Thursday, December 02, 2004

I'd Like to Solve the Puzzle

"With discomfort in his arm and uncertainty in his head..."

Quick, name what that statement describes. A warrior, in the heat of battle? A college student, playing a game of 'trading punches' with his buddies after having a couple of drinks? A husband, after saying the wrong thing to his wife?

Wrong. What you meant to say was, "Matt Morris on the mound".

That's how the P-D is describing Matty Mo and his current situation. They are reporting that he will be having a little 'clean-up' done on his right shoulder in the coming weeks. By 'clean-up' they mean to use sharp objects, not loofahs and Old Spice Body Wash.

Apparently, Ace Morris was pitching hurt all season. That sound you hear is the dropping jaws of shocked citizens of Cardinal Nation everywhere.

For most of 2004, nobody knew what to make of our longest tenured Cardinal. He would pitch well, then poorly. Then worse. Whispers began about his health. P-D scribes were running out of words used to describe the condition of his arm. 'Cranky'. 'Tight'. 'Mechanical'. 'Dead-Arm'. 'Not loose'. 'Not fluid'. 'Bad mechanics.' (Not to mention, 'whiplash', considering the 35 dingers he gave up.)

His velocity was down, evidenced by the manager's request that the home team not show the radar gun readings on Matty's heater. Not that it mattered. It seems his Laclede Natural Gas had been replaced by one of those unreliable 'lectric heat pumps that Ernest told us so much about. Morris was serving up grapefruits.

Perhaps it was just a pitcher getting older? After all, not everyone is Roger Clemens. Much was made about Morris' evolution into a control-type pitcher. Dave Duncan, obviously receiving some sort of per-use royalty for patenting the cutter taught Morris (in addition to seemingly every other pitcher on the staff) how to throw the infamous pitch.

Anyone watching the games this year saw it didn't really work. Morris never looked comfortable. His stats for the year were not terrible, but certainly not great, especially for someone who just a couple years ago was considered one of the league's best.

No matter, he is now seeking the knife in order to fix the problem at its root. It is described as a minor procedure, but you tell me how minor it is when the man in the white coat takes a knife to your shoulder. Guys seem to come back from elbow problems with regularity these days but shoulder ailments prove to be more troublesome. We can only hope that Matt's comeback follows the path of Chris Carpenter and not Alan Benes.

And if he is successful with this procedure, what should the Cards do? Morris is a free agent and stands no chance in getting the big money that he was seeking to tack onto his last contract. However, the Cards could make a low cost/low risk gamble on Morris and give him a heavily incentive laden contract, with a small base pay. If he's good to go on opening day, your rotation (as of today) would be Carpenter-Marquis-Suppan-Morris-Harnkiel. Of course, that rotation has more question marks than exclamation points.

If the surgery is successful, Morris might be a good risk at a sub $1M base salary with plenty of incentives to increase the value if his performance correlates. Would that be enough to get a deal done? Hard to say. There has been no chatter on Morris in the free agent market thus far, and the recent news of his impending hospital visit doesn't bode well for his value.

But it should pique the interest of the Birdinals. Jocketty has to examine those players who might be undervalued by the market. He did well in the Carpenter approach last year and will have to continue to pursue those sorts of deals in order for the Home Team to stay competitive. Mid-market franchises have to look for value wherever they can find it, and while it would be crass to celebrate Morris' injury, it does provide an opportunity for the Cards that would not have existed before. The injury decreases his market value and gives the Cards a chance to get him on the cheap. There is a growing trend to sign a pitcher when he is still hurt in the hopes of getting a discount on a rehabilitating player (Dempster, Burnett, Lieber, Carpenter), but I don't think it's yet at the point where Morris will get a $4-5M guaranteed contract from someone betting on a turnaround.

Of course, you usually get what you pay for. What if Morris is as bad as he was this year? Well, then he becomes the Cal Eldred of the team, working as a long reliever, eating up innings in blowouts, and serving as senior statesman of sorts.

Think about it. It could be worse. Matty Mo could have accepted our 2-year extension offer for $15M at the beginning of last season.

I'm quite sure if that was the case, I'd be advocating excommunication, not rehabilitation and reconciliation.

Posted by David @ 1:39 AM 0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home