As many of you know, I spent a lot of the offseason and Spring Training making sure everyone knew how little faith I had in both Arthur Rhodes and Brandon Morrow.  The main arguments were that Rhodes didn’t have the velocity on his fastball and break on his slider that he needs to be successful, and Morrow still didn’t have the control to be a consistently effective Major League pitcher.

Well, we’re nearing the conclusion of 2008’s first month of baseball and I’m ready to admit I was wrong… about one of them.

Arthur Rhodes has really impressed me.  Yes, he’s only been in a handful of ballgames, but he’s showing that he’s fully recovered from Tommy John surgery and has gained significant arm strength in the short time since Spring Training.  The one third of an inning Rhodes pitched tonight, coupled with a few other decent outings finally have me ready to admit for the first time that he could truly be an effective pitcher this season.

It wasn’t just that he struck out Ryan Sweeney with the bases loaded.  Rhodes’ fastball was topping out around 93 MPH and his breaking ball was much sharper than it was in Spring Training.  He is certainly showing glimpses of the Diamond Studded Arthur we remember from the 2001 and 2002 seasons.  Is he going to be that dominant?  Probably not, but I suspect he’ll be much more effective than I would have predicted in March.  Rhodes could prove to be an important asset to this ballclub considering Eric O’Flaherty’s early season struggles.

All that said, I’m not 100% on the bandwagon, but I think he can help the Mariners more than he hurts them.

Brandon Morrow, on the other hand, hasn’t convinced me that he should be in the Major Leagues.  His numbers are deceiving in this case.  Here is what I wrote during Morrow’s final Spring Training appearance in San Francisco:

Morrow is really wild out there, walking Lewis and Durham back-to-back. Make that 3 batters straight as he has given out another free pass to Randy Winn. With three on and no outs Morrow starts rearing back and throwing fastballs down the middle, getting Molina to pop up to center; Lewis tags and scores. Morrow is really looking like a one-dimensional pitcher with his only controllable pitch being his fastball. Luckily he was able to blow three of them by Aaron Rowand before registering another walk. 2 outs, one run in and two on. He continues throwing fastballs down the middle but gets away with it as Rich Aurilia flies out to right-center to retire the side.

I’m not very impressed with Morrow today. He seems healthy enough, hitting 96 on the radar gun, but he is having trouble controlling his pitches, especially his secondary stuff. I think Morrow will probably start the year in AAA, but more on that later.

A very similar thing happened in that Spring Training game that happened in tonight’s match.  In tonight’s game he started off well and was locating his pitches decently, but finally left a breaking ball up in the zone that Mike Sweeney launched into the left field seats.  After that point Morrow lost all command of his breaking pitches and started hucking fastballs all over the zone, but rarely where intended.  Just like that game in San Francisco, Morrow was able to get out of the inning by relying on an uncontrolled fastball that topped out at 98 MPH.

He can get guys out with pure heat, but how long does that last?  J.J. Putz is so successful because he can typically locate his high-90s fastball on both corners and at the knees, and he’s got a great splitter to go along with it.  Morrow doesn’t have a second out-pitch and never knows where his fastball is going, and if he leaves one in a hitter’s wheelhouse the balls going to go a long way.  If Frank Thomas’ at bat against Morrow came a decade earlier, that popup to Jose Lopez may have ended up in the right field seats.

As long as Morrow can remain relatively successful with his current way of doing things, what is going to make him change?  He needs to be in the minor leagues.

It’s an exhausted debate, but I think most fans agree that he should be starting in the minors so that he can be ready when the next spot opens up in the rotation.  It’s all been said before, but he’s going to have to perfect those secondary pitches of his to be able to get through a lineup multiple times.  The reason Morrow ended up in the bullpen in the first place was because Seattle was struggling to produce effective relievers heading into the 2007 season.  So now that they can afford to move Morrow back to the minors, why haven’t they?  Roy Corcoran was great in a small sample size with the Mariners and has a great track record to back him up, so why is he sitting in AAA right now? 

This Morrow situation is very frustrating to me and I could ramble on about it for pages, but I’ll try to stop here.  He can be exciting to watch, but there is no reason for him to be in the Major Leagues right now.  He’s a thrower, not a pitcher.