It has not been the season folks expected from the Baltimore Orioles. We were all a little down on this team after Corbin Burnes' departure, but the O's were in the playoffs just a few months ago. This is the team with perhaps the deepest pipeline of young, MLB-ready talent in baseball, led by a perennial MVP candidate in Gunnar Henderson. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
As of Friday, the O's are dead last in the AL East at 12-18. It's too early in the season for outright panic, but man, the path forward — for this season at least — is grim. Baltimore will slowly get healthier, but there isn't a more exploitable rotation in MLB right now. At least, not on a team trying to contend for a World Series.
The recent Kyle Gibson addition plainly did not help. Baltimore eagerly awaits Zach Eflin's return, but there's only so much one man can do in this situation. I'm not convinced the O's would be much better off with Burnes on the roster right now.
The main culprit for their rotation struggles has been 41-year-old free agent signing Charlie Morton, who inked a one-year, $15 million deal to author what is probably his last MLB chapter. Morton had been a paragon of consistency for the Atlanta Braves over the years, but it just ain't happening right now.
Brandon Hyde officially demoted Morton to the bullpen this week, but it sounds like the 18-year vet may need a bit more time to process his new reality.
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Charlie Morton thinks his stuff is 'fine' despite disastrous start to Orioles season
Morton spoke frankly with reporters after the demotion. He's looking forward to throwing more frequently, but doesn't think his issues are related to the quality of his stuff. We may have to disagree.
"I’m looking at it as an opportunity to maybe throw a little more frequently than I otherwise would, and try to get dialed back in," Morton told Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner.
Look, Morton probably has access to more metrics than us mere mortals. But a brief glance at his Baseball Savant page reveals that his metrics are down across the board, so I'm not really sure what he is getting at. His ERA has spiked from 4.19 to 9.45, his WHIP has spiked from 1.33 to 2.18 and well, he's giving up 12.5 hits and 2.0 home runs per nine innings. Those numbers were, uh, much better a year ago.
Really, no matter how you slice it, Morton's impact has fallen off a cliff. He blames his command, which is definitely an issue, but it's not the only issue. We are talking about a 41-year-old, after all. There's a reason not many pitchers last this long at the highest level of professional baseball. Morton deserves immense credit for pitching into his 40s, but Father Time is undefeated, and what little zip the righty had left a year ago has evaporated. The velo is down, the walks are way up, the strikeouts are down — it's all bad, all the time.
Maybe a bullpen stint does allow him to reconfigure his approach and build some positive momentum, but the O's cannot count on it at this point. It's time for GM Mike Elias to hammer the trade market for viable upgrades before it's too late and a teardown becomes the only logical path forward.