And now, it’s official.
The Mariners have completed their fifth major transaction of the offseason, and general manager Jack Zduriencik traded away another piece of the organization’s former regime.
More than a day after reports surfaced that the Mariners would trade pitcher Brandon Morrow to the Toronto Blue Jays for relief pitcher Brandon League and minor league outfielder Johermyn Chavez, the teams announced the deal a few minutes ago.
“We feel we have added an experienced power arm to go along with our current bullpen,” Zduriencik said of League in a release from the Mariners. “He has a ‘swing and miss’ pitch and a high groundball rate. He is a good fit for our bullpen and our ballpark.
“We also received a young outfielder in Johermyn Chavez, who was twice voted as a player of the year in the Blue Jays organization and we look forward to watching his progress through our system.
“It is never easy to see a talented player like Brandon Morrow leave. We wish him the best and will be following his career.”
Morrow, the 2006 first-round draft pick who never had a consistent role (or consistent location with his pitches) with the Mariners, is off to the change of scenery that just might allow him to flourish.
He leaves behind an organization that, during his prime developmental years, pushed him to the major leagues after just eight games in the minors and then bounced him between the starting rotation and the bullpen in his three seasons.
Can any young pitcher develop into a bona-fide starter or reliever when nobody can decide whether he’s a starter or reliever?
But let’s not lump all the criticism on the Mariners for the way they handled Morrow.
When he and his electric fastball arrived at spring training in 2007 — after he’d pitched just eight low-level minor league games the previous year –the Mariners saw a need in the bullpen more than a nice arm to develop.
The bottom line, after all, is to win at the big-league level, and the Mariners were desperate after a third straight last-place finish in 2006.
So Morrow began and finished the season in the big-league bullpen and had a nice rookie season, appearing in 60 games. But nobody really saw him as a reliever, and the Mariners knew he needed to develop consistency with his fastball and refine his secondary pitches in order to be a true candidate for the 2008 rotation.
The Mariners put together what seemed like a sound plan to convert Morrow into a starter. They sent him to winter ball in Venezuela, where he’d build his arm strength as a starter, then return to spring training in 2008 and join the Mariners’ rotation.
Then a not-so-funny thing blew up that plan.
Believing the Mariners were only a bona-fide starter away from contention after the mirage of an 88-victory season in 2007, former GM Bill Bavasi traded away the future in order to acquire left-handed starter Erik Bedard from the Orioles.
Not only was Bedard a bust because of injuries, his arrival ultimately had a negative effect in 2008 on two other young pitchers, Felix Hernandez and Morrow. Manager John McLaren named Bedard his opening-day starter, and that ticked off Hernandez. And with Bedard, Morrow was pushed out of the rotation and back into a relief role.
His shoulder started barking early in spring training, and while nobody could say the back-and-forth movement from relieving to starting to relieving was the cause, Morrow said then that it certainly didn’t help. The Mariners opened the season without Morrow, who spent two weeks in April at Class AA West Tennessee getting his arm back in shape.
He returned to the Mariners in mid-April and spent much of the season in relief, and saved 10 of 12 games while closer J.J. Putz was out with an elbow injury. The Mariners’ season was in flames when Putz returned and, with the club on its way to 101 losses, the club began looking ahead to the 2009 season.
They sent Morrow to Class AAA Tacoma in early August to begin the transition – yet again – into a starter. He returned in September and went 2-2 with a 5.79 ERA in five starts, including that electric starting debut on Sept. 5 when he came within four outs of pitching a no-hitter against the Yankees.
Morrow went into the offseason thinking he would come to spring training in 2009 as a starter. Then everything changed. Bavasi was fired, Zduriencik was hired and with one of his first moves, he traded Putz to the Mets in a 12-player, three-team deal.
The Mariners suddenly didn’t have a closer and Morrow immediately was thrust into conversation as the likely candidate.
Last Dec. 19, I spoke with Morrow after his workout at the Peoria Sports Complex, and he clearly was conflicted as to what his role would, or should, be. He spoke of the adrenaline rush he got from closing a game, but also of his desire to be a starter.
“I told (Zduriencik) I would close and do whatever was best for the team, but that my preference was starting,” Morrow said then. “I think they want to keep me in the rotation if they can. If they move me, it’ll be because of necessity.”
The Mariners had other closer candidates – Mark Lowe, David Aardsma and newly acquired Tyler Walker – at spring training, and Morrow remained in the pool of starting pitchers. He suffered another arm problem, plus a bout with the flu, and for about two weeks missed key outings that would build his pitch count and keep him in line to start April 10 in Oakland.
Because of that, and continued uncertainty over who would be the closer, Morrow went to pitching coach Rick Adair and manager Don Wakamatsu, telling them late in spring training that he wanted to close. Morrow figured that would allow him to make the opening-day roster and serve a need.
The Mariners gave him a couple of late-inning outings the final week of spring training but, possibly because of the time he missed with the arm problem, Morrow’s control was erratic. Still, he started the season as the closer.
It was a rocky six-week existence that came to an inglorious end when he blew back-to-back saves at Texas on May 13-14. Wakamatsu dropped Morrow deeper into the bullpen and Aardsma became the closer.
Morrow was a man without a role for nearly a month, then went back to Adair and Wakamatsu, telling him he had changed his mind again, that he believes he should be a starter.
With the rotation in flux because of injuries to Bedard and Ryan Rowland-Smith, the Mariners chose the unconventional method of having Morrow convert back into a starter in the major leagues instead of going back to Class AAA Tacoma.
Wakamatsu and Adair were criticized on talk shows and blogs for being wishy-washy with Morrow. In their defense, Morrow Wak and Adair were reluctant to push Morrow in a direction he didn’t want to go.
Morrow made eight starts for the M’s and reached the sixth inning only once, and even though he lost only once in that stretch he again struggled with his control. On July 11, the Mariners did what they probably should have done all along and optioned Morrow to Tacoma, where he could work on his pitches and build his pitch count without fear of being pulled early from a game.
Morrow returned to the Mariners and started four times in September, including a dazzling one-hitter through eight innings against the A’s on Sept. 30, when he struck out nine, walked two and looked every bit the starter everyone had hoped to see.
The problem, of course, is that it was one start. Morrow didn’t show the Mariners enough of an overall package to convince Zduriencik and the new regime that he should be part of their vision for the future.
Today, the trade became official.
Hopefully, Morrow will land with a Blue Jays team that has a clear vision of what he should be and sticks with it. With that, then maybe he’ll find the consistency and success everyone has sought since he was drafted.
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