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Morton’s homer problems from 2022 resurfaced while his strikeouts evaporated in what ended up being a tough season for the veteran right-hander Charlie Morton’s fourth consecutive year in a Braves uniform was his worst. Though Morton had a nice bounceback in 2023 by limiting the longball in a year where the ball was flying out of the park, he ended up getting victimized by the same in a pretty soggy run environment. It’s not clear what the future holds for the elder statesman of the Braves rotation, but he may not want to go out on a relative low note.
CCR Phase 2 DeliverablesMorton was drafted by the Braves back in 2002, made his debut with them in 2008, got traded to the Pirates, and then had a long and storied career, undergoing a renaissance in his 30s and becoming one of MLB’s best pitchers at age 35. After the 2020 season, he came back to where it began, signing a one-year, $15 million deal. He then signed an extension to pitch the 2022 season for $20 million, and another extension towards the end of that season that guaranteed him $20 million in 2023 and gave the team another $20 million option for 2024, which they ended up exercising.
What were the expectations?
During his time with the Braves, Morton always provided a lot of bulk, proving exceedingly durable despite his advanced age. But, the rest of his seasons were sort of whiplash-inducing. He was incredible in 2021, finishing with 4.5 fWAR and a pitching triple-slash (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) all below 80. 2022 was a pretty big step back, as he had struggles with lefties and proved homer-prone; his walk rate increased a bit without any gains in strikeout rate. Still, the Braves asked him to stick around and eat some more innings in 2023, which turned out quite well, because his HR/FB rate plummeted while the league’s HR/FB rate soared; despite his peripherals going horribly the wrong way (97 xFIP-, after 90 in 2022), he posted 2.7 fWAR.
So, where did all that leave Morton coming into 2024? He had an aggregate 89/91/88 line over three seasons as a Brave, but his xFIP increased substantially year over year. The track record for pitchers in their age-40 seasons isn’t great, even with survivor bias working on their favor, but a lot of that has to do with the body wearing down, and Morton only really had nagging and unfortunately-timed snags on his ledger, making at least 30 starts and pitching at least 163 1⁄3 innings in each of his past three seasons.
No one would blame you for expecting a repeat of 2023, where he neared 3 fWAR. ZiPS had something more modest in the 2.5 WAR range, but that was predicated on an exposure of 150 innings, meaning he could easily replicate 2023 if he stuck around for 30 starts again. More qualitatively, Morton was mostly just expected to eat innings in the middle of the rotation and do his usual clubhouse mentor/sage thing; if he arrested the slide in his peripherals and was able to keep the ball in the ballpark again, all the better.
2024 Results
Morton did eat innings in the middle of the rotation, again making 30 starts and putting up over 160 innings. He also played the role of mentor to the pitching staff once again. While he arrested the slide in his peripherals, they trended ever closer to league average (98 xFIP-). The killer, though, was that the homers returned with a vengeance; the combination of his worst strikeout rate in the Charlie Morton Renaissance Era and a homer-allowed rate not quite as bad as 2022, but still pretty bad, gave Morton just 1.1 fWAR on the back of disappointing 101/112/98 line.
Morton’s season was topsy-turvy. He struggled against lefties here and there, and the ball really left the yard against him as the weather heated up in July and August. Meanwhile, he posted a double-digit walk rate in May, June, and September. It really seemed like Morton was caught between the rock of trying not to walk guys and the hard place of getting blasted when he found himself too much in the zone.
What went right?
The durability, for sure, even though that’s kind of a lame answer. In June, he hit a cool career milestone by earning a “W” against all 30 teams when he and the Braves triumphed over the Pirates. He also became the 89th pitcher in history to reach 2,000 career strikeouts in August.
And, really, having league-average peripherals at age 40 is a success in and of itself. Just a shame the fly balls left the yard so much against him, when they weren’t doing so in general, that it tanked his season.
One of Morton’s better games of the season came back on April 27, when he posted a 6/1 K/BB ratio across seven scoreless frames in a close game against Cleveland (that the Braves unfortunately lost late).
Still, outings like this where he largely cruised were few and far between.
What went wrong?
Homers, walks, blow-up starts, patented Charlie Morton backfoot curveball hit batters, you name it.
Relative to 2023, Morton struggled some with command of his curve and changeup; the latter often caught too much of the plate, which didn’t necessarily reduce its effectiveness overall, but led to a lower whiff rate and extended plate appearances. Morton continued to tinker with his arsenal again and again and again to try to find a solution to lefty batters, but the same problem bedeviled him: his changeup, sinker, and cutter just weren’t particularly effective against lefties. He actually used his changeup to good effect against lefty batters in 2022 and 2023, but it abandoned him this year, leading to some serious issues and an egregious amount of walks.
Morton’s worst start of the year? Two stand out, and they happened in a three-start stretch. On July 26, Morton was the beneficiary of an ultra-rare Adam Duvall homer against a righty, and had a 2-0 lead heading into the third. He then went into complete meltdown mode after an error: hit by pitch, walk, grand slam, groundout, double, homer, groundout, homer. As a Brave, Morton had had four three-homer games, total. Here, the Mets hit three off him in one inning, turning a Braves lead into a rout in the span of 31 pitches. By the way, the walk in that sequence was a four-pitch one with the tying runs on base and none out, and the grand slam came on a 3-1 count, which mostly just illustrates how bad Morton’s struggles were at times.
Of course, Morton would, in some ways, “outdo” himself a few games later, getting tagged for four homers by the Brewers; the Braves were in an 8-0 hole before he departed in the third for the second time in three starts.
2025 Outlook
Perhaps more salient than matters of Morton’s projected future performance is the question of whether this is it for the veteran. At this time, Morton hasn’t officially retired, and you can kind of see why: going out on a very low note (both in terms of his season and how the Braves’ 2024 campaign ended) would be a bummer.
If Morton does choose to continue, his projections will be on board. Steamer has him as a 1.6 WAR guy over 154 innings next year in terms of point estimate, basically a league-average projection. ZiPS is pretty similar, with a 1.4 WAR point estimate. Those projections probably won’t justify another $15 million to $20 million payday, but Morton could still probably earn well upwards of $10 million given the state of the pitching market these days.
<img alt="Kansas City Royals v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HzpDUCKR3LlSTpeIz4C6U0zlwEo=/0x0:7252x4835/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73780843/2174735349.0.jpg">
Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
Morton’s homer problems from 2022 resurfaced while his strikeouts evaporated in what ended up being a tough season for the veteran right-hander Charlie Morton’s fourth consecutive year in a Braves uniform was his worst. Though Morton had a nice bounceback in 2023 by limiting the longball in a year where the ball was flying out of the park, he ended up getting victimized by the same in a pretty soggy run environment. It’s not clear what the future holds for the elder statesman of the Braves rotation, but he may not want to go out on a relative low note.
CCR Phase 2 DeliverablesMorton was drafted by the Braves back in 2002, made his debut with them in 2008, got traded to the Pirates, and then had a long and storied career, undergoing a renaissance in his 30s and becoming one of MLB’s best pitchers at age 35. After the 2020 season, he came back to where it began, signing a one-year, $15 million deal. He then signed an extension to pitch the 2022 season for $20 million, and another extension towards the end of that season that guaranteed him $20 million in 2023 and gave the team another $20 million option for 2024, which they ended up exercising.
What were the expectations?
During his time with the Braves, Morton always provided a lot of bulk, proving exceedingly durable despite his advanced age. But, the rest of his seasons were sort of whiplash-inducing. He was incredible in 2021, finishing with 4.5 fWAR and a pitching triple-slash (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) all below 80. 2022 was a pretty big step back, as he had struggles with lefties and proved homer-prone; his walk rate increased a bit without any gains in strikeout rate. Still, the Braves asked him to stick around and eat some more innings in 2023, which turned out quite well, because his HR/FB rate plummeted while the league’s HR/FB rate soared; despite his peripherals going horribly the wrong way (97 xFIP-, after 90 in 2022), he posted 2.7 fWAR.
So, where did all that leave Morton coming into 2024? He had an aggregate 89/91/88 line over three seasons as a Brave, but his xFIP increased substantially year over year. The track record for pitchers in their age-40 seasons isn’t great, even with survivor bias working on their favor, but a lot of that has to do with the body wearing down, and Morton only really had nagging and unfortunately-timed snags on his ledger, making at least 30 starts and pitching at least 163 1⁄3 innings in each of his past three seasons.
No one would blame you for expecting a repeat of 2023, where he neared 3 fWAR. ZiPS had something more modest in the 2.5 WAR range, but that was predicated on an exposure of 150 innings, meaning he could easily replicate 2023 if he stuck around for 30 starts again. More qualitatively, Morton was mostly just expected to eat innings in the middle of the rotation and do his usual clubhouse mentor/sage thing; if he arrested the slide in his peripherals and was able to keep the ball in the ballpark again, all the better.
2024 Results
Morton did eat innings in the middle of the rotation, again making 30 starts and putting up over 160 innings. He also played the role of mentor to the pitching staff once again. While he arrested the slide in his peripherals, they trended ever closer to league average (98 xFIP-). The killer, though, was that the homers returned with a vengeance; the combination of his worst strikeout rate in the Charlie Morton Renaissance Era and a homer-allowed rate not quite as bad as 2022, but still pretty bad, gave Morton just 1.1 fWAR on the back of disappointing 101/112/98 line.
Morton’s season was topsy-turvy. He struggled against lefties here and there, and the ball really left the yard against him as the weather heated up in July and August. Meanwhile, he posted a double-digit walk rate in May, June, and September. It really seemed like Morton was caught between the rock of trying not to walk guys and the hard place of getting blasted when he found himself too much in the zone.
What went right?
The durability, for sure, even though that’s kind of a lame answer. In June, he hit a cool career milestone by earning a “W” against all 30 teams when he and the Braves triumphed over the Pirates. He also became the 89th pitcher in history to reach 2,000 career strikeouts in August.
And, really, having league-average peripherals at age 40 is a success in and of itself. Just a shame the fly balls left the yard so much against him, when they weren’t doing so in general, that it tanked his season.
One of Morton’s better games of the season came back on April 27, when he posted a 6/1 K/BB ratio across seven scoreless frames in a close game against Cleveland (that the Braves unfortunately lost late).
Still, outings like this where he largely cruised were few and far between.
What went wrong?
Homers, walks, blow-up starts, patented Charlie Morton backfoot curveball hit batters, you name it.
Relative to 2023, Morton struggled some with command of his curve and changeup; the latter often caught too much of the plate, which didn’t necessarily reduce its effectiveness overall, but led to a lower whiff rate and extended plate appearances. Morton continued to tinker with his arsenal again and again and again to try to find a solution to lefty batters, but the same problem bedeviled him: his changeup, sinker, and cutter just weren’t particularly effective against lefties. He actually used his changeup to good effect against lefty batters in 2022 and 2023, but it abandoned him this year, leading to some serious issues and an egregious amount of walks.
Morton’s worst start of the year? Two stand out, and they happened in a three-start stretch. On July 26, Morton was the beneficiary of an ultra-rare Adam Duvall homer against a righty, and had a 2-0 lead heading into the third. He then went into complete meltdown mode after an error: hit by pitch, walk, grand slam, groundout, double, homer, groundout, homer. As a Brave, Morton had had four three-homer games, total. Here, the Mets hit three off him in one inning, turning a Braves lead into a rout in the span of 31 pitches. By the way, the walk in that sequence was a four-pitch one with the tying runs on base and none out, and the grand slam came on a 3-1 count, which mostly just illustrates how bad Morton’s struggles were at times.
Of course, Morton would, in some ways, “outdo” himself a few games later, getting tagged for four homers by the Brewers; the Braves were in an 8-0 hole before he departed in the third for the second time in three starts.
2025 Outlook
Perhaps more salient than matters of Morton’s projected future performance is the question of whether this is it for the veteran. At this time, Morton hasn’t officially retired, and you can kind of see why: going out on a very low note (both in terms of his season and how the Braves’ 2024 campaign ended) would be a bummer.
If Morton does choose to continue, his projections will be on board. Steamer has him as a 1.6 WAR guy over 154 innings next year in terms of point estimate, basically a league-average projection. ZiPS is pretty similar, with a 1.4 WAR point estimate. Those projections probably won’t justify another $15 million to $20 million payday, but Morton could still probably earn well upwards of $10 million given the state of the pitching market these days.
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