The delivery that saved Charlie Morton
Charlie Morton isn’t going to win the Cy Young. That much, we know for sure. The numbers for the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander are mediocre at best, and he’s the third-best pitcher on a team that’s more than 20-games out of first place. Even the most obscure of advanced metrics fail miserably to make a case for Charles A. Morton.
But the obvious lack of postseason hardware doesn’t mean there’s not a success story surrounding the 27-year-old from New Jersey.
By September of last year, Morton was on the tail-end of a season that defines the term “growing pains”. Although he was able to begin and finish the season in Pittsburgh, Morton spent a large portion of 2010 either injured or with the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians. It was a difficult time for the former third-round pick.
“I was sitting in Triple-A, trying to just figure out how to get people out.” Morton told The Good Point. “It was like, what’s going to happen? Am I going to have a shot to come back in the bullpen? Am I going to have to go to Japan? That’s hard, but at the same time, there was a plan. They [Pirates management] had a plan, but I needed to start pitching.”
That turnaround began with his September call-up. Morton was rocked in his first start back (7 ER in 3 1/3 innings v. Milwaukee), but settled down in the final stretch. Three of his final five appearances were quality starts, and his ERA over the stretch was 3.99, a far cry lower than the 9.66 ERA he posted in his 12 other big-league starts that season. Not great, but enough to warrant consideration for the 2011 rotation.
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Fast forward to today, and Charlie Morton is a mainstay in Pittsburgh. In his first three starts of the season, Morton had a miniscule 1.64 ERA and held opponents to a .176 batting average. As the season went on his numbers balanced out, but he’s still pitching better than he ever has before. His FIP sits at a respectable 3.76, and although he walks more and strikes out fewer batters than the league average, Pittsburgh management, the fans and Morton himself have plenty of reasons to be happy with the production. When asked about his turnaround, Morton said there are plenty of reasons, but did single out one particular change to his routine.
“It took a lot to turn it around. It took a lot of ups and downs – a lot of downs – just the whole experience. Coming into Spring Training, I felt like I was ready. Then Benny [special assistant Jim Benedict] came up to me, and said he and [pitching coach] Ray [Searage] had an idea, they wanted to lower my arm slot. And that was it right there. That was icing on the cake.”
Morton had spent the majority of his pitching career pitching with a high three-quarter delivery. An ever-so-slight change to lower three-quarter reinvented the pitcher and quite possibly saved his career. His new delivery looks eerily similar to one of the best pitchers in the game, a look that can’t just be a mere coincidence.
“Roy Halladay now has an absolute perfect clone on the Pittsburgh Pirates,” a scout told Fox Sports‘ Ken Rosenthal earlier in the year. “Morton has copied his windup perfectly, from the way he starts to the way he finishes. It’s almost identical.”
Searage, the coach who works with the man on a daily basis, also notices the similarities between Morton and the 2010 Cy Young winner, but is happy just to see Morton finding a delivery that he can rely on.
Besides, one could choose a worse pitcher to imitate.
“There’s a lot of guys that stay with your basic over the rubber or hands in the middle of the belt and all that [prior to their windup]. Charlie has a little dip to his front shoulder to keep him over the rubber and that works for Charlie.”
In addition to the change in the way he looks while pitching, Morton has become more particular with the types of pitches that he chooses to throw. More specifically, he’s begun relying more heavily on a sinker, aiming to induce more ground balls. The numbers indicate success in his attempts so far. His ground-ball rate is at 58% for 2011, the highest of his career. Conversely, his fly-ball rate is at 18.1%, a full eight points lower than his career average. Clearly the changes to his game have worked, not that it was too much of a surprise to Morton.
“When I’ve had success, I’ve been a ground ball pitcher,” Morton said. “When I started having success in 2008, that’s when I really started to throw my sinker. Because I have the physical ability to throw hard, they [management and coaches] wanted me to try and be a four-seam power guy. I think that’s what everybody was trying to make me be my whole career, up until I started to throw my sinker. It just didn’t work. We tried it, it didn’t work.”
However, Morton’s success with his new pitching motion and reliance on the sinker isn’t fool-proof. While he’s been particularly dominant against right-handed hitters (3.02 FIP, .254 BABIP, 2.41 BB/9), he’s been just as vulnerable against lefties (4.90 FIP, .406 BABIP, 6.36 BB/9). That’s not a formula for long-term success, but enough to keep him in the Major Leagues and allow him to try and fix his mistakes. Morton is still a young pitcher, and he has to learn to adjust to when batters figure him out, staying one-move ahead of the competition like in a well-played game of chess.
The Pirates have already clinched their 19th straight season of sub-.500 baseball. The sports buzz in Pittsburgh has switched from the Bucs (if they really even had it at all, their pre-All-Star run notwithstanding) to the Steelers and Penguins, two franchises that have at least had success since the invention of the World Wide Web.
For the few stubborn fans that still make it out to PNC Park this time of year, it’s a time to grasp for any straws of hope for next year. Having Andrew McCutchen helps, and there is definitely young talent surrounding him. But pitching is needed in Pittsburgh, and the evolution of Charlie Morton from early-round bust to middle-of-the-rotation mainstay is a good story for the 2012 season.
Pirates fans can only hope that Morton continues his rise and not only looks like Roy Halladay in 2012, but maybe pitches like him too.
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