{"id":437967,"date":"2026-01-30T02:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T02:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/437967\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T02:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T02:06:07","slug":"royals-sign-eli-morgan-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/437967\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Sign Eli Morgan To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Royals announced they\u2019ve signed reliever\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/morgael01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Eli Morgan<\/a> to a minor league deal. The CAA client receives a non-roster invite to big league Spring Training. Morgan had been non-tendered by the Cubs in November.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan returns to the AL Central, where he has spent the majority of his career with Cleveland. He pitched parts of four seasons there, starting 18 games as a rookie before moving to the bullpen. Morgan was a solid middle reliever between 2022-24. He combined for 176 innings of 3.27 ERA ball while striking out more than a quarter of opponents. The righty held batters to a .224\/.279\/.384 slash line and turned in a sub-2.00 earned run average across 32 appearances in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The quality of the raw stuff never really lined up with the strong results. Teams generally look for big velocity and a plus breaking ball from their late-inning relievers. Morgan is a changeup and control specialist whose fastball sits around 92 miles per hour. He missed some time in \u201924 with elbow inflammation and even spent a month on optional assignment to Triple-A. His strikeout rate also dropped steadily over his final three seasons in Cleveland, falling from a career-high 28.1% mark down to 20.4% by his last year. The Guardians soured on him and dealt him to the Cubs for an A-ball outfielder (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=rosari001alf&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alfonsin Rosario<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The trade didn\u2019t pan out for Chicago. Morgan only pitched seven times as a Cub. He was hit hard, giving up 10 runs on 12 hits \u2014 including a trio of home runs \u2014 across 7 1\/3 innings. An elbow impingement cost him the majority of the season. Morgan\u2019s final MLB appearance came on April 14, and he was limited to 12 outings (mostly on a rehab assignment) in the minors.<\/p>\n<p>Kansas City has a strong pitching staff, but they\u2019ve made a few non-roster pickups in recent days. Morgan joins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nerishe01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">H\u00e9ctor Neris<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=sanchaa01,sanche002aar&amp;search=Aaron+Sanchez&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Aaron Sanchez<\/a> as veteran minor league signees this week. Sanchez may be rotation depth, while Morgan and Neris will try to push <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/langeal01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alex Lange<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lynchda02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Daniel Lynch IV<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcartja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">James McArthur<\/a> for a middle relief opportunity. Morgan still has a minor league option and could bounce between Kansas City and Triple-A Omaha if he wins a 40-man roster spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Royals announced they\u2019ve signed reliever\u00a0Eli Morgan to a minor league deal. The CAA client receives a non-roster&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[148095,363,99],"class_list":["post-437967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-eli-morgan","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}