Should Pirates Bring Back Charlie Morton?
p/c: Jim Rassol
Entering the 2024 season, with some uncertainty, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ starting rotation became a bright spot.
While it’s obvious to point out the contributions of Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller had another productive year, Jared Jones showed promising flashes as a rookie, and both Luis Ortiz and Bailey Falter took a positive step forward.
The old baseball adage is you can never have enough quality pitching. So would the Pirates add to their rotation depth this offseason? And would it be with a familiar name?
Much speculation around Charlie Morton was that 2024 would be his final Major League season, but ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on Tuesday that the veteran righty plans on pitching in 2025.
During his time in Pittsburgh, Morton had what you would call a roller coaster journey. From a struggling pitcher looking for answers, to a legit, groundball hurler (earning him the apropos nickname of Ground Chuck).
After recovering from Tommy John surgery, which he had in 2012, Morton became a key part of the Pirates’ staff during the team’s three-year playoff run.
Post-Pirates Morton was able to reinvent himself again, into more of the power pitcher he was, before he arrived to the bigs. The combination of a harder fastball, and his plus curveball, have certainly helped preserve his career even more.
Morton’s 2024 campaign with the Atlanta Braves was decent overall, posting a 4.19 ERA, along with a 1.1 WAR in 30 starts. The curveball continued to be his bread & butter, as he used the offering 42.4% of the time, and limited opposing batters to a .200 average with it. Despite pitching in his age 40 season, Morton’s fastball velocity remained solid at 94.1 mph.
It feels like a safe bet that Morton would sign a one-year deal, to whoever will offer him the most, for his services. If the Pirates were to have serious interest, I could see them giving Morton a contract similar to what Martín Pérez received from the Bucs last offseason at one-year, $8 million.
Signing Morton has to come with a caveat, however. Given the logjam currently, within the Pirates rotation, GM Ben Cherington would have to sell high on either Luis Ortiz or Bailey Falter, in order to accommodate a spot for Morton. Getting back something of trade value for Ortiz or Falter would not only be beneficial to the farm system, but you would also likely move one at some point anyway, with Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington on the horizon.
If Pittsburgh were to follow thru on that scenario, then a Morton reunion makes sense for them.