Charlie Morton 2025 Detroit Tigers
Morton — a 41-year-old right-hander in his 18th MLB season — registered a 7.09 ERA with 23 walks and 47 strikeouts across 39⅓ innings in nine starts after the Tigers acquired him from the Baltimore Orioles at the July 31 trade deadline, including an 11.65 ERA in his final five starts.
Five bad starts in a row convinced the Tigers to cut him.
“I met with Charlie off-site last night and had an incredible conversation with him, but I gave him the reality that this was the end here with the Tigers,” manager A.J. Hinch said Sunday, Sept. 21, before the series finale against the Atlanta Braves at Comerica Park. “I love the man, and he gave us what he could. We don’t have the time to sort it out over the next week as we push forward for more wins.”
In a corresponding move, the Tigers selected right-handed reliever Tanner Rainey from Triple-A Toledo.
Rainey, 32, posted a 2.66 ERA with 14 walks and 33 strikeouts across 23⅔ innings in 19 games (two starts) for the Mud Hens. In mid-July, the Tigers signed Rainey — an eight-year MLB veteran with nearly 200 innings — to a minor-league contract.
Once Morton was returned to the rotation on May 26, the rest of his time in Baltimore saw him pitch to the mid-to-back of the rotation results the Orioles were hoping for when they acquired him with a 3.88 ERA and 4.17 FIP across 11 starts and 60 1/3 innings of work. In that time, he struck out 22.7% of his opponents and walked 8.9%. Those numbers were serviceable enough that the Tigers decided to bet on Morton’s recent performance and history of mid-rotation success, including his 3.87 ERA in four years with Atlanta.
It’s a bet that did not pay off. While Morton threw six innings of one-run ball during his first start as a Tiger and pitched to a perfectly solid 3.63 ERA with a 3.77 FIP across his first four outings (despite a clunker against the Angels in his first start at Comerica Park), the wheels came off with a five-run outing against the Athletics in West Sacramento at the end of August. Things only got worse in September, as he pitched to a 12.75 ERA across four starts with more walks (13) than strikeouts (11) while averaging just three innings per start. Morton’s struggles reached a crescendo on Friday, when he surrendered six runs on five hits and two walks while striking out two in 1 1/3 innings of work against his former teammates with the Braves.
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