Say what you want about Brain, but you have to admit he saw last night coming, with Braves’ starter Charlie Morton knocked out of the World Series with a broken leg.
Why, the last thing your New York Yankees are going to put up with is a namby-pamby weakling so injury-prone as to get knocked out of a game by a line drive! Okay, so he threw another 16 effective pitches after his leg was broken. But still!
Ol’ Cooperstown Cashman knew something like this was bound to happen.
Back in the fall of 2016, Charlie Morton was a 32-year-old, career-long mediocrity who had been through three organizations. When Morton became a free agent that fall, Coops didn’t even glance in his direction.
Morton signed with Houston, where he went 29-10 over the next two years, with a 3.36 ERA, and a 2-1 record in the postseason—including the 2017 ALCS, where the Astros barely beat out your New York Yankees and went on to win the whole enchilada.
But hey! Morton cost the Astros all of $15 million for those two seasons. Money doesn’t grow on trees—just MLB cryptocurrencies.
Fool me once…
After 2018, Morton, now 34, was a free agent again. Cashman passed.
The Tampa Bay Rays signed Charlie for $30 million for two years. Well, maybe a big-market club like Tampa has that sort of money to throw around, but not the Yankees!
What did Morton do?
Only go 18-8, 3.33 (despite the Covid year), with a 5-1 record in the postseason. Including a win over the Yanks in 2020, as he helped the Rays to a World Series appearance.
Look, fool me twice, steal my identity, take all my money, walk off with my wife and kids and my motor home, sell my kidney to organ pirates, and…
After the 2020 season, Charlie Morton became a free agent again. Atlanta gave him the same $30 million for two years that the Rays did.
The Yanks weren’t interested.
Why should they have been, with all their starting pitching depth? Why sign a guy who keeps ending up in the World Series, when you can always sign someone who hasn’t pitched in two years?
In his first season back with the Braves, his original organization, all Morton did was go 14-6, 3.34. And wind up starting in the World Series. Again.
But then! The broken leg, and now he’s out for the year.
You can’t tell me Cashman didn’t know just that was going to occur. Why, just THINK of how much trouble the Yanks would be in if they were in the World Series now!
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2 comments:
So now is the time Cashman will jump in and acquire him.
He'll offer 5 years at $23 million per.
Brian likes them " old and proven."
Of course, if you string together all of the great pitchers that Cashman has declined to bid on over the past five or ten years, you'd have a hell of a staff.
We'll end up getting Pineda back.
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