Sunday, June 15, 2008

Braves Rookie Pitcher Charlie Morton has Plenty of Fantasy Baseball Upside


Charlie Morton (left in 2002 Upper Deck rookie baseball card) was once a solid pitching prospect but a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery ended his 2006 baseball season early. Last year he struggled as he returned to the hill and tried to build back lost arm strength.

Charlie Morton flat out dominated AAA amassing 72 Ks in 79 innings with a filthy 2.05 ERA and .99 WHIP. He did walk 27 batters which is a bit of a concern but with Smoltz done and Glavin on the DL the door looks wide open for Charlie Morton. He was solid in his big league debut last night lasting 6 innings while yielding 5 hits, surrendering 1 walk and striking out 4. Morton did give up 3 runs but on the whole it was a nice start.

I’m not sure I’d trust Charlie Morton long due term to the past injury history. I do like him a lot as a spot starter for the rest of the season and I think he could develop into an every day fantasy baseball player. Morton’s minor league numbers indicate that he has figured something out and his solid debut indicate that “it” translates at the big league level.

Shop for rookie baseball cards and other Charlie Morton gear on eBay!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should do some research. He never had a shoulder injury or surgery.

Baseball Greg said...

I could have been mistaken, I got my information from an extremely credible podcast - it's possible I misheard their analysis