=== Sir Paul "With A Little Luu-uuu-uuck" Dept. ===

Jason with a great read on Brandon Morrow at Prospect Insider.

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Q. Is it established that Morrow is a starter?

A. The debate is legitimate, as to whether Morrow will be a star or not and throw 1800 innings the next ten years. There are two reasonable sides to the debate as to what will happen, because nobody knows for sure what will happen.

In my view, there shouldn't be any debate as to whether to try it and see what happens.

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Q. What's the case against?

Here's one of Jason's scout-quotes, on the negative side:

"He'll never throw that well again, not that kind of breaking ball," one scout said the night of Morrow's masterpiece against the Bronx Bombers. "He's still Matt Clement to me, with a better fastball and worse everything else."

Heh!! :ah, man:

1. Pessimism on Morrow is reasonable.

2. I don't think I've ever seen a quote like this: he did it, but he never will again. Crazy-8 ball confirm that? I mean, what method do you use to forsee that a guy will stop doing what he just did?

3. I don't usually comp one pitcher to another when everything's different.

But it is entirely possible that Morrow's arm won't hold up to the heavy use. We don't know if any pitcher's arm will hold up to 600 innings the next three years, and there are reasons to believe that Morrow's is particularly vulnerable, such as his background and his rather-high elbow on the backstroke.

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=== Case For, Dept. ===

Q. What exactly IS the case for?

A. There are reasons to believe that Morrow's will hold up, too, starting with:

1) The 97 mph; the harder a pitcher throws, the more durable he is,

2) The ballerina-light CG control,

3) The smooth acceleration in his delivery,

4) The fact that he has "easy gas," maintaining high velo late in games

Here's one of Jason's quotes on the positive side of things:

"Considering that he threw what, four offspeed pitches all of last year, I think he's come a long way in a short time as a starter, and that bodes well... very well.

Yeah. Has aanybody noticed the rate at which Morrow has progressed? On several fronts?

And a quote as to the M's pitching rotation as a group:

"I absolutely believe in Brandon as a starting pitcher," said a rival club's advance scout. "He's going to bust a lot of maple, induce a ton of weak pop-ups and miss a dung load of bats with that stuff. His control is probably going to keep him from becoming the 90s version of Curt Schilling, but he's a piece you can build around. That's possibly the best starting rotation in the AL if they get some luck."

Think it was Sheehan who said something similar. It's very, very easy to imagine Felix, Erikkkk and Morrow and a Scorched-Earth American League. They could very feasibly do a 1-2-3 in K/9, the way that Sasaki, Nelson, and Rhodes used to do out of the 'pen.

Haven't done it yet; that's just stating the obvious. But I'm looking forward to watching them try.

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=== Great Minds Think Alike Dept. ===

D-O-V wasn't exactly "Leone For Third" last year, Morrow Variation, but it might almost have been.

In about three different places, we've see Jack Zduriencik quoted to the effect of Brandon Morrow being a starter. Can anybody get this Baker guy to ask Zduriencik to go into a little detail as to why he sees Morrow as a starting pitcher?

And the more so, since the Mariners immediately got with Heilman and told him to cool it on the rotation campaign. For Zduriencik to point East on Heilman, and march Morrow back to the rotation, was doubly kewl. You couldn't have given me a better Mariners holiday present.

I could get used to this Z guy.

Cheers,

Dr D