Brandon Morrow, Starting Pitcher
If there has been one theme to the Mariners public statements in the last week, it seems to be that they’re content to go into the season with Brandon Morrow penciled in as the team’s #5 starter. As John McLaren told John Hickey today, “”I am very high on Brandon Morrow.”
The Mariners have essentially made it known that they’re not really interested in acquiring a one year stopgap, as they aren’t impressed by guys like Bartolo Colon and expect that Morrow could offer them similar performance if needed. They’re still likely to pursue deals for a pitcher like Erik Bedard, but failing that, it’s certainly realistic to believe that the team could head to Peoria with Morrow as a member of the team’s rotation.
Personally, I think that’s borderline insane.
The difference between pitching out of the bullpen and starting a game couldn’t be any larger. Besides the fact that both involve hurling a baseball towards home plate, they have almost nothing in common. The skills needed to start are vastly different than the skills needed to relieve, and success out of the ‘pen means basically nothing when trying to figure out if a pitcher is quailfied to take a spot in the rotation.
When being used as a reliever, weaknesses can be easily minimized by managerial usage patterns, allowing players with one unique skill to be used only when that skill is the most likely to be effective. Need a groundball against a right-hander? Go with Sean Green. Need a strikeout against a lefty? George Sherrill says hello. Runner at third, one out, tie game, and you badly need a strikeout, while a walk just isn’t a big deal? Brandon Morrow’s skillset was made for that situation. Two walks and a strikeout and he’s out of the inning without the run scoring, which makes for a successful outing.
However, a successful start is wildly different than a successful relief appearance, and they require totally different skills. Essentially, to be a good major league starting pitcher, you have to be able to do four of the following things:
Command your fastball
Change speeds
Throw an outpitch with significant movement
Have pitches that tail away from both LH and RH hitters
Pitch unpredictably
If you can only do three of those, you can still be a decently effective backend starter, but to be an above average contributor, you better be able to do four of them. The all-star starters do all five.
Relievers can succeed by doing just one of those things well. Sean Green, for instance, doesn’t command his fastball very well, doesn’t change speeds, has nothing to throw left-handers, and is one of the most predictable pitchers in the majors. The only thing he does on that list is throw an outpitch with significant movement – his diving sinker is enough to help him dominate right-handed hitters, and the Mariners are able to use his one skill in situations where it’s exactly what is required, giving him good opportunities to succeed.
So, of that list, what can we say that Brandon Morrow is capable of doing right now?
Command his fastball?
Certainly not. Morrow, while pitching at max effort coming out of the ‘pen last year, essentially had no idea where his fastball was going most of the time. Assuming he doesn’t throw at 100% effort on every pitch during his move to being a starter, we can assume that his command will improve, but there’s no reason to think that it will go from being horrible to above average in one winter. It will be a success if his command isn’t a problem, but there’s just no reason to think that it will be a strength in 2008.
Change speeds?
Nope. Morrow essentially features a fastball, a slider, and a split-finger. Coming out of the bullpen, these ranged from between 86 and 96 MPH on average. We’ll knock a couple MPH off for the move to a starter, but throwing an 83 MPH splitter and a 93 MPH fastball does not count as changing speeds. Everything he throws would be considered a power pitch.
Throw an outpitch with significant movement
Morrow’s fastball was certainly an outpitch last year. His velocity and movement made it extremely tough for right-handers to pick up, and he was able to just throw the ball past hitters with some consistency, even when they knew it was coming. As a starter, he’ll lose some of that velocity, but the fastball should still be an outpitch for him when he needs it. We’ll give him this one.
Have pitches that tail away from both LH and RH hitters
This one is often overlooked when talking about reliever to rotation conversions, and it’s a pretty big deal. Much like we talked about with Carlos Silva last week, a key to being able to get through 6-7 innings with regularity is to have a pitch that keeps opposite handed hitters off balance. For most starters, this is either the curve ball or change-up. Fastballs and sliders tend to bore in on opposite handed hitters, and when they aren’t located perfectly, they get yanked over the fence for a home run. Having a pitch with tailing movement keeps hitters from being able to just setup to pull every pitch you throw them.
Morrow simply doesn’t have anything resembling a pitch that will keep left-handed hitters off balance. His slider and splitter are so similar that they can easily be mistaken for one another, and his fastball has typical movement in towards a left-handed batter. Like almost every other pitcher with these pitches and no curveball or change-up, he struggled badly against lefties last year; .287/.437/.411 with 27 walks and 22 strikeouts in 122 plate appearances. And keep in mind, that was with an ability to selectively lift him against tough lefties in high leverage situations, so those numbers are artificially deflated by removing many of the more challenging opportunities a starting pitcher would have to face. George Sherrill’s not coming in to get David Ortiz out in the third inning.
Pitch unpredictably
If we had done this one at midseason last year, it would have been a vehement no. In the first half of the year, Morrow threw almost nothing but fastballs. He just came in, chucked the ball as hard as he could, and sat down. In the second half, however, he started mixing in his slider/splitter, and became somewhat less predictable. Given the move to the rotation, you have to think that he’ll continue to pitch more like he did in the second half, so we’ll give him a little credit for this – however, we’ve never seen Morrow have to face batters multiple times in a game, so we really have no idea how well he’ll adjust to major league hitters. This is really a big question mark.
Okay, so, of the five skills needed to succeed as a starting pitcher, we can say that Morrow has one (probably, if the velocity loss doesn’t have more of an effect than assumed) and might have another one (but we won’t know for sure until after the season starts). He definitely does not have the other three.
If you can find me a pitcher that is succeeding in a major league rotation with no more than 1 1/2 of the above skills, I’ll wear an I Heart John McLaren shirt on opening day next year.
McLaren can be high on Brandon Morrow if he wants to. The Mariners can believe in Morrow’s talent all they want, and they can talk themselves into believing that his 4.00 ERA out of the pen last year means that he’s capable of pitching well in the rotation in 2008. However, if we look at what Brandon Morrow can actually do, it becomes pretty clear that this is a guy who just didn’t possess the skills to pitch in a major league rotation in 2007. If you think a few starts against Double-A quality hitters in Venezuela this winter is enough for him to develop the necessary skills, well, then you have enough faith to toss Mt. Rainier into the sea.
The Mariners fancy themselves as a contender next year. There’s not a contender in baseball going into 2008 with a guy as woefully unprepared for a starting rotation job as Brandon Morrow.
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120 Responses to “Brandon Morrow, Starting Pitcher”
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Your cookie-cutter approach to pitcher evaluation is exposing a major blind spot in this case, Dave. I think as the 2008 season rolls on, you’ll find yourself rethinking some of the major arguments you made in the original post.
…As I notice you ever so slightly edited your #100 comment.
I’ll take my blind spots and track record over your hopes, dreams, and bad analysis.
Hm. Since I’m not seeing much of pitcher evaluation in your approach, I think Dave is not the one who should be rethinking things. Sorry, but I’m not seeing much more than wishful thinking in your arguments–in-season trend analysis is awfully skimpy evidence to urge doing something that is pretty much unprecedented in pitcher development.
Also…it might be helpful to show the weakness in the cookie cutter approach by citing counter examples and WHY the cookie cutter wasn’t adequate for those counter examples.
Basic Summary – the 5 points in The Checklist are arbitrary, there are exceptions to every rule, we have more than 1 season of Brandon Morrow with which to evaluate him, there are many examples of successful pitchers would would never have passed Dave’s 5 Point Checklist.
“And take my word for it, because I’m not interested in presenting any real evidence and my analytics are totally flawed. But I’m going to keep insisting I’m right over and over until you believe me.”
okdan’s posts are almost making me nostalgic for the days of Corco.
…Almost.
That’s funny, I don’t remember saying that. I do remember graduating 4th grade however, when using a mocking voice was considered a hilarious response to something you didn’t agree with.
Just trying to stir up discussion, that is all. The love fests that go on around these parts get a little old, and I’m bored.
Yikes and wowsers. A 12.5% BBrate in his final 30 innings is an example of improved control and being effectively wild? I think all his final 30 innings prove is Dave’s counter argument. In season “trends” are meaningless. Basically, Morrow’s true command isn’t as bad as 9.3 BB/9 (pre all-star rate) and his 4.93 BB/9 in the second half was the result of the mean tugging on his counting stats rather than strides in his command. Lets face it, his command stunk no matter how you sliced his season. It stunk in college and it still stinks.
I have no idea what this means. When considering that he throws a fastball, splitter, and split finger it’s apparent his command improved? As an argument, it’s lacking….
It’s clear Brandon Morrow has no problems bowling over minor league level competition. How is he going to adapt his game to major league hitters unless he pitches against them? He can mow down AA/AAA hitters on his FB alone, and clearly a good portion of MLB hitters the first time through the line up. He needs to learn how to do it against Major League hitters, wouldn’t you agree?
As for the sentence of mine, I have no idea what it means either, ha. I appear to have changed thoughts mid-sentence in that case.
Oh, cool, it’s time to beat the “USSM groupthink” dead horse some more.
Always a good way to relieve boredom.
Given that he’s spent so little time in the minors as a starter, it is NOT clear.
Are you sure you’re thinking this through?
THis is crap.
I expect better.
Try again. And give an honest attempt next time, instead of this half assed effort. Its obvious you ARENT’ thinking this through.
That seems more brutal than necessary.
I do think the discussion could be moved forward with a list of successful pitchers potentially fitting this assertion though….
Interesting to note, it seems that the addition of a decent change-up would give Morrow all the weapons he needs (change speeds, tails away from LH, firms up unpredictability) by Dave’s ‘5 Skills’ Theory – 4 out of 5, anyway. How long does it take to add that, assuming he can? I don’t suppose there’s any hope he could have one by the ASB?
118,
Part of my hopes for Brandon is that he’s improved since the beginning and end of 2007 with his work since. But coming up with a changeup in that short span of time is not likely. Throwing a pitch itself is fairly easy once you know how to hold the ball. The trick is getting the pitch to do what you want. I can throw a fastball, slider, changeup, curve, splitfinger, knucklball, and screwball… but I can’t throw any of them for decent velocity / movement nor can I throw them for strikes and /or put them where I want to (command them).
If Morrow were to add a changeup it would probably take an entire season training his body to throw it the way he wants to.
#106:
And those examples would be??