The Atlanta Braves brought Charlie Morton back to be the established veteran at the top of the rotation you could rely on, but we’ve yet to see that version in 2022.
It’s been a real struggle for Charlie Morton in 2022 for the Atlanta Braves and the metrics show there is a real reason to be worried about the 38-year-old.
Something we often forget, Morton is coming back from a pretty serious leg fracture in the World Series — who knows what kind of effect that is having on him as he battles
But one thing is for certain, things have not gone well for Morton. He has a 5.63 ERA and 1.53 WHIP in 54.1 innings over 11 starts with 54 strikeouts and 25 walks. Opponents are hitting .275 against him.
The biggest thing is that Morton isn’t given you a lot of length in games. As the veteran, you’re expecting him to go out and get through 6 innings pretty regularly.
While he has gotten through 5 innings in 8 of his 11 starts, he’s only made it through 6 innings one time this year.
Braves: Morton’s Season by the Metrics
Looking at the Baseball Savant page for Charlie Morton, the percentiles aren’t pretty — there is a lot of blue on that page.
One glaring stat is the 10.2 percent walk rate. That’s the second-highest of his career and the highest since 2016.
The possible reason for that is his chase rate ranks in the 26th percentile and his whiff% in the 29th percentile.
His curveball spin rate still ranks in the 99th percentile, but hitters aren’t chasing it as much.
Last year his chase percentage was 27.7 percent and this year it’s down a tick to 26.3 percent, while his whiff% is down from 28.9 percent to 22.7 percent.
But here is the big one, when players are putting the ball in play against him, they’re hitting the ball hard. While his average exit velocity against isn’t terrible at 89 MPH — not much higher than his career — his hard-hit percentage against has gone from 32.5 percent last year to 41.5 percent.
There has been a lot of talk about the curveball. Last year hitters batted just .162 against that pitch, this year they are hitting .292.
The whiff% on his curveball is still really good at 34.4 percent, but that’s way down from last year’s 40.1 percent. And through the good part of his career, the whiff% is typically around 40.
Morton’s velocity on his curveball is actually up almost 1 MPH from last year and nearly 3 MPH from where it was from 2018-2020.
He’s struggled much more on the road with a 6.89 ERA away from Truist Park compared to 3.91 at home.
But the biggest split that has hurt him are the troubles in the early innings. He has a 9.82 ERA in the first inning and 5.73 in the second.
There are games where he’s really settled in, but because he had to work so hard in the first two innings he either wasn’t able to pitch deep because of pitch count, or he ran out of gas.
These are all things Morton can fix, but until we see a couple of starts in a row where he’s more consistent with the curveball and has some clean first innings, he’s a real question mark in the starting rotation.