Charlie Morton has made two All-Star teams and closed out a World Series, so when he takes the mound for the Atlanta Braves on the verge of elimination in NLDS Game 4, he’s probably not going to be phased by the electricity of Citizens Bank Park.
It is ironic that Morton will be making this start against the Philadelphia Phillies, because his unlikely early-30s star turn began with the team in 2016.
The Phillies acquired Morton in a trade from the Pittsburgh Pirates in December of 2015, a year after he went 9-9 with a 4.81 ERA. He hardly felt like someone who was going to be one of the best pitchers in the sport over the next five seasons.
But Morton does credit his brief time with the Phillies as the reason he was able to transform into a star, because the coaching staff at the time of manager Pete Mackanin, pitching coach Bob McClure and assistant pitching coach Rick Kranitz were able to impress upon him that he needed to start using his curveball more consistently.
“Yeah, in a lot of ways,” Morton said Friday when asked whether Philadelphia is where he started to turn the corner. “Kranny and Bob McClure were both here as pitching coaches. Bob was technically the head pitching coach. I had a start in Cincinnati as my first start of the year. The first three innings I went out. It was great. Everything was going phenomenal. It felt good. The ball’s coming out really well.
“Then I think they got to me in the fourth or fifth. And Pete pulled me and they came in. And Bob and Kranny came in, pulled me into the office the next day — I think we were in New York playing the Mets — and they showed me the stats against my curveball.
“It was, like, hitters were like one-something against it, but I was only throwing it, like, 10% of the time. They said you need to throw this more.”
Morton could have dug his heels in given that he was in his ninth Major League season and had pitched well enough to make good money in the league for nearly a decade.
But to his credit, Morton listened to the advice of Mackanin, Bob McClure and Rick Kranitz (now his pitching coach in Atlanta), information that may very well have been presented to them from an analytics department that was in its infancy.
“I tried to,” Morton said of utilizing his curveball more consistently. “And I did, Chooch and I worked together a few times. I was mixing the cutter and the four-seamer and two-seamer, but really trying to focus on the curveball. I started striking more people out.”
In four starts as a Phillie, Morton posted a 4.15 ERA and 3.09 FIP. Not only was he beginning to lean on his curveball more, but his average fastball velocity increased to 94.2 mph, more than a full tick above what it had been in his final season in Pittsburgh.
Things came to a screeching halt for Morton in the midst of his fourth start, though. As he attempted to run out a bunt, he tore his left hamstring, which ultimately required season-ending surgery.
“Unfortunately I got hurt in my fourth start,” Morton recalled.
It was indicative of some of the bad luck that helped to doom the Matt Klentak era. The Phillies correctly identified someone that they believed could be further unlocked. And instead of getting to reap the rewards of his star turn and/or flipping him for young talent at the trade deadline, he spent the majority of his time in the organization on the injured list. Under today’s rules, Morton never would have been batting in the first place.
To this day, Morton remains frustrated that the injury prevented him from pitching a full season and becoming a clubhouse leader for the 2016 Phillies.
“So I regret that they traded for me, [and] I got hurt in my fourth start. And I liked the group that was here. I liked the starters that I was with. I liked the clubhouse. I liked my teammates. It was kind of a cool place to be.
“And I really felt badly about that because I think it would have been nice for me, as a little bit of an older guy at the time, and trying to figure out where I was in that role because I never had been in that role before. And it ended too quickly.”
Luckily for Morton, he showed enough in 17 1/3 innings as a Phillie to intrigue other teams. Heck, the Phillies coaching staff apparently wanted to retain him, but the front office declined his $9.5 club option for the 2017 season.
Instead, the Astros took a gamble and signed Morton to a two-year/$17 million deal, which ultimately looked like a stroke of genius as Morton increase his curveball usage to nearly 30% in two years with the team.
A year after making just four starts for the Phillies, Morton was on the mound when the Astros clinched the World Series title over the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2017:
Morton earned a two-year/$30 million free-agent contract with the Tampa Bay Rays ahead of the 2019 season. They ripped the band-aid off completely and went all-in on his curveball.
“That trend [increased curveball usage] continued when I went to Houston and more so when I went to Tampa. I would say that was kind of the beginning of me becoming more of a curveball … if not a curveball pitcher.”
In his first season of two seasons with the Rays, Morton went 16-6 with a 3.05 ERA, 2.81 FIP and 6.0 fWAR across 194 2/3 innings. During the finest season of his career, Morton used his curveball 37.3% of the time.
Morton is now wrapping up the second season of his second stint with the Braves, the team that drafted him in the third round of the 2002 MLB Draft. He used his curveball 38% of the time in 2022, a new career-high. If you need an idea of how highly thought of he is in Atlanta, the Braves recently rewarded him with a one-year/$20 million extension, which features a $20 million club option for the 2024 season, when Morton will be 40.
The Phillies didn’t get to reap the benefits of Morton’s development, but they certainly had a hand in creating the monster he’s become on the mound. And now, he’s the only thing standing in the way of the Phillies returning to the NLCS for the first time since 2010.
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