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The Braves announced on Monday that they had signed right-hander Charlie morton to a one-year contract worth $ 20 million. (The Braves are one of the few teams to officially disclose the terms of their player contracts themselves.) Client Jet Sports also has a $ 20 million club option for the 2023 season that has no redemption.
Morton got off to a somewhat slow start on his return to the Braves’ organization, recording a 5.08 ERA in his first eight starts of the season. He has since been turned off, working at a combined 2.95 ERA with a formidable 29.9% strikeout rate and a high 7.4% walk rate in his last 20 starts – a total of 119 innings pitched. Overall, Morton has an ERA of 3.47 in 158 frames with the Braves so far in 2021.
This is the second go-around in Atlanta for Morton, who the Braves selected with their third-round pick almost two decades ago in 2002. He made his big league debut as the Brave in 2008, but was traded to the Pirates in June 2009. trade which brought the outfielder Nate mclouth in Atlanta. Morton would settle as a mid-rotation starter in Pittsburgh, but a spike in speed in a very brief four-game stint with the Phillies – he missed the rest of the year with a hamstring tear – a prepared the ground for him to land in Houston. With the Astros, Morton maintained that speed bump and leaned harder on his four-seam seam and curved ball, to the detriment of his lead.
Morton established himself as one of the game’s top starters with the Astros, turning a brilliant two-year stint into a two-year, $ 30 million contract with the Rays. He would finish third in the American League Cy Young vote and play a major role in the Rays’ playoff bid that year before arm issues resulted in a slow start in 2020. Morton, however, got the ship right at the back. over the last two weeks of the season, and appeared to be back to its dominant habits for much of the 2020 Rays’ race to the World Series.
Morton was a coveted free agent this offseason, but he had a small selection of teams he was willing to consider. Playing with the Rays allowed him to live in his Bradenton, Florida home, and Morton was reportedly very determined to stay in the Southeast to be close to his family. His one-year contract with the Braves underscored this preference, as did today’s decision to forgo the free market entirely in favor of another one-year pact in a setting where he’s obviously pretty much on the line. ‘easy.
With that deal in place, the Braves have now extended a pair of veterans before Free Will. Seeker Travis d’Arnaud signed a two-year, $ 16 million contract a few weeks ago, giving the club some stability behind the dish (as well as a potential bridge to Guillaume Contreras and or Shea Langeliers).
Having Morton and Arnaud locked up for 2022 gives the Braves a total of $ 77 million pledged for six players next season, though the status of Marcell Ozuna and his salary of $ 16 million remains to be determined. The Braves also have option buybacks to pay for Pederson game, Adam duval, Josh tomlin and the already released Ender Inciarte.
The Braves opened the 2021 season with a payroll of $ 131 million, so there is plenty of room for them to add to those $ 77 million in guarantees this winter. Presumably, some of these funds are for what the team and their fan base are hoping to be a long-term extension of the franchise’s cornerstone. Freddie freeman. That they were able to make new deals with Arnaud and Morton shows the Braves are more than comfortable having these talks not just during the season but in the middle of a playoff run, so maybe they will still aim to strike a new deal with Freeman before he officially hits the market.
For now, certainty with Morton means they can count on the return of a veteran who became one of the most productive arms in the game at the end of his career. Morton can be entered in the 2022 rotation alongside the southpaw Max Fried, right-handed Ian anderson and, hopefully, often injured right-hander Mike Soroka. At just 24, Soroka has established himself as one of the most talented young starters in the game in 2019, but has pitched just 13 2/3 innings since that time after tearing his Achilles tendon in two times. Soroka is not expected to be ready for the start of the 2022 campaign, however, it stands to reason that the Braves could look for additional rotation help this winter, even with Morton now stuck in a comeback.
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