Morrow Back on Minor League Deal

[Cubswin11]

[minnesotacubsfan]

this might be our best offseason signing this year

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Starting to feel okay with the last 2 spots of the pen/Iowa Shuttle. Even if you say Alzolay, Cotton, Mills, and Rea are only starters so they don't count, and Kimbrel, Wick, Ryan, Wieck, Chatwood are set in stone, you have:

 

Morrow

Maples*

Megill* (Rule 5)

Winkler*

Underwood

Norwood*

Rodriguez*

Mekkes* (Not on 40 man)

Brooks* (Not on 40 man)

Pelham* (LH)

Steele* (LH)

 

* Optionable

 

That feels about right for ~2 spots given how speculative some of those guys are.

[Cubswin11]

Starting to feel okay with the last 2 spots of the pen/Iowa Shuttle. Even if you say Alzolay, Cotton, Mills, and Rea are only starters so they don't count, and Kimbrel, Wick, Ryan, Wieck, Chatwood are set in stone, you have:

 

Morrow

Maples*

Megill* (Rule 5)

Winkler*

Underwood

Norwood*

Rodriguez*

Mekkes* (Not on 40 man)

Brooks* (Not on 40 man)

Pelham* (LH)

Steele* (LH)

 

* Optionable

 

That feels about right for ~2 spots given how speculative some of those guys are.

Yup, as long as they’re willing to shuffle through stuff a little more aggressively when guys suck I think there’s a workable and good pen in there. Plus I’d assume we get a bullpen arm in one of these trades that sounds like will happen and/or bring back Strop for cheap or some cheap 1 year vet that’s hanging out there right before ST.

[Cubswin11]

Fun fact, Morrow has put up more WAR than Almora over the last two years in only 30 innings of pitching.

[muntjack]

Fact, Morrow has put up more WAR than Almora over the last two years in only 30 innings of pitching.

 

FYP

[David]

What actually is his health status now?

 

I know he felt bad about how things went and wanted to make it up to the Cubs. Is he expected to actually be ready for ST?

[Cubswin11]

What actually is his health status now?

 

I know he felt bad about how things went and wanted to make it up to the Cubs. Is he expected to actually be ready for ST?

Did he even throw off a mound at all in 2019? I don’t know if he ever got off flat ground/long toss. If so and even if he’s technically healthy right now you’d have to assume he has a lot of work to do to even get in shape to be throwing off a mound since he likely hasn’t since 2018.

[Bertz]

Starting to feel okay with the last 2 spots of the pen/Iowa Shuttle. Even if you say Alzolay, Cotton, Mills, and Rea are only starters so they don't count, and Kimbrel, Wick, Ryan, Wieck, Chatwood are set in stone, you have:

 

Morrow

Maples*

Megill* (Rule 5)

Winkler*

Underwood

Norwood*

Rodriguez*

Mekkes* (Not on 40 man)

Brooks* (Not on 40 man)

Pelham* (LH)

Steele* (LH)

 

* Optionable

 

That feels about right for ~2 spots given how speculative some of those guys are.

Yup, as long as they’re willing to shuffle through stuff a little more aggressively when guys suck I think there’s a workable and good pen in there. Plus I’d assume we get a bullpen arm in one of these trades that sounds like will happen and/or bring back Strop for cheap or some cheap 1 year vet that’s hanging out there right before ST.

 

I think the reason they weren't aggressive was because no one in the opening day pen besides Carl had minor league options. For that reason I don't want a cheap one year vet holding a roster spot hostage (I also don't want Mills and Chatwood to both make it to ST). Get one more setup type arm from one of the trades, and roll into 2020 with this:

 

Kimbrel

Wick

Ryan

New Guy

Chatwood/Mills

Megill/Underwood

Iowa Shuttle x2 (likely Wieck/Winkler initially)

[Cubswin11]

Starting to feel okay with the last 2 spots of the pen/Iowa Shuttle. Even if you say Alzolay, Cotton, Mills, and Rea are only starters so they don't count, and Kimbrel, Wick, Ryan, Wieck, Chatwood are set in stone, you have:

 

Morrow

Maples*

Megill* (Rule 5)

Winkler*

Underwood

Norwood*

Rodriguez*

Mekkes* (Not on 40 man)

Brooks* (Not on 40 man)

Pelham* (LH)

Steele* (LH)

 

* Optionable

 

That feels about right for ~2 spots given how speculative some of those guys are.

Yup, as long as they’re willing to shuffle through stuff a little more aggressively when guys suck I think there’s a workable and good pen in there. Plus I’d assume we get a bullpen arm in one of these trades that sounds like will happen and/or bring back Strop for cheap or some cheap 1 year vet that’s hanging out there right before ST.

 

I think the reason they weren't aggressive was because no one in the opening day pen besides Carl had minor league options. For that reason I don't want a cheap one year vet holding a roster spot hostage (I also don't want Mills and Chatwood to both make it to ST). Get one more setup type arm from one of the trades, and roll into 2020 with this:

 

Kimbrel

Wick

Ryan

New Guy

Chatwood/Mills

Megill/Underwood

Iowa Shuttle x2 (likely Wieck/Winkler initially)

Oh absolutely I think that’s a huge reason why the bullpen was so inflexible early on last year because it was bloated with low ceiling vets without options. So yeah I basically hope we do what’s been discussed here to have more flexibility on a spot or 3 and be aggressive with it and hopefully find another Wick this year.

[Brian]

What actually is his health status now?

 

I know he felt bad about how things went and wanted to make it up to the Cubs. Is he expected to actually be ready for ST?

 

This is from the first article about him wanting to come back from Mid-November. I remember it being more optimistic, but I guess this is about as optimistic as one could be with Morrow at this point.

 

Southern California orthopedists Steven Shin and Neal Attrache looked at him in September and focused on the elbow nerves, using a “hydrodissection” procedure first — which helped until Morrow increased his throwing intensity — then addressed it with the more invasive surgery.

 

Morrow expects to start a throwing program in three to four weeks that could result in a “normal” off-season that makes him ready for spring training, said Wolfe, who is quick to temper his optimism because of all the fits and starts to the lengthy process already.

 

“It was such a peculiar thing that none of the doctors could really figure it out,” Wolfe said. “As optimistic as we are with what Dr. Shin and Dr. Attrache did with him, we won’t know that they were right and they have the answer until later.”

 

If the latest diagnosis and fix aren’t the answers, Morrow might be forced to retire. But if the early signs hold up into the spring, the Cubs might finally get some of their value out of their investment in Morrow.

[WrigleyField 22]

Lol crack cubs medical staff using Dr Shin to treat an elbow injury.

[Deeg]

Lol crack cubs medical staff using Dr Shin to treat an elbow injury.

 

I heard this was more an Attarche case.

[Sammy Sofa]

Lol crack cubs medical staff using Dr Shin to treat an elbow injury.

 

Fortunately they only signed his back. BRAIN TRUST, BABY.

[UMFan83]

More sorrow for Morrow

 

[cl smooth]

More sorrow for Morrow

 

 

[Cubswin11]

More sorrow for Morrow

 

He would’ve broke anyways, but horsefeathering Joe using him against the rules they allegedly set is still infuriating. He was horsefeathering awesome for his ~30 innings or whatever. He was worth almost 1 WAR for us.

[Andy]

More sorrow for Morrow

 

He would’ve broke anyways, but horsefeathering Joe using him against the rules they allegedly set is still infuriating. He was horsefeathering awesome for his ~30 innings or whatever. He was worth almost 1 WAR for us.

If you have to set special 'please don't break' usage rules for a player, you probably shouldn't sign him, and you definitely shouldn't pay him $10M per year. If pitching one inning on a third day in a row was enough to kill him for 2.5 years, then it was never going to work.

[Cubswin11]

More sorrow for Morrow

 

He would’ve broke anyways, but horsefeathering Joe using him against the rules they allegedly set is still infuriating. He was horsefeathering awesome for his ~30 innings or whatever. He was worth almost 1 WAR for us.

If you have to set special 'please don't break' usage rules for a player, you probably shouldn't sign him, and you definitely shouldn't pay him $10M per year. If pitching one inning on a third day in a row was enough to kill him for 2.5 years, then it was never going to work.

Eh, I’m sure there’s a lot of pitchers that teams generally try to put some rules on for them not to break. Joe broke those explicit rules. But regardless, to me, it was the worth the risk and the cost to get him reflected it. He was one of the best relief pitchers in MLB the half season we had him healthy.

[jersey cubs fan]

Did somebody find the lost archives from the original board crash?

 

More sorrow for Morrow

 

He would’ve broke anyways, but horsefeathering Joe using him against the rules they allegedly set is still infuriating. He was horsefeathering awesome for his ~30 innings or whatever. He was worth almost 1 WAR for us.

If you have to set special 'please don't break' usage rules for a player, you probably shouldn't sign him, and you definitely shouldn't pay him $10M per year. If pitching one inning on a third day in a row was enough to kill him for 2.5 years, then it was never going to work.

 

Modern baseball disagrees with you.