Christopher Morel's Career Challenges After Non-Tender
After being cut by the Tampa Bay Rays, Christopher Morel faces career uncertainty due to his struggles in both defense and offense. Will he find a new home?
Video Transcript
Now I want to get to Christopher Morel, who is non-tendered by the Tampa Bay Rays.
The name that's been on the trade block long for the Chicago Cubs, And they were just looking to move, looking to move.
Morrell was a big part of the Isa Parede deal that got him to Chicago before the reroute to Houston in the Kyle Tucker trade, but Morrell has been brutal since moving over to Tampa.
And now Christopher Morrell is non-tendered.
He and Fraley were the two non-tenders for Tampa.
Jake Fraley is defensive-oriented.
An outfielder.
Christopher Morrell is one of the biggest Question marks in baseball?
Morrell is just our new version of Jos Siri, Where the ability is there to be an All-Star.
You just gotta hit the baseball, and he hasn't.
What does a gamble on Christopher Morrell look like?
Well, that's the hardest part with Morrell, is you know, At least with Siri, when he's not hitting, he's gonna go play like an elite center fielder.
Morrell should be a good defender.
I do not know why he is not.
He's an above-average runner; he has an elite arm, but you put him in the infield, and he Throws sinkers, um, so your first baseman's miserable.
You put him in the outfield, and his reads and routes just aren't very great.
Um, and then offensively, it's kind of one swing for one spot.
He is trying to pull the ball in the air to left field as hard as he can each time.
And, like that, may work for some guys, but when you have swing-and-miss and chase issues, Like it can really be easy to expose, and That's exactly what we saw.
But at 26 years old, when you've got the tools that he's got, You know, I'm...
I'm always, yeah, if I have an open spot, I'm still very intrigued by giving a guy like that the opportunity.
Um, but, you know, it's just, to me, it's kind of a frustrating game, similar to Syria, where It's just like you're going to do the same thing and struggle with the same things Consistently, and, uh, it seems like for now, the answer is yes.
Um, but, you know, he does have time to, potentially improve those things.
He hits the living daylights out of the ball, and I think the biggest hurdle for me with him, though, It's just like where you're kind of just sticking him somewhere by default.
There's nowhere he is necessarily good defensively.
Yeah, uh, the Rangers did not deem it fit.
Adoli S. Garcia is worthy of his $12 million arbitration estimate.
What do you deem Adolis Garca worthy of?
If you were sitting in one of these decision making chairs, And you were told, "Hey, we can bring Adolis Garcia in on a one-year deal."
What are you comfortable giving him?
Oh, because the answer is not 12, is it 6?
I was thinking, I was thinking six.
I don't think I'd go above six.
I mean, we're talking about it.
Uh, back-to-back seasons here where he has been below the league average offensively.
And, you know, I think he's still worth a shot.
But we're talking about hits the other side of 30, so it's 31; ages 32 seasons are both bad.
That's not the most encouraging side of things but, you know, And off of, uh, you know, some injuries as well.
Um, but at the same time, he's still hitting the ball really hard.
A change of scenery could help, uh, you know, I, I think you should look at some.
Aspects of the batted-ball quality, he actually hit the ball harder in 2025, Full miles per hour up in average exit Velocity department.
Um, his launch angle was up a little, like there were some encouraging underlying aspects.
Um, and I think from that perspective, you look at the, The Woba, xwOBA, they're about 25 points there, the expected slugging about 25 points there.
So maybe you drop him in the right stadium, you know, You can squeeze out a little bit more, you know, in value.
And I wonder, like, if I'm the Reds or something like that.
I'd give him 6 to 8 million, I think, for 1 year and give it a shot.
What about Jonah Heim, who is the other guy non-tendered?
He's not worth six, according to the Texas Rangers.
He's an interesting one to me because I can see another team saying, You know what?
I think you are worth 6.
That's the funny one, 'cause I, I, I was gonna say I think in the right situation, Hes a pretty easy tender for a contract candidate.
Like, I think, given the situation they were in, And again, Heim has back-to-back years of him performing badly, You're like, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll just, you know if Haim is the same player he was the Last two years, we're going to be kicking ourselves because every dollar matters, right?
Now, and we could have allocated that $6 million elsewhere.
Whereas I think another team says, well, he could bounce back in a worst-case scenario, You know, we have a fine backup, um, at a little more than we wanted to spend.
So, I think the teams going to end up coming in at 4 million or so.
And, you know, I don't think he's gonna lose too much.
