in the major leagues, around names like Kenley Jansen and Addison Reed. Morrow has gone from being a middling strike-thrower to being a guy who’s always ahead, and although this improvement might’ve begun a year or two ago, now his stuff is better as well. Morrow has cleaned up his delivery, he’s changed his approach, and he’s narrowed to fastballs, sliders, and cutters.
Gone is the old splitter. Gone, too, is the curveball. The cutter seemed to come into being last season, and now Morrow works almost exclusively hard. His repertoire more or less mirrors that of Roberto Osuna, who’s also now always ahead. I should mention that Morrow has baseball’s third-highest rate of first-pitch strikes. He’s at 73%, with a career average that’s lower by 17 points. He throws his slider low, he throws his cutter in the middle, and he throws his fastball high. Morrow’s average fastball height is one of the highest around, which is surely something the Dodgers have encouraged. Morrow hasn’t been afraid to work upstairs, and he knows he has pitches he can control lower down. Morrow didn’t invent the high fastball as a weapon, but there’s a reason so many pitchers find it so appealing.
Because Morrow’s sample is small, you probably shouldn’t make too much of this, but among relievers, only Craig Kimbrel has a lower FIP-. The name right after Morrow is…Osuna, which is fitting. Morrow has generated four pop-ups without yet coughing up a dinger, and while someone will get him one of these days, it’s never going to come easy, not as long as Morrow is throwing like this. It’s not easy for a hitter to be behind, and it’s not easy when you’re facing big velocity and three different eye levels. This is the best Brandon Morrow anyone’s seen in a while. Definitely the Morrow most under control.
At the end of the day, he’s a 33-year-old non-closer with a long history of getting hurt. The Dodgers are likely to need a little extra time to be convinced, and Morrow is one of a few options within a deep Dodger bullpen. He’ll forever be difficult to trust, which I suppose is one of the things that helps him fit in with the staff he belongs to. I don’t know exactly how much Brandon Morrow has left to give, but this is why players get chances. This is why teams are reluctant to ever give up on a big arm. Brandon Morrow wasn’t too old to get healthy, and he wasn’t too old to learn to throw strikes. The Dodgers didn’t need the help, but they’re happy to let this story unfold.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Great to see Morrow’s hard work pay off finally. It’ll be interesting to see what he gets on the market as a FA this coming off-season. Even if he’s stuck with “prove it” offers, at least it’ll be ones with a tidy sum given to him.
I’m happy he is healthy and having success. Although, through no fault of his own, I was heartbroken when the M’s took him 5th overall instead of the homegrown Tim Lincecum (10th).
I keep thinking: Is this how Bill Gates feels when he learns a small pot of money is coming his way?
I think if its a small pot of money, he tells em’ to run the numbers again. Then someone gets fired.
Say, he finds out there’s a chest with some cash on his lawn. Enough that you or I could go to our favorite restaurant with a date, but not enough for him to go to his with Melinda.
Which lawn? Which estate?
This is basically my point, too.
I know, I was just having fun with it.
Thank you, Jeff. I’ve been awaiting a Brandon Morrow article since he reached the Majors this season. I only wish you posted vids of his cutter and slider, too; those are delicious!
What I find odd is that it took so long for someone to just give up and make him a reliever. “Guy who throws 100 MPH but keeps having arm issues” seems like textbook bullpen fodder, but teams just kept trying to get him to succeed as a starter. Maybe that 2012 season was just that much of a tease.
The problem was him. He wanted to be a starter. The Jays did want to turn him into a super reliever, but he refused, and he inevitably got hurt while he was in the rotation again.
After his inevitably long DL stint, they forced him into the bullpen, and he looks exactly like the guy you see right now. Absolutely electric. 98-100+MPH fastballs. Completely unhittable. I think a couple of times he struck out all three in the inning.
I watch quite a few Dodgers games, and the first game I saw Morrow was when he came in in the 8th inning to put out a fire after Roberts stupidly pulled Kershaw after like 80 pitches. He got two out, including a strikeout, before Jansen came in to close the door.
I think with the (relative) peanuts that relievers were being paid for so long might have factored into the decision of Morrow to continue to want to be a starter. Now that there are a ton of relievers who are signing big contracts, I think this might be his “prove it” year itself. If he can keep healthy, and keep throwing that 100MPH gas, someone’s gonna give him a good contract next year.
Jays never saw him as a reliever until he started having prolonged health issues. And when he was on he was just unhittable. I still remember the 17 K game. When a guy can have those kind of outings you throw him out there as a starter as long as possible.
And he was a good starter for a few years even if injury prone. From 2010-2012 he was worth 9.2 WAR over just 77 starts.
Only 6 WAR by ERA, though – an extension of how the stuff has never quite caught up to the results.
From everything I remember, when they acquired Morrow, it was to be a starter, and a starter only. The Mariners jerked him around between starting and relieving.
After it was starting to become somewhat clear that he could not handle a starter’s workload, there were definitely rumbles that he should be a reliever.
I am also a believer that, especially guys with truly elite stuff, you try to keep them as a starter as long as possible. I still remember that 17K game. It was a thing of beauty. That was also right around the time that his peripherals started to catch up to his ERA, and people started to see that he had ace potential.
If I remember correctly again, the Jays had a $10 Million option on him. I wanted them to pick it up, and tell him, “You’re going to close and take home $10 Million, or you’re going home”. After he came back from his final injury as a Jay, and threw out of the bullpen, he was absolutely filthy. 98MPH seemed to be thrown with ease. If he was in a place like Philadelphia, he’d probably get the Billy Wagner treatment, and get booed every time he didn’t hit 100MPH.
That night Kershaw got pulled early for no reason, and I saw Morrow for the first time in years, I got flashbacks to the time he threw in the Jays’ bullpen for a short time. Of course I love watching Kershaw, because, well, he’s Kershaw. But it’s always nice to see what could have been sometimes too. I’m sure it was because it had been so long since I saw him, but damn, the stuff STILL looked fantastic.
I still think the big reluctance to switch was the different market for relievers at that time. If he remained healthy, the Yankees AJ Burnett was probably the lowest he would get. Nowadays, a guy like Brett Cecil can get $30 Million and a full no-trade clause. Back then, he’d probably get 2 years/$6 Million or so.
With the market the way it is for relievers, if he holds up this year, I think someone would take a chance on a multi-year contract.
Something to give you a chuckle about small samples … Morrow has pitched in both majors and minors each of the last 3 years, with total workloads about the same (43 games, about 70 IP). The bottom line:
— Majors: 1.03 WHIP, 2.33 RA/9
— Minors: 1.71 WHIP, 7.01 RA/9
Even this year, his K and BB rates in OK City were similar to those with LA, but he got torched for 5 HRs and an 8.10 RA/9.
Not saying anything about his future — just thought it was weirdly funny.
This was great. Thanks Jeff.
Do you write everything I read on fangraphs Jeff? Anyway, original point I wanted to make was that this post made me very moist.
I’m uncomfortable