{"id":162019,"date":"2025-09-22T22:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T22:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162019\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T22:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T22:55:08","slug":"braves-sign-charlie-morton-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162019\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Sign Charlie Morton – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves have reunited with old friend Charlie Morton<\/a>. They signed him to a major league deal today. He had been designated for assignment by the Tigers but evidently cleared waivers and became a free agent. Atlanta optioned right-hander Jhancarlos Lara<\/a> and designated righty Carson Ragsdale<\/a> for assignment as corresponding moves. Manager Brian Snitker previously shared the news with Mark Bowman of MLB.com<\/a>, Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/a> and David O\u2019Brien of The Athletic<\/a>. Bowman suggests it\u2019s possible the club has brought Morton aboard to retire as a Brave. It\u2019s undetermined whether he will pitch for the club in the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Morton, 41, hasn\u2019t said that he is retiring but it wouldn\u2019t be a shock if that was his plan. He has flirted with the possibility for years now. \u201cIt could be this year, next year, but I\u2019m not going to keep playing for a long time,\u201d he said way back in April of 2018<\/a>. \u201cI can promise you that. I\u2019m not going to keep playing four, five, six, seven more years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, that was over seven years ago now. Since then, Morton has seemingly made a conscious choice to not overly commit to anything. He has repeatedly signed a series of short-term deals, apparently content to keep playing as long as he stayed effective.<\/p>\n

After a so-so 2024 season in which he posted a 4.19 earned run average, he decided to give it another go in 2025. He signed a one-year, $15MM deal with the Orioles. \u201cI remember walking off the field and just this like sinking feeling in my stomach \u2014 it just didn\u2019t feel right,\u201d Morton said<\/a> shortly after signing with the O\u2019s. \u201cI\u2019m sure a lot of guys toward the end of their careers, they think about retiring, shutting it down, and you really want to walk off the field the last time and feel good about it. And a lot of guys don\u2019t get that opportunity. I just didn\u2019t feel good about it. I felt like I could have done better. I felt like I still had the tools to be a good pitcher in the big leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this season has been even more challenging than the last one. He posted a 10.89 ERA through five starts and got moved to the bullpen before the end of April. He posted some decent results working in relief and got his rotation spot back, then performed pretty well in the summer. He had a 3.88 ERA in 11 starts from late May to the trade deadline, which gave him enough value for the Orioles to trade him and some cash to the Tigers for minor league lefty Micah Ashman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His first four starts with Detroit were fine, as he put up a 3.63 ERA in those, but things took a disastrous turn from there. He didn\u2019t go more than four innings in any of his final four outings as a Tiger. He seemed to completely lose the zone, walking 19.7% of batters faced in those four games with a 12.75 ERA in that span. In his final outing as a Tiger, he didn\u2019t make it out of the second inning and was booed off the field by a frustrated fan base as the club\u2019s recent skid has become disastrous. The Tigers, desperately trying to avoid a situation where they miss the playoffs, cut him loose.<\/p>\n

Atlanta doesn\u2019t have any use for Morton in a competitive sense. Their season was a lost cause long ago and they are officially eliminated from making the playoffs this year. Bringing Morton aboard is a sentimental choice, one that allows him to finish the season with a club that he had a lot of success with.<\/p>\n

Morton was originally drafted by Atlanta back in 2002 and debuted for them in 2008. From there, he bounced around, spending many years with the Pirates, Astros and Rays. He returned to Atlanta in 2021 and stayed there through 2024. In those four recent seasons with Atlanta, he made at least 30 starts in each one. Overall, he gave the club 686 1\/3 innings with a 3.87 ERA.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, it\u2019s unclear if Morton is actually retiring or if he will take the mound in the final week of the season. But it seems possible that he is planning on heading towards the sunset. If that\u2019s the case and he wants to climb the hill one last time, perhaps he can engineer a better final act than his most recent appearance as a Tiger.<\/p>\n

Ragsdale, 27, was just claimed off waivers from the Orioles a few days ago. He was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett and made one appearance for the Stripers. Since the trade deadline has long passed, he\u2019ll be back on waivers in the coming days.<\/p>\n

His minor league track record is still quite small, consisting of just one appearance for the O\u2019s this year wherein he allowed eight earned runs in three innings. His minor league work also hasn\u2019t been great this year, with a 5.22 ERA in 89 2\/3 innings, but he was better a year ago. In 2024, he logged 120 2\/3 innings on the farm with a 4.18 ERA, 29.1% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t have three years of big league service time nor a previous career outright. That means he does not have the right to reject outright assignments in favor of electing free agency. He also doesn\u2019t have seven years of minor league experience, meaning he shouldn\u2019t be eligible for minor league free agency at season\u2019s end either.<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy of Jim Rassol, Dale Zanine, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves have reunited with old friend Charlie Morton. They signed him to a major league deal today.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,107172,17857,107173,591,85],"class_list":["post-162019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carson-ragsdale","tag-charlie-morton","tag-jhancarlos-lara","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}