Slight Cracks Are Forming In Adrian Morejon's Armor

[Randy Holt]

While Mason Miller gets the attention out of the San Diego Padres bullpen as baseball's top reliever, the team has also boasted, arguably, the No. 2 man in relief in Adrian Morejon. 

Morejon's success is the continued progression of three consecutive years pitching in leverage for the Padres. What began as a breakout 2024 continued to the tune of a 2.08 ERA and an All-Star appearance last season. This year, Morejon has driven up the strikeout rate to a career-high (29.7 percent) and carries a gaudy 59.6 groundball rate. Courtesy of his sinker-changeup-slider combo, Morejon's continued dominance has his percentile chart looking extraordinary: 

Now that we have the good end of the spectrum out of the way, let's talk about some concerns that have begun to emerge at this late stage of the season. 

Morejon is coming up on a career-high in terms of his volume of appearances; his 69 leaves him on pace to at least match last year's 75. However, he's already exceeded his career mark for innings, with 79.2 passing up last year's number by three with another three-ish weeks to go in the year. That's a number of appearances exceeding three outs for a pitcher so crucial to the long-term gains of the team, as far as postseason prospects go. 

That's a lot of volume in consecutive seasons for a relief pitcher. Generally, that's something you'd prefer to avoid in order to stave off any kind of regression in performance. To date, Morejon has been able to effectively navigate such volume. However, Sunday afternoon's outing against the New York Yankees was an indication, of which there have been a recent smattering, that the workload could be catching up with him. 

Entering with a 4-0 lead in the eighth inning, Morejon allowed three hits and a walk that culminated in three runs (two earned). That Luis Campusano was able to throw out a baserunner at second base with one out at least put Morejon in a situation where he was back to two outs with the bases empty before handing the ball to Miller for the ninth. No harm done in the grand scheme. However, that type of tumultuous outing is starting to manifest a bit more often.

On September 1, Morejon worked 0.2 innings, walked two and allowed two hits, resulting in a pair of earned runs in a game the team lost 4-3. On August 29th, he faced five batters after allowing a hit and a walk in his inning of work. Between August 19th and September 6, Morejon had a 4.15 ERA (last among the team's qualifying relievers) and a 13.5 percent walk rate (highest among the team's qualifying relievers). Those are the types of things that are at least indicative of cracks. 

However, we're not on full-blown Morejon watch quite yet. The walk number is the most concerning element; Morejon hasn't exceeded 11 percent in an individual month, and he's gotten things under control in his past few outings. However, between the continued display of strikeouts (29.7 percent), huge groundball numbers (60.0 percent), and velocity that is actually increasing (97.1 in September is his highest in an individual month), now isn't the time to worry. Especially when his xERA is still barely scratching above two.

So it's something to monitor, especially on the command side, but we are otherwise continuing to view Adrian Morejon as every bit the arm he's been purported to be since 2024.

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