Braves Sign Charlie Morton
The Braves have reunited with old friend Charlie Morton. They signed him to a major league deal today. He had been designated for assignment by the Tigers but evidently cleared waivers and became a free agent. Atlanta optioned right-hander Jhancarlos Lara and designated righty Carson Ragsdale for assignment as corresponding moves. Manager Brian Snitker previously shared the news with Mark Bowman of MLB.com, Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and David O’Brien of The Athletic. Bowman suggests it’s possible the club has brought Morton aboard to retire as a Brave. It’s undetermined whether he will pitch for the club in the remainder of the season.
Morton, 41, hasn’t said that he is retiring but it wouldn’t be a shock if that was his plan. He has flirted with the possibility for years now. “It could be this year, next year, but I’m not going to keep playing for a long time,” he said way back in April of 2018. “I can promise you that. I’m not going to keep playing four, five, six, seven more years.”
Of course, that was over seven years ago now. Since then, Morton has seemingly made a conscious choice to not overly commit to anything. He has repeatedly signed a series of short-term deals, apparently content to keep playing as long as he stayed effective.
After a so-so 2024 season in which he posted a 4.19 earned run average, he decided to give it another go in 2025. He signed a one-year, $15MM deal with the Orioles. “I remember walking off the field and just this like sinking feeling in my stomach — it just didn’t feel right,” Morton said shortly after signing with the O’s. “I’m sure a lot of guys toward the end of their careers, they think about retiring, shutting it down, and you really want to walk off the field the last time and feel good about it. And a lot of guys don’t get that opportunity. 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.”
Unfortunately, this season has been even more challenging than the last one. He posted a 10.89 ERA through five starts and got moved to the bullpen before the end of April. He posted some decent results working in relief and got his rotation spot back, then performed pretty well in the summer. He had a 3.88 ERA in 11 starts from late May to the trade deadline, which gave him enough value for the Orioles to trade him and some cash to the Tigers for minor league lefty Micah Ashman.
His first four starts with Detroit were fine, as he put up a 3.63 ERA in those, but things took a disastrous turn from there. He didn’t go more than four innings in any of his final four outings as a Tiger. He seemed to completely lose the zone, walking 19.7% of batters faced in those four games with a 12.75 ERA in that span. In his final outing as a Tiger, he didn’t make it out of the second inning and was booed off the field by a frustrated fan base as the club’s recent skid has become disastrous. The Tigers, desperately trying to avoid a situation where they miss the playoffs, cut him loose.
Atlanta doesn’t have any use for Morton in a competitive sense. Their season was a lost cause long ago and they are officially eliminated from making the playoffs this year. Bringing Morton aboard is a sentimental choice, one that allows him to finish the season with a club that he had a lot of success with.
Morton was originally drafted by Atlanta back in 2002 and debuted for them in 2008. From there, he bounced around, spending many years with the Pirates, Astros and Rays. He returned to Atlanta in 2021 and stayed there through 2024. In those four recent seasons with Atlanta, he made at least 30 starts in each one. Overall, he gave the club 686 1/3 innings with a 3.87 ERA.
As mentioned, it’s unclear if Morton is actually retiring or if he will take the mound in the final week of the season. But it seems possible that he is planning on heading towards the sunset. If that’s the case and he wants to climb the hill one last time, perhaps he can engineer a better final act than his most recent appearance as a Tiger.
Ragsdale, 27, was just claimed off waivers from the Orioles a few days ago. He was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett and made one appearance for the Stripers. Since the trade deadline has long passed, he’ll be back on waivers in the coming days.
His minor league track record is still quite small, consisting of just one appearance for the O’s this year wherein he allowed eight earned runs in three innings. His minor league work also hasn’t been great this year, with a 5.22 ERA in 89 2/3 innings, but he was better a year ago. In 2024, he logged 120 2/3 innings on the farm with a 4.18 ERA, 29.1% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate.
He doesn’t have three years of big league service time nor a previous career outright. That means he does not have the right to reject outright assignments in favor of electing free agency. He also doesn’t have seven years of minor league experience, meaning he shouldn’t be eligible for minor league free agency at season’s end either.
Photos courtesy of Jim Rassol, Dale Zanine, Imagn Images
Braves Select Jhancarlos Lara, Designate Jonathan Ornelas
The Braves announced Friday that they’ve selected the contract of righty Jhancarlos Lara from Triple-A Gwinnett and designated infielder Jonathan Ornelas for assignment to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Right-hander Dane Dunning was optioned to Gwinnett to clear a spot on the active roster.
Lara, 22, has posted ugly minor league numbers this year but continues to intrigue scouts due to the quality of his raw stuff. He’s sitting 98.5 mph with his four-seamer in Triple-A and couples the pitch with a slider/cutter that ranges from the upper-80s to low-90s and generates plenty of whiffs. As is so often the case with power arms of this nature, command is an ongoing struggle for the 6’3″, 195-pound Lara.
In 68 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this season, Lara has yielded a gruesome 7.73 earned run average. He’s actually been better at the higher of those two levels, working to a moderately better 6.53 ERA. Lara fanned over one-third of his opponents in Gwinnett but has issued walks at a brutal 19.8% clip at each of this year’s minor league stops.
Despite the poor command, Lara still sits 20th among Braves prospects at Baseball America, 21st at MLB.com and 25th at FanGraphs. Atlanta would’ve had to add him to the 40-man roster this offseason to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft anyhow, so he’ll get an early promotion to the majors and get his first taste of big league opposition. Lara is, obviously, still very much a work in progress, but now that he’s on the 40-man roster, the Braves have at least three years to coax even passable command out of him. He’ll head into the 2026 season with a full slate of three minor league option years available to the major league club.
The 25-year-old Ornelas came to the Braves in a cash swap with the Rangers back in May. He’d been designated for assignment in Texas as well. The righty-swinging utilityman went 2-for-4 with a pair of singles in his only two games with Atlanta. He’s spent the rest of his time since that May trade down in Gwinnett, where he’s slashed .193/.279/.325 in 333 trips to the plate.
Ornelas is just 11-for-53 in a tiny sample of 58 big league plate appearances, leading to an overall .208/.263/.245 batting line in the majors. He posted decent numbers in the lower minors but has struggled each year since being bumped to Triple-A. However, he’s a plus runner who can play quality defense at shortstop, third base and second base — and he’s gotten some reps in center field over the past few seasons as well.
Now that he’s been designated for assignment, Ornelas will head to outright waivers or be released. He’s in his final minor league option year, which will hurt his chances of being picked up by another club, as he’d need to break camp on the big league roster next spring or else be designated for assignment once again.