DALLAS — Charlie Morton began his career with the Atlanta Braves and hoped to end it with them, too. But for now, that seems unlikely. The 41-year-old free agent wants to keep pitching in 2025, but there have been no recent contract discussions between Morton and the Braves, the team he was with the past four seasons.
League sources said the Braves are focused on filling multiple needs, including corner outfielder, back-end reliever and possibly middle-rotation starter. The team’s interest in Morton seems to have waned, or at least been put on the back burner. Morton is said to be open to offers from other teams.
A 17-year veteran who made at least 30 starts in the past four seasons and made $20 million each of the past three, Morton is viewed as more of a fifth-starter type for a competitive team at this point in his career. A father of four young children, Morton would strongly prefer to pitch for a team that has its spring training camp within commuting distance of his wife and kids and their home in Bradenton, Florida.
Teams that fit that parameter include the Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays, Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees
Charlie Morton went 8-10 with a 4.19 ERA in 30 starts last season with 167 strikeouts in 165 1/3 innings. (Ed Szczepanski / USA Today)
.After saying late in the season and again after the Braves’ wild-card playoff series loss that he wasn’t sure if he would retire, Morton soon after the postseason made it known to the Braves and other interested teams that he intended to keep pitching.
There were at least preliminary discussions with the Braves, who have holes to fill in their rotation and would prefer not to do that entirely with in-house options, most of whom are either unproven (prospects Hurston Waldrep, AJ Smith-Shawver) or are returning from Tommy John surgery rehab (Ian Anderson).
Braves president of baseball operations and GM Alex Anthopoulos said this week Grant Holmes will get a chance to win a rotation spot in the spring, after impressing both as a reliever and starter as a 28-year-old rookie in 2024 — following a decade of toiling in the minors without a call-up.
Atlanta returns three top starters in NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale, Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach, who surpassed all expectations in his strong rookie season. They also expect flamethrower Spencer Strider to return from internal-brace elbow surgery, but not by Opening Day and probably not until some point in May.
Strider, who led the majors in strikeouts in 2022-2023, made only two starts in 2024 before surgery on April 12 for a torn UCL. The rehab is usually a few months quicker for that new-ish procedure compared to rehab from Tommy John surgery, but the Braves will be cautious with Strider, who had TJ surgery in 2019 while in college at Clemson.
Morton could fit at the back end of the rotation, given his still-solid performance when healthy and his leadership role in the clubhouse with players young and old.
But the Braves, who are only about $24 million under the first luxury-tax tier — which they surpassed each of the past two seasons — don’t seem inclined to go too far above that $241 million threshold. And they have an arguably more pressing need at corner outfield with star right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. to miss at least several weeks as he continues his recovery from knee surgery, and left fielder Jarred Kelenic coming off an inconsistent first season with Atlanta.
Morton would likely have to take a severe pay cut to return to the Braves. He was 45-34 with a 3.87 ERA in the past four seasons with the Braves, including 8-10 with a 4.19 ERA in 30 starts last season with 167 strikeouts in 165 1/3 innings.
It was his first sub-.500 record since going 6-12 in 2014 with Pittsburgh, and Morton’s 1.1 WAR in 2024 was his lowest in a non-pandemic MLB season since 2016, when he made just four starts for the Phillies before season-ending surgery for a torn hamstring.
Morton’s career trajectory was highly unusual in that the 2002 third-round draft pick, who debuted with Atlanta in 2008, struggled with nagging injuries and command issues for years, until figuring out his pitching mechanics and taking his performance to an entirely different level in his 30s with the Houston Astros and Tampa Bay. He returned to the Braves as a free agent four years ago.
He’s had some nagging injuries in the past couple of years that slowed him during the season and prevented him from being the sensational postseason pitcher he had been through 2021. Morton missed the 2023 NLDS loss against the Phillies due to a sprained index finger and didn’t pitch in the two-game 2024 Wild Card Series at San Diego, after allowing eight runs in 10 1/3 innings during a pair of losses against Miami and Kansas City in his last two regular-season starts.
(Top photo of Charlie Morton: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)
