PEORIA, Ariz. — David Morgan may yet buy that Ford Bronco Raptor he’s been eyeing since becoming a big-leaguer, but the 26-year-old reliever is in no hurry to move on from the dark gray 2020 Toyota Tacoma that he purchased shortly after signing as an undrafted free agent.
“I like that little truck,” Morgan said with a smile. “I’m going to drive that thing for a while.”
He’s already driven it all over, from Southern California to Texas and Indiana and plenty of stops in between before arriving at the Peoria Sports Complex earlier this month for his first big-league camp.
That’s right.
A right-hander with a fastball that ranked higher than 92% of big-leaguers last year was so far off the radar last spring that pitching coach Ruben Niebla can’t help but use Morgan’s path as an example — from minor league spring training to a NL Wild Card Series roster in less than eight months — when addressing the horde of pitchers who’ve filed into camp as non-roster invitees this spring.
“Be conscious of it: This can happen very quickly,” Niebla said.
Mission Viejo’s David Morgan looks frustrated after striking out to end the fifth inning against Aliso Niguel during Mission Viejo’s 7-3 loss to Aliso Niguel in a South Coast League baseball game at Aliso Niguel High in Aliso Viejo on Wednesday, Mar. 14, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)
A switch to pitching
Morgan and that trusty Tacoma moved quickly once he picked a lane.
The San Diego native had been a highly-regarded infielder as he moved from Mission Viejo High School to Orange Coast College, but the 6-foot, 185-pound infielder did not boast power.
Morgan started throwing off the mound a bit after transferring to Hope International University and continued to dabble in pitching in the West Coast summer league in Portland, Ore.
By the time his new agent, Nik Lubisich, had a serious conversation with him about his future as a pitcher, he’d only thrown 19⅓ innings between the two stops and was armed with just a fastball. Morgan had been messing around with a curveball, but didn’t actually throw it until a workout at Petco Park a week before the draft.
The Padres saw enough to want him as a pitcher.
The deal that his hometown team offered — $125,000 as an undrafted free agent — seemed like an obvious sign.
“What the Padres had told me was nothing but good stuff,” Morgan said. “They were a little bit more bought in on me as a pitcher than the other teams were as a shortstop. So yeah, kind of made my decision really easy.”
The path forward was not.
Morgan admittedly began his career on the mound as a thrower, learning as he went. There have been good days — he had a 3.54 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 44⅔ innings at two A-ball stops in 2023. And there have certainly been bad days — he had a 5.45 ERA in 33⅔ innings after moving to Double-A San Antonio in 2024.
In the midst of one particularly frustrating stretch, Morgan met with Missions pitching coach Jeff Andrews.
“I had a couple tough outings in a row and he came to me and said, ‘Hey, what do you have for me?’” Morgan recalled. “And I felt kind of lost. I said, ‘No, what do you have for me?’ He kind of snapped on me and was like, ‘That’s not how this is going to work. That’s not how your career was going to work. Like, you need to be smart enough to come to me with something.’
“And he taught me a really valuable lesson in that understanding that this is my career, that I have to be the one who makes the necessary changes to be better.”
David Morgan #66 of the San Diego Padres reacts after striking out Ryan Mountcastle #6 of the Baltimore Orioles during the sixth inning at Petco Park on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025 in San Diego, CA. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Fast track
Morgan sat on that conversation for a bit before he came up with something. He’d settled into a consistent arm slot, but he was finally open to removing the high leg kick that he believed made him “athletic” on the mound.
The streamlined delivery made for a more direct path to the plate, allowing him better command of a high-90s heater.
The Padres thought enough of Morgan to send him to the Arizona Fall League after the 2024 season, but a 13-to-10 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 8⅔ innings (6.23 ERA) did not warrant an invitation to big-league camp.
Morgan seemed to flip a switch to start the 2025 season, striking 19 against one walk over 8⅔ innings and posting a 3.12 ERA for San Antonio. On April 27, Morgan earned a call-up directly from Double-A.
Morgan did not get into a game during that first cup of coffee, but he continued to fill up the zone with Triple-A El Paso. He earned a return trip to San Diego before the end of May.
This time, Morgan got into games.
The righty’s athleticism stood out to the Niebla. As the Padres’ pitching coach watched Morgan’s delivery over and over that first couple weeks, he noticed a squared-up release point that presented an opportunity to add a two-seamer. A slider and a curve had glove-side break, but a pitch with arm-side action would help get hitters off the four-seamer up in the zone.
So after Morgan allowed a run in his first inning of work in a blowout win over the Dodgers, Niebla asked him if he’d ever thrown a sinker or two-seamer. Morgan said he had a grip, but that he’d only ever really spiked that pitch while playing with it in spring training.
Niebla passed along a cue or two and asked Morgan to show the new pitch to Kiké Hernandez to start the next inning.
The longtime Dodgers utility man took the surprise pitch on the outside corner for a strike. The next sinker missed outside, but Hernandez fouled off the ensuing four-seamer at the top of the zone and swung through a curve to punch out, the start of a 26-outing run (1.44 ERA) that placed Morgan firmly in the Padres’ postseason plans.
“In Morgan’s case, it’s him being able to get not only get up to the big leagues and have success, it was the behavior, the mindset, the competitiveness,” Niebla said. “It’s these other things that really allow pitchers to be able to stay at the major league level and have success and know how to deal with failures. And that’s what one thing that he did really well. …
“That’s the kind of stuff that separates him from guys.”
The new two-seamer wasn’t a dominant offering, as hitters managed a .250 average off it, but it was enough of a wrinkle to have hitters managing a .185 batting average off his prized 97.5 mph four-seamer. Morgan’s curveball and slider were also tough pitches to hit; opponents put up .200 averages on each. With each outing, Morgan proved more and more trustworthy to a bullpen that lost Jason Adam to a quad injury for the final month of the season.
Morgan didn’t just make the postseason roster after a brief shutdown for a tired shoulder; he struck out two of the three batters he faced in the eighth inning of a tight Game 3 loss to the Cubs.
Peoria, AZ – February 18: David Morgan #66 of the San Diego Padres poses for a portrait on February 18, 2026 in Peoria, Arizona. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
‘I want to do it right’
Morgan said he spent last spring “fully selling out to finding a way to make it the big leagues.”
“Came into it pretty hot, kind of throwing my max velocity, trying to prove to these guys the stuff that I had,” he said. “Didn’t really have many expectations on me coming into it last year, because I’ve never really proven anything, so I just kind of came into it and was like, I got nothing to lose.”
Morgan should have his share of opportunities in 2026, in part because of what he did last year. While Adam is tracking toward possibly being ready for opening day following last year’s season-ending quadriceps injury, closer Robert Suarez departed to Atlanta as a free agent and Yuki Matsui’s early availability is in question after tweaking his groin.
There are leverage innings to be had and expectations to navigate for a team that expects its bullpen to lead the way.
And Morgan only knows one way forward: Pedal to the metal.
“I want to do it right,” he said. “It’s not something to run from or be afraid of. It’s dive into it and understand that when I was here last year, that was something that I wanted then, and if that’s something that comes my way now, I have to take advantage of it.
“But no nerves about it, no stress about it. Just throw the ball the way I did last year in a couple more leverage innings and take control of it.”