It's Time to Find the Best Recipe for Andrew Morris to Dominate in the Bullpen

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Throwing the way Andrew Morris comes with some limitations. At 61°, he has one of the league's highest arm angles; few pitchers have a truer over-the-top motion than his. That can be good—it's deceptive, and it gives him easy access to the top of the strike zone with his riding four-seam fastball—but it can also be bad. Most pitchers who operate from a high slot struggle to consistently generate much horizontal movement. Most of them struggle to target the bottom of the zone or to get out of it and induce chases, except with steep breaking balls that can be hard to command and/or easy for opposing batters to spot. Throwing overhand helps you stay over the 17-inch plate and can be the most natural movement for some pitchers, but the league is trending toward lower slots for a reason: it's easier to tinker from there. It's easier to manipulate the ball and challenge hitters with unusual angles.

For all those reasons and more, it made sense for the Twins to move Morris to the bullpen when they needed help there earlier this season. He's made 62 starts across parts of five minor-league seasons, and he began the year as a starter with Triple-A St. Paul. Quickly, though, the Twins' historic, insupportable lack of hard throwers or bat-missers in the bullpen became a problem they had to solve, and Morris was the sensible solution.

Called up to pitch in multi-inning relief, Morris has rarely opened the tank and fired with reckless abandon. When he has, though, his fastball has touched 99 miles per hour. It's averaging 96, and he can live there, comfortably. His movement—a little more carry than one would expect (but only a little, because of the high arm slot), but very straight horizontally and very true to the spin direction of the pitch—is unexceptional, so he has to throw hard to succeed; it's easier to do that in short bursts. The heater has worked fine so far, and in this role, that's sustainable. His sweeper is also working well. Few pitchers can create so much sweep from that high slot, so he's not only getting a good whiff rate on it, but inducing weak contact when batters do meet the ball.

His pitch mix has consisted mostly of the four-seamer and the sweeper against righties, and it's worked pretty well. He's only fanned six of the 41 right-handed batters he's faced, which is a problem, but he's also only walked three of them, and he's yet to surrender an extra-base hit to a righty. With the right sequencing and the command he's already shown, he'll miss a few more bats and benefit from some better defensive support; those two pitches can get righties out for him.

Lefties are a different story. Morris has already allowed six extra-base hits to left-handed batters this season, and it's not a coincidence. The sweeper really doesn't work against them, so the converted starter has tried a kitchen-sink approach. His four-seamer is the main offering, but otherwise, he's mixing his sweeper, cutter, sinker, curveball and changeup in, trying to find something that will flummox opposite-handed batters. So far, that's been elusive. His walk rate is excellent against them, too, and he has 10 strikeouts in 44 plate appearances—but missing bats isn't enough to make up for how hard he's getting blistered when he fails to do so.

To fix that, the Twins and Morris need to find a third pitch that works for him—or, rather, a second truly functional offering against lefties. It's not going to be the current version of his changeup. He kills spin relatively well on that pitch, but again, most pitchers struggle to generate depth on a changeup from that high arm slot—and Morris is no exception. His change has a decent amount of run, relative to his four-seamer, but it comes from noticeably lowering his arm angle. There's a decent velocity gap (around 10 MPH), but that's partially because he doesn't use the same arm speed on the changeup as on the fastball. Worst of all, he can't get to the bottom of the zone or below with it; the pitch hangs in hittable regions.

Right now, Morris uses a version of a circle-change grip. That's ill-suited to his motor preference and to his arm angle. The team does have a ready-made model Morris can emulate in the pursuit of a better fit, though: Taj Bradley. Like Morris, Bradley throws from an exceptionally high arm angle. His splitter has been the key to his success this season. One path forward is to have Morris try a splitter instead of this unusable changeup.

Another option is his unique cutter. The spin direction and movement on his cutter make Morris very unusual. His cutter has a good mix of carry and glove-side movement, and it's something hitters hardly ever see from this arm slot. Guys who achieve that shape on the cutter tend to have much lower arm angles and less ride on their four-seamers. The one guy who matches Morris well, in terms of spin direction and actual movement direction from such a high angle, is Guardians right-hander Tanner Bibee, but his has a bit more depth and acts as his main breaking ball. Morris's could best be used another way. Its spin makes it easy to distinguish from his four-seamer early, but it moves deceptively after that. He could use the cutter to force lefties to cover the inner half and be more defensive, the better to set them up for a four-seamer that they'd then be less likely to hit hard. His curveball (so far, not especially polished) could factor in, too, as the pitch the hitter chases because they're locked in on the four-seamer and cutter and the curve looks enough like the four-seamer to earn the bad swing.

Morris is learning on the fly, not only because he had a change in role sooner than the team initially envisioned but because injuries have interrupted his development since the team selected him in the 4th round in 2022. He isn't yet dominating hitters, though he's been able to work out of some jams and did a marvelous job to strand two Brewers runners in the top of the 7th inning Sunday. The sheer stuff will be good enough to make him a high-leverage arm, but Morris and the Twins have to make a few more adjustments first. It might mean letting go of the idea that he will ever be a big-league starter—but that's the right choice for the player and the team, right now.

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[thelanges5]

Better late than never, but these are the types of moves they should’ve been making after the fire sale. Get some young guys up and start getting them used to a BP role. I like what I’ve seen from Morris so far.

[amjgt]

9 minutes ago, thelanges5 said:

Better late than never, but these are the types of moves they should’ve been making after the fire sale. Get some young guys up and start getting them used to a BP role. I like what I’ve seen from Morris so far.

I'm actually pretty OK with how they've treated Morris over the last 10 months.

Late 2025 - Stayed as a starter at AAA
Very Early 2026 - Stayed as a starter at AAA
MLB Debut weeks - Worked in low leverage over multiple innings
MLB Now - Ramped up in terms of leverage, dialed back to around 1 inning at a time, and started to go back-to-back.

[jorgenswest]

This seems like an argument why he should be a reliever. Starters need to be very solid against the opposite side batter. The line up will be stacked with them. Does “giving up the idea” mean he is no longer working on it since he is in the majors and it is harder to work on a new pitch? Doesn’t findings that pitch against lefties also help him if he returns to starting?

[DataNerd]

I'm not too worried about L/R splits.  He has never had huge splits in the minors, generally being somewhat better against RHH than LHH which is normal but not egregious.  Neither the changeup or the curve is an average pitch, but the fastball should be good enough (especially if he adds a bit to it as he's only 24) to get lefties at an acceptable rate.  It would be great if the changeup develops and he can become a starter, but until he gets that done the pen is his role.

[jmlease1]

For Morris, I suspect tinkering right now will be more about his pitch mix than the shape and design of any of his pitches? What does he throw and who does he throw it to? And I think that's fine for midseason bullpen adjustments, especially if the fastball is playing up.

developing a splitter seems to make some sense over his current changeup, but that will likely be more of an off-season development. As a second option against LH right now the cutter might make more sense to play around with, but I expect them to be playing around with his mix a fair amount as they determine what plays best for him in more single-inning outings.

regardless, I think his bullpen development is a good sign. They need to find at least one more under the age of 30...

[mark allen]

I like that he is up in the majors, butt still want them to consider his long term to be a starter. Things might change a bunch after the trade deadline and then I hope they will give him a chance to start. I do think he will end up being the closer of choice as the season progresses, if somehow we can make a run, and keep all the starters in place. 

[mark allen]

I like that he is up in the majors, butt still want them to consider his long term to be a starter. Things might change a bunch after the trade deadline and then I hope they will give him a chance to start. I do think he will end up being the closer of choice as the season progresses, if somehow we can make a run, and keep all the starters in place. 

[mark allen]

I like that he is up in the majors, butt still want them to consider his long term to be a starter. Things might change a bunch after the trade deadline and then I hope they will give him a chance to start. I do think he will end up being the closer of choice as the season progresses, if somehow we can make a run, and keep all the starters in place. 

[mark allen]

I like that he is up in the majors, butt still want them to consider his long term to be a starter. Things might change a bunch after the trade deadline and then I hope they will give him a chance to start. I do think he will end up being the closer of choice as the season progresses, if somehow we can make a run, and keep all the starters in place. 

[Linus]

Perhaps he should try the good old fashioned overhand curveball. The 12-6 Jim Palmer style. Might be effective because nobody throws it anymore. 

[Matthew Trueblood]

2 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

This seems like an argument why he should be a reliever. Starters need to be very solid against the opposite side batter. The line up will be stacked with them. Does “giving up the idea” mean he is no longer working on it since he is in the majors and it is harder to work on a new pitch? Doesn’t findings that pitch against lefties also help him if he returns to starting?

That's a fair question. For my money, he's never gonna work as a starter. He doesn't have a good way out of the 'dead zone', in terms of fastball movement, and he can only throw hard enough to make up for that when working in short bursts. That, rather than the absence of a reliable weapon against lefties, disqualifies him as a solid starter. Show me that he can sit 95-96 and touch higher even as a starter, without getting hurt, and I'm open to moving him back, but I think hoping that turns out to be the case would be deleterious wishcasting.

[Matthew Trueblood]

2 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

This seems like an argument why he should be a reliever. Starters need to be very solid against the opposite side batter. The line up will be stacked with them. Does “giving up the idea” mean he is no longer working on it since he is in the majors and it is harder to work on a new pitch? Doesn’t findings that pitch against lefties also help him if he returns to starting?

That's a fair question. For my money, he's never gonna work as a starter. He doesn't have a good way out of the 'dead zone', in terms of fastball movement, and he can only throw hard enough to make up for that when working in short bursts. That, rather than the absence of a reliable weapon against lefties, disqualifies him as a solid starter. Show me that he can sit 95-96 and touch higher even as a starter, without getting hurt, and I'm open to moving him back, but I think hoping that turns out to be the case would be deleterious wishcasting.

[Matthew Trueblood]

8 minutes ago, Linus said:

Perhaps he should try the good old fashioned overhand curveball. The 12-6 Jim Palmer style. Might be effective because nobody throws it anymore. 

Lots of people throw it! And Morris does throw a curve, but I don't think he has quite the feel for spin to make it work in the long run. Hasn't shown good command of it, and hitters are a lot better than they were in Palmer's day.

[Matthew Trueblood]

8 minutes ago, Linus said:

Perhaps he should try the good old fashioned overhand curveball. The 12-6 Jim Palmer style. Might be effective because nobody throws it anymore. 

Lots of people throw it! And Morris does throw a curve, but I don't think he has quite the feel for spin to make it work in the long run. Hasn't shown good command of it, and hitters are a lot better than they were in Palmer's day.