Pittsburgh Pirates: Change of Scenery Trade Deadline Targets

LHP Adrian Morejon

It wasn’t that long ago that Adrian Morejon was one of baseball’s youngest pitchers. He made his debut back in 2019 in his age-20 campaign but has yet to pitch even 20 innings in a single season. He has just 37.2 innings under his belt in total.

Injuries and the acquisitions of Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Adrian Martinez, Mike Clevinger, and Sean Manea have set back the former first-round pick. The Padres have essentially built a brand new rotation through free agency and trades since Morejon made his debut.

It’s not that Morejon hasn’t been a good pitcher; it’s that he’s been injured. The last time he pitched more than 50 innings in a single season was in 2018. Throughout his minor league career, he has a quality 26.7% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate. When he’s healthy, he can fire mid-90s fastballs through the zone with a knee-buckling change-up, along with a quality curveball.

Morejon is back in action and has 13.1 innings pitched in the minors this year. It’s a small sample size, but he has 20 strikeouts, has allowed just two to reach on walks, and has given up a total of nine hits, only one of which is a home run.

Like we talked about earlier with Ryan Weathers, the Padres have said before they’re willing to deal from their pitching depth and are looking to shed some payroll. Getting Morejon in a deal where the Pirates don’t have to take on a long-term liability like Hosmer would be the most ideal scenario. Like with Weathers, a Pomeranz-plus-Morejon or Lamet-plus-Morejon would be something to at least consider.