New O's pitcher Morton on joining club and possible role as leader/mentor

Even after making 30 or more starts the last six full seasons and even after having thrown over 2,100 big league innings, before the Orioles could sign him to a one-year contract, right-handed starting pitcher Charlie Morton had to decide if he wanted to sign with any team.

In his first interview with O’s reporters today, via a team Zoom call, he said this was not the first time he had pondered retirement. But he also explained that as last season ended, he seemed to want to keep going.

Morton, 41, went 8-10 with a 4.19 ERA for the Braves and now has signed a one-year deal for $15 million with the Orioles. Over the past two years, he’s thrown 328 2/3 innings to an ERA of 3.92 and a .248 batting average against with 24 quality starts.

“I think I’ve been debating that decision every offseason for the past four or five years frankly,” Morton told the media today. “It was definitely toward the end of last year. We were in a tight race for the Wild Card spot and I felt my year hadn’t gone as I hoped.

“I really wasn’t thinking about it a whole lot. I was thinking more about trying to take it all in because I thought that might be my last year.

“My last start, I remember walking off the field with this sinking feeling in my stomach. It just didn’t feel right. I’m sure a lot of guys, toward the end of their career, they think about retiring or shutting it down and you really want to walk off the last time and feel good about. I just didn’t 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. That had a large impact on the decision to play. But there is no guarantee you’ll feel good about it. No guarantee it ends how you want it to end.”

Now for Morton, who has made 33, 31, 30 and 30 starts the past four years, it is not ending yet.

“When the Orioles called, there were a couple of teams that called that I think would just work logistically for myself and my family,” said Morton, who lives in Florida near the O’s spring home and noted he has family in Richmond, Va., Raleigh, N.C., and Delaware.

“Then there is the team. The group of guys in that clubhouse that have done some special things. And a chance to be a part of that group. Getting to know the guys and the staff. The city of Baltimore, which I’ve loved playing when we’ve visited. They’re just a really talented group. Young and exciting.

“At the end of the day, after thinking about all that, my wife supports me, my kids support me, to give it a shot."

We will see how much Morton has left as he joins the 2025 rotation, but it’s certainly impressive he has pitched into his 40s. Since the 2017 season, he ranks fourth in the majors in strikeouts (1,417) and eighth in innings (1,232 2/3) while ranking 21^st in ERA at 3.64.

What is the key to the longevity?

“I think it’s complicated,” said Morton. “I look back 10 years to the last pitches I threw as a Pittsburgh Pirate as a sinkerballer and to know how much I have changed. How personally, professionally, physically I’ve changed. I’ve changed my delivery, I’ve changed my workouts. There have been times where I changed what I ate or just tried to be more cognizant of everything I was doing with my body. Whether that was my mechanics or my pitch mix. I’ve stayed relatively healthy the past seven or eight years.”

He has while noting that earlier in his career he had left and right hip procedures along with Tommy John surgery in 2012. And he said he thought after hamstring surgery in 2016 his career might be over.

But since then, he is eighth in the majors in innings pitched.

Morton certainly could be a leader and mentor for a young pitching staff. But he won’t force his opinions or anything on other players.

“When you get to know guys and they trust you and you can have those conversations, that is where the value is," he said. "I’m not sure that me walking into a clubhouse and from some kind of pedestal or somewhere I put myself from something I’ve experienced is a good way to look at. I don’t work that way – socially or professionally.

“My natural inclinations are to be caring and truly interested in getting to know people and from there forming relationships where there is trust.

“The best clubhouse guys I’ve been around, you call them glue guys for a reason. They can help transcend cultural differences, or age differences or experience-level differences. On a day-to-day basis, that is where the impact is made."

Coming tomorrow: Morton talks about his high strikeout totals since 2017 and how, at age 33 then, he sort of remade himself as a pitcher.