Baseball Prospectus

MLB Statistics

Statistics for All Levels

Plate Discipline

Preseason Long-Term Forecast (Beyond the 2019 Projections)

Comparable Players (Similarity Index 70)

Rank	Score	Name	Year	Run Average	Trend
1	88	Zach Duke	2017	3.93
2	81	John Bale	2008	4.39
3	78	Dale Thayer	2015	4.06
4	78	Sean Burnett	2017	0.00	DNP
5	78	Jean Machi	2016	0.00	DNP
6	78	Carlos Torres	2017	4.58
7	76	Geoff Geary	2011	0.00	DNP
8	75	Pat Neshek	2015	4.12
9	75	Jumbo Diaz	2018	0.00	DNP
10	74	Craig Stammen	2018	2.85
11	74	Peter Moylan	2013	6.46
12	73	Ryan Vogelsong	2012	3.61
13	73	Clay Condrey	2010	0.00	DNP
14	73	Micah Bowie	2009	0.00	DNP
15	73	Blaine Boyer	2016	4.09
16	72	D.J. Carrasco	2011	6.39
17	72	Brian Duensing	2017	2.74
18	72	Scott Downs	2010	2.79
19	72	Charlie Morton	2018	3.40
20	72	Andy Pettitte	2006	4.79
21	71	Alberto Castillo	2010	10.13
22	71	Jim Johnson	2017	6.19
23	71	Scott Schoeneweis	2008	3.65
24	71	Josh Kinney	2013	0.00	DNP
25	71	Fernando Rodriguez	2018	0.00	DNP
26	71	Terry Adams	2007	0.00	DNP
27	71	Kiko Calero	2009	1.95
28	71	Clay Hensley	2014	0.00	DNP
29	70	Bob Wickman	2003	0.00	DNP
30	70	Whitey Ford	1963	3.11
31	70	Ryan Dempster	2011	4.94
32	70	Matt Lindstrom	2014	6.09
33	70	Joe Smith	2018	3.74
34	70	Mike Maddux	1996	5.18
35	70	Matt Guerrier	2013	4.64
36	70	Cesar Ramos	2018	0.00	DNP
37	70	Mike Lincoln	2009	8.22
38	70	Salomon Torres	2006	4.05
39	70	Bob Locker	1972	2.88
40	70	Jason Johnson	2008	5.83
41	70	Lee Gardner	2009	0.00	DNP
42	70	Shawn Camp	2010	3.36
43	70	Jeremy Affeldt	2013	3.74
44	70	Jonathan Broxton	2018	0.00	DNP
45	70	Nick Masset	2016	0.00	DNP
46	69	Aaron Fultz	2008	0.00	DNP
47	69	Scott Feldman	2017	5.01
48	69	Gene Garber	1982	2.94
49	69	Mike Timlin	2000	4.59
50	69	Randy Flores	2010	3.48
51	69	Dizzy Trout	1949	5.62
52	69	Todd Coffey	2015	0.00	DNP
53	69	Gavin Floyd	2017	0.00	DNP
54	69	Phil Coke	2017	0.00	DNP
55	69	Stu Miller	1962	4.79	DNP
56	69	Antonio Alfonseca	2006	5.63
57	69	Neil Wagner	2018	0.00	DNP
58	69	Tom Wilhelmsen	2018	0.00	DNP
59	69	Paul Quantrill	2003	2.21
60	69	Francisley Bueno	2015	0.00	DNP
61	69	Jeff Fassero	1997	4.15
62	69	Hoyt Wilhelm	1957	4.45
63	68	Bill Hands	1974	4.18
64	68	Jerry Reuss	1983	3.79
65	68	J.P. Howell	2017	7.36
66	68	Scott Eyre	2006	3.67
67	68	Matt Albers	2017	1.77
68	68	Akinori Otsuka	2006	2.56
69	68	Chad Paronto	2010	0.00	DNP
70	68	Joey Eischen	2004	5.40
71	68	Eric Stults	2014	4.70
72	68	Mike Cuellar	1971	3.42
73	68	Matt Miller	2006	3.45
74	68	Braden Looper	2009	5.69
75	68	Bryn Smith	1990	5.09
76	68	Jamey Wright	2009	5.92
77	68	Oliver Perez	2016	4.95
78	68	Doug Jones	1991	5.97
79	68	Mike Garcia	1958	11.25
80	67	Eddie Oropesa	2006	0.00	DNP
81	67	Pascual Perez	1991	3.18
82	67	Jon Lester	2018	3.72
83	67	Joe Dobson	1951	4.59
84	67	Chris Sampson	2012	0.00	DNP
85	67	Doug Fister	2018	5.45
86	67	Thornton Lee	1941	3.00
87	67	Doug Davis	2010	8.45
88	67	Al Brazle	1948	5.64
89	67	Logan Kensing	2017	0.00	DNP
90	67	Randy Choate	2010	4.84
91	67	Bruce Ruffin	1998	0.00	DNP
92	67	Ron Reed	1977	2.97
93	67	Matt Belisle	2014	4.87
94	67	Nick Strincevich	1949	0.00	DNP
95	67	Mark Eichhorn	1995	0.00	DNP
96	67	Bob Rush	1960	5.83
97	67	Dennys Reyes	2011	10.80
98	67	Justin Miller	2012	0.00	DNP
99	66	Wandy Rodriguez	2013	3.73
100	66	Mike Marshall	1977	5.40

BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2019		Due to publishing agreements, the 2019 player comments and team essays are only available in the Baseball Prospectus 2019 book (available in hardcopy, and soon e-book and Kindle).
2018		Well, well, well, lookie what we have here. The recipient of a minor-league deal last winter on the heels of yet another injury-abbreviated season, Morrow finally managed to stay healthy and air it out for a full year in the bullpen. The result? A three-tick jump in sitting velocity, the best strikeout rate of his career and utter and complete domination of left-handed batters. He announced his presence with authority after arriving in Los Angeles from Double-A in late May, racking up 11 straight scoreless outings to start his season. By October he'd emerged as both the primary bridge to Kenley Time and the unlikeliest of everyday workhorses. The fumes on which he ran by Game 5 of the World Series caught fire in an ill-timed explosion, but he otherwise acquitted himself masterfully under the bright lights—conveniently in time to lock down a two-year, $21 million contract from the Cubs in December.
2017		The rare post-post-post-hype pitcher, Brandon Morrow was once again limited due to injuries and once again largely ineffective when on the mound.
2016		For five starts, the Padres' signing of Morrow looked like the shrewdest of gambles. He spun seven shutout innings in his debut and pitched deep into games every time out, including what would be his final appearance of the season less than a month later. After landing on the disabled list in May with “shoulder inflammation,” he made two rehab starts in early June and one more in late July, before succumbing to surgery in late August. Morrow is expected to be ready for spring training, but given that he has pitched a total of 121 innings over the last three years, it's hard to say what kind of role he can fill as a member of any team's active roster, other than perhaps medical cadaver.
2015		For the third straight year, Morrow found himself on the 60-day disabled list. This time, a torn tendon sheath in his right index finger cost him four months of play. He was pitching erratically even before reporting to duty where baseball knows him best (the DL), failing to break six innings even once. In a late-April start against the Red Sox, he unforgettably walked eight of 14 batters ... while allowing no hits. He recovered by September to pitch late-inning relief, pumping high-90s velocity, but the Blue Jays decided enough was enough with the righty's injury-prone body and declined their $10 million option.
2014		It means "tomorrow," and apparently it will never come. The Jays now have picks no. 4 (Brad Lincoln) and no. 5 (Morrow) from the 2006 draft, and each has failed in different ways. Lincoln has simply been ineffective, but search "Brandon Morrow" online and the text helpfully auto-completes by offering "hockey" first and "injury" second. An entrapped radial nerve was the culprit this time, and it shut Morrow down at the end of May. Andrew Miller was the sixth pick in 2006, so expect to see him disappointing Jays fans soon.
2013		Perpetually everyone�s favorite breakout candidate, Morrow finally broke out last season. Then he just broke. Morrow�s strained oblique muscle was severe enough to cause him to miss 64 games. On a per-inning basis Morrow was more valuable than ever, but while his ERA looked good, his strikeouts didn�t keep up. On the plus side, his walks declined for a third straight season, but his strikeouts, always his calling card and the reason he�s perpetually everyone�s favorite breakout candidate, dropped off significantly from over 10 to under 8 per nine innings. Without the Ks, Morrow is just another guy, but if he�s fully recovered from his oblique he stands a good chance to put in that excellent season everyone knows is in there somewhere.
2012		In 325.2 innings with the Jays, Morrow has an ERA of 4.62 but a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 2.8. The calls for a breakout season in 2011 were a dime a dozen last March, and perhaps they will be again this year. Morrow led the league in strikeouts per inning�a mark aided in part by his healthy walk rate�and nearly every sophisticated statistical estimator of pitching performance, including FRA and FIP, suggests he was above average. His splits with runners in scoring position are ugly (.705 OPS against all batters, .888 with RISP) and they get worse when you add two outs (.977). Neither of those facts was true of his 2010, when he suffered a brutal .344 BABIP, and that bad BABIP was seemingly cured in 2011 (.301). Put simply, in 2010 he had bad outcomes on balls in play; in 2011 he had unfortunate sequencing of his strikeouts, walks, and balls in play. If he can exorcise both demons in 2012, he�ll be every bit the fireballer he so frequently seems capable of becoming.
2011		Consider that Morrow has really only been a starting pitcher for five years, and even then in an on-again, off-again fashion. Now consider that if Morrow had pitched the additional innings he would have needed to qualify for the ERA title without recording even a single strikeout, he still would have led the majors in strikeouts per nine innings pitched. From June until he was shut down in early September, Morrow threw 89 1/3 innings with 112 strikeouts and just 32 walks. His masterpiece came on August 8 against the Rays, a 17-strikeout shutout that was one Evan Longoria single away from being a no-hitter. There is still uncertainty here�the repertoire beyond the electric fastball and hard slider needs further refinement�but there are few pitchers in the game with higher ceilings than Morrow�s.
2010		Morrow struggled in the closer role early in 2009, then struggled elsewhere in the bullpen, and then was sent to the minors where he worked on being a starter. He reemerged with some effectiveness in four starts in September, but he was not necessarily doing anything differently, and mostly benefited from logging innings in from of the M's strong defense. Although he threw more first-pitch strikes, he had trouble throwing strikes overall and hitters did not swing and miss as frequently as they did in 2008. The M's never really quite knew what they wanted to do with the fifth overall pick of the 2006 draft, and in December they gave up trying to find out, shipping him to Toronto. The Jays already appear interested in leaving Morrow alone in a rotation role, and while they'll have to cope with his lack of control, the upside for taking the time to see what comes of it should pay off.
2009		Morrow's return to the rotation was accompanied by much less fanfare than Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain's, in small part because it was accomplished behind the scenes. Last sighted throwing a single inning in relief on August 3, Morrow emerged from seclusion in his PCL chrysalis to no-hit the Yankees for 7 2/3 innings on September 6. His final four starts of the season included two clunkers, between which he allowed twice as many earned runs as he had all season out of the pen. Morrow spent most of the last two seasons utilizing only two pitches, and he'll need to refine his neglected changeup and improve his command to succeed as a starter. His developmental clock was frozen for nearly two years, so some struggles are inevitable, but the end result will be worth the belated growing pains.
2008		So Brandon Morrow got to spend his first full season as a pro in the major leagues, coming out of the bullpen for a contender. What could be better? Maybe if he had a more committed relationship with the strike zone prior to becoming a major leaguer, that would've been nice. Morrow was not one of those "so polished he doesn't need any instruction" college prospects. He returned to starting in winter ball and should probably be sent back to the minors, as a starter, to work on his control at the start of the season. We'll soon find out if the Mariners have the discipline to do that, or if they'll continue to sacrifice Morrow's development to fill a short-term hole in the bullpen.
2007		Morrow didn`t put it together at Cal until 2006, the first time in his college career he was able to hold down a spot in the rotation. That was good enough to raise him from a 2003 fortieth-rounder to the fifth overall pick in the 2006 draft. Morrow`s fastball is consistently in the high-90s, and his splitter and slider are plus pitches. It speaks volumes about the Mariners` luck with young pitchers that, when a local columnist wrote a satirical piece claiming Morrow hurt his arm answering the telephone on draft day, plenty of people thought it was for real.

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PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile

A Collaboration between BrooksBaseball.net and Baseball Prospectus - Pitch classifications provided by Pitch Info LLC

Although he has not thrown an MLB pitch in 2024, Brandon Morrow threw 14,313 pitches that were tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2007 and 2018, all of them occuring in Spring Training. In 2018, he relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (98mph), also mixing in a Cutter (92mph) and Slider (89mph). He also rarely threw a Splitter (99mph).