Article: Let's Establish the Ground Truth Around Christopher Morel

[Matthew Trueblood]

Shoved into trade rumor after trade rumor. Moved around the diamond endlessly, but somehow, less than the team wants. The Cubs' most enticing young slugger is also their most enigmatic value proposition. Let's pin it all down.

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

There's an uncomfortable (and, perhaps, ultimately unreconcilable) tension between Christopher Morel's approach to baseball and the milieu of the modern game. Morel is a smart player, but he keeps things simple. He swings hard. He runs hard. He throws hard. He doesn't have Javier Baez's physical genius for the game, or Ian Happ's calculated, carefully-calibrated approach to maximizing his own value. He works hard to be in great shape, and he studies enough to know what kind of meatball he's hunting. Meanwhile, baseball becomes an increasingly complex and closely-dissected exercise. Morel is a square peg for a shifted elliptical hole.

Given that gap between player and broad situation, it's hard to evaluate Morel, and hard to predict his future. That's why, even after two seasons in which he's steadily produced at an above-average rate and delivered power that fits gorgeously with the Cubs' needs, the team might be lukewarm on him for the long term. In 854 career plate appearances, he's hit 42 home runs and equally as many doubles and triples, but he's also struck out in 31.6 percent of his career plate appearances. It still feels like his profile could collapse and his future go dark at any moment.

Some of that might be our own problem. Not all feelings are reality. Morel did shore up his contact rate a bit within the strike zone in 2023, as that number rose from 65.2 to 72 percent. He only chases at an average rate outside the zone, so he's able to draw walks at a solid rate, in addition to crashing into the ball with the force of an 'L' train on a pretty regular basis. He can produce pretty valuable offense while running a high strikeout rate.

Still. Still! It's hard not to sweat a little when you review those whiff rates, and you can bet teams who might be acquiring him in trade would feel that same unease--or at least pretend it, to gain significant leverage against the Cubs front office. O the 626 player-seasons in which a hitter has had at least 500 swings within the zone over the last three years, Morel's 2022 had the highest whiff rate. That significantly improved 2023 rate? It was still the 18th-worst on this list. It's fair to call his swing-and-miss disastrous, even if it's part of his constellation of traits and (perhaps) a necessary tradeoff for the jolt he puts into the ball.

Interestingly, though, that vulnerability isn't as easily exploitable as such things often are. Morel has been extremely consistent against right-handed pitchers across his first two seasons, in a way that defies any conventional wisdom about righty hitters with huge whiff issues. 

h/t Baseball Reference

That means that he can be played (as long as he can stay ahead of the adjustment curve) most days, rather than having to be hidden from tough matchups or tucked away into a platoon. That should really goose his utility to any team, including the Cubs.

As baffling as his array of extreme characteristics feels, I've become reasonably confident that Morel will continue to hit at an above-average level in the big leagues. Even last year (as he improved significantly by doing better against left-handed pitchers and against offspeed pitches in general), though, he went into long slumps so rough that he felt unplayable for a fortnight at a time. That brings us to the other, larger, less answerable question about Morel: What is his short- and long-term non-batting value?

Infamously, the Cubs' request that Morel get some time at first base in the Dominican Winter League have gone for naught. Unlike affiliated minor leagues, LIDOM is a competitive environment--an analog of MLB, not a serf to it. Morel's team is using him in the way they think gives them the best chance to win, and not based on any developmental prerogatives. Here's what's interesting: it's there, in LIDOM, that Morel is being entrusted with more defensive responsibility. Often, it feels like teams want a player to try a new position to give them greater positional or replacement value, but the Cubs are trying to prep Morel for a job that would put pressure on his bat to improve from where it's been in his first two seasons, while Aguilas Cibaenas are playing him most at third base and a bit at shortstop.

That the Cubs would regard that as bad news reflects such a profound and ironclad conviction in Morel's inability to man the left side of the infield in MLB that it forces one to pause and worry. Morel's arm is a rocket. He's a good enough athlete and a seasoned enough infielder that it feels like third base should be the perfect fit, for him and for a team who currently plans to use Patrick Wisdom and Nick Madrigal at the hot corner for 2024. Whence comes their certainty that he will never learn the footwork or achieve the accuracy on throws required to stick at third? And if they're right about it, how can Morel really be part of their plans beyond this season?

Most people who have familiarized themselves with Morel seem to agree that his best position is second base. Obviously, that spot is spoken-for with the Cubs for the next few years. That makes it pretty easy, in one sense. The Cubs can best utilize Morel by trading him. Where, and for what, is the big question.

What do you see in Morel? What's your level of confidence in his stick, and what do you make of him as a defender and athlete? Jump into the conversation.

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[Bertz]

This is a good article you probably should have back-pocketed for a less angsty day lol

Morel's bat is the goods.  One of the things you didn't mention here is the groundball rate.  He made only modest gains in his contact numbers between years 1 and 2, but he did that while cutting his groundball rate substantially.  If you want optimism about him improving his contact I think the fact that fixing his launch angle is successfully completed means there might be more bandwidth for those contact rates now.

The defense is the sticky point.  We've had this argument around here a good bit recently but feels like if the Cubs thought his 3B defense was fixable they probably would have had him focus on the position last winter like Madrigal did.  That said if he can magically clean things up there he significantly improves the prospects of the 2024 team.  His bat is okay for a 1B or DH, for a 3B it's clear cut 1st division starter material.

I'm curious if he makes it to March in the org.  He's not going for Soto obviously.  The Glasnow thing never passed the sniff test and then Jed reamed Nightengale over it.  And if Ohtani's not happening I don't know that Morel needs to be traded for a young SP.  Plus with the two special bats out of reach I'm not sure there's a clear cut better DH option on the market.  The guy who two weeks ago looked like a sure goner suddenly doesn't seem that way any more.

[Maddux31]

Morel has had some huge hits for the Cubs, and his story is inspiring, but I don’t care for players with that degree of swing and miss in their game. They are rally killers and can generally be exploited in clutch situations (though as mentioned, Morel has had two or three glorious moments in which he has delivered with the game on the line).

I wasn’t in love with Javy as much as many were, but if Morel had his glove and baseball instincts, he would be almost impossible to dismiss. But he doesn’t, and since swing and miss issues are very tough to cure, I feel the Cubs need to trade him now and not wait for the league to further adjust and turn him into the Detroit Tigers version of Baez.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Maddux31
Typos

[mul21]

14 hours ago, Maddux31 said:

Morel has had some huge hits for the Cubs, and his story is inspiring, but I don’t care for players with that degree of swing and miss in their game. They are rally killers and can generally be exploited in clutch situations (though as mentioned, Morel has had two or three glorious moments in which he has delivered with the game on the line).

I wasn’t in love with Javy as much as many were, but if Morel had his glove and baseball instincts, he would be almost impossible to dismiss. But he doesn’t, and since swing and miss issues are very tough to cure, I feel the Cubs need to trade him now and not wait for the league to further adjust and turn him into the Detroit Tigers version of Baez.

Morel's swing and miss is wildly different than Baez.  If you look at their swing charts, Morel just misses pitches in the zone and isn't generally swinging at a ton of pitches that are  way off the plate.  I'm not sure it's any more correctable than pitch selection issues, but it's a different and lesser issue IMO.