December 12, 2005
Morris Moving West
Matt Morris is close to signing a deal with the Giants.
Agent Barry Axelrod would not divulge financial terms, but Morris is expected to get a guarantee of three years worth approximately $27 million.
"We still have some details to square away, but our focus is on the Giants," Axelrod said. "We've basically said, assuming we get the last details worked out with the Giants, that's where he wants to go."
Axelrod termed those details "endgame-type issues" that should not derail an agreement with San Francisco, which beat the Rangers, Cardinals, Dodgers, Mariners and Reds in bidding for the 31-year-old right-hander.
Morris did not allow a home run in his four starts at SBC Park. Morris would have been better off going for free agency after the 2003 season. Here's what his career looked like at that point. Since then, his strikeouts have fallen off, but he's maintained his excellent K/BB ratio. He's become more of a control pitcher. Unfortunately, that's led to his becoming more hittable, as his home runs per 9 nearly doubled. SBC Park has the same home run index as St. Louis, so I don't expect that to change.
I do worry that the Giants (or the people covering the Giants) are overly impressed with Morris' won-loss record:
On the other hand, Morris has not had a losing season and he was the winning pitcher in the Cardinals' Division Series clincher over San Diego in October.
You can have a winning record with a high ERA if your team scores lots of runs. Since San Francisco was 15th in the NL in runs scored during 2005, that might be a problem.
Giants fans have their fingers crossed that Morris's '04/'05 decline can be attributed to his shoulder injury, which he either tried to gut out (in '04) or recover from (in '05). That said, it's certainly a high-risk contract. Let's hope the Giants med staff triple-checks those MRIs.
There is a pretty good chance that is the case. He simply wasn't throwing as hard in the 2nd half of last year, when his stats declined. He just looked like he had a tired arm, presumably having rushed back from surgery.
I don't think he'll ever be as good as he used to be, and he was never really an 'ace', even in his best easons. But if Loiza (sp?) is worth $7 million a year, Morris is worth a couple million more.
True, the Giants were 15th in runs scored this year, but as you may recall they had to operate without a certain critical part of their offense. I assume that the plan is for Barry, Moises, Ray and Randy to hit enough to make up for the mediocrity of the rest of the lineup.
I'll be happy if Morris turns out to be a league-average innings-eater, taking some of the pressure off of Lowry and Cain. Is he worth $8-9 million a year? For the Giants, he may well be, especially if Schmidt goes through another intermittent case of the sucks next season.
Decent signing... our defense is better (too bad no snow) than last year, so Morris shouldn't be too much of a risk.
Hate to disagree, Tan, but the plan in the field is subtracting snow and adding bonds, with everyone else a year older. That doesn't add up to better defense.
What it comes down to is if Morris is better then Tomko. Id say yes he is, plus he has the added benefit of having Matheny catch him. I also think he's not going to be in a huge pressure role, with Schmidt, and 2 emerging studs in Lowry and Cain, Morris could be the forgotten innings eater in an improved starting roation.
