So.... Charlie Morton

[Tapate50]

Lets talk about Charlie Morton for a second. Always liked the guy a lot as a Brave. Solid stuff, decent command of most of his pitches, fairly durable....Nothing that jumped off the page, but more of a well rounded pitcher than a guy that can wow you with something special.

He goes to the Astros and is now a killer. Verlander goes there and turns back the clock 5 years.

I can't help but think the pitcher that called out Houston was really focusing on Morton. Whats the difference now vs Charlie Morton with Pitt? Pitch mix? Spin rate? Velo? location?

[thewupk]

Houston FO just knows the cheat code to max out players

[Carp]

I don't know his spin rate in previous years, but I do remember that he completely revamped his machanics to match Roy Halladay a few years after he was traded away. And if I recall correctly, he has one of the highest ground ball percentages in the league since changing his mechanics. So clearly he has had some things looking up for him in recent years, though obviously nothing indicated his current production.

[Freshmaker]

He was pretty good in Pittsburgh but this is nuts. Didn't Bauer claim the HOU SPs were all cheating to get their spin rates to jump that much?

[CyYoung31]

He’s clearly just trying harder now.

Also, not being tired does wonders too.

[Bravesfannchar]

He was pretty good in Pittsburgh but this is nuts. Didn't Bauer claim the HOU SPs were all cheating to get their spin rates to jump that much?

Yes, he did.

[Horsehide Harry]

Yes, he did.

Probably has a brother in law on the team

[nsacpi]

Probably has a brother in law on the team

he and Verlander are BiL's

[Horsehide Harry]

he and Verlander are BiL's

Well....there you go

[50PoundHead]

I think one of the things with Morton (and I don't know this for fact) is that he narrowed his repertoire a bit. The Braves went through a phase when they were drafting high school pitchers that threw four or five pitches (Jamie Arnold, Jo-Jo Reyes, Morton) but those guys were unable to get any of the pitches to an above-average level (at least while pitching for the Braves). It's nice to have a pitch you can occasionally throw to keep hitters off-balance, but your other pitches have to be consistent and big league caliber for that to work.

[zitothebrave]

I think one of the things with Morton (and I don't know this for fact) is that he narrowed his repertoire a bit. The Braves went through a phase when they were drafting high school pitchers that threw four or five pitches (Jamie Arnold, Jo-Jo Reyes, Morton) but those guys were unable to get any of the pitches to an above-average level (at least while pitching for the Braves). It's nice to have a pitch you can occasionally throw to keep hitters off-balance, but your other pitches have to be consistent and big league caliber for that to work.

The issue with Jo-Jo wasn't that he had a lot of pitches, it was that he had the straightest fastball of a lefty I've ever seen. His secondary stuff wasn't great but it wasn't bad. If he had a positive fastball instead of pure trash.

In the case of Morton his mechanics changed, he added some heat to his fastball, in Atlanta it topped out at 90.7, now he's topping out at 96 or so. Which makes his curveball much more effective.

[50PoundHead]

The issue with Jo-Jo wasn't that he had a lot of pitches, it was that he had the straightest fastball of a lefty I've ever seen. His secondary stuff wasn't great but it wasn't bad. If he had a positive fastball instead of pure trash.

In the case of Morton his mechanics changed, he added some heat to his fastball, in Atlanta it topped out at 90.7, now he's topping out at 96 or so. Which makes his curveball much more effective.

When Reyes was drafted, the Braves made a big deal about his four or five pitches. The fact that his fastball was straight speaks to my other point. He had a lot of D+ pitches.

[goldfly]

he's this generations Jason Schmidt

[Jaw]

This is who has always been. He was just pouting in Atlanta and Pittsburgh.

[DaneHill]

I was at the Angels game in 2008 that he pitched. I remember being very impressed with him. His pitches were just filthy -- exploding fastballs with movement. Was very excited for his future. Then fairly disappointed that we traded him to the Pirates and wouldn't get to see him blossom as a Brave. As the years went by, I was disappointed for him that what I saw that day never seemed to translate to a winning career with the Pirates and eventually wrote him off. So his emergence last season didn't take me by surprise, other than that it took so long and came again so suddenly ten years late.

[thewupk]

he's this generations Jason Schmidt

strong parallels for sure

[nsacpi]

strong parallels for sure

except Schmidt didn't add 4 mph to his fastball in his 30s.

[thewupk]

except Schmidt didn't add 4 mph to his fastball in his 30s.

I was going with the being traded to Pittsburgh before finding success on a western division team

[Julio3000]

Can't speak to the velo increase, but I always liked Morton and thought he would be good if healthy.

[zitothebrave]

Can't speak to the velo increase, but I always liked Morton and thought he would be good if healthy.

The issue with Morton was timing. He was one of many non-spectacular pitchers we had at the time. In the same relative time we saw him, Reyes, Chuck James, and James Parr all come along as guys who were good enough to get a look in the majors but didn't wow anyone. Morton of course has outlasted all of them by a mile. But remember he was canned mainly because of Hudson, Hanson, Jurrjens, Vazquez, Lowe, Kawakami, and of course the recent drafting of Minor and having Medlen coming up. The Braves were loaded in 2009 for pitching so trading off Morton who had value made sense. And still 10 times out of 10 that McLouth trade was brilliant, it didn't work out of course, but it was such a great trade.