8:55am: There are three opt-out dates in Morel’s contract, reports ESPN’s Jorge Castillo. The first of those three will come on July 15.
8:26am: The Mets have agreed to a minor league deal with infielder Christopher Morel, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. The ISE client, who was released by the Marlins a few days ago, will head to Triple-A Syracuse for the time being. He has multiple opt-out dates available on the new contract, which is common on minor league deals for veteran players of this nature.
Morel just turned 27 last week. He’s tallied more than four years of major league service dating back to his 2022 debut with the Cubs, but he’s never managed to match the power production he showed in his first couple seasons with Chicago. From 2022-23, Morel tallied 854 plate appearances and batted .241/.311/.471 with 42 homers but a 31.6% strikeout rate. He was traded from the Cubs to the Rays in 2024’s Isaac Paredes swap — a deal that looks to have worked out far better for the Cubs than it did for Tampa Bay. (Paredes didn’t hit in a half season with the Cubs but was traded to the Astros as part of the subsequent offseason’s Kyle Tucker deal.)
Since that two-year run of impressive slugging in ’22-’23, Morel has seen his power output dwindle. He’s slashed only .201/.283/.351 in 989 plate appearances since Opening Day 2024, and his strikeout woes have ramped up considerably since last year. He fanned in just shy of 36% of his plate appearances with the Rays, who non-tendered him this past November. Morel managed to find a big league deal with the Marlins, who paid him a modest $2MM guarantee. Miami tried Morel at first base, but he only picked up 73 plate appearances scattered around a monthlong IL stint for an oblique strain. In that time, he produced just a .162/.219/.206 line with a gargantuan 38.4% strikeout rate.
The first base experiment in Miami didn’t go particularly well. He’s now played every position on the diamond other than catcher but hasn’t graded out well defensively anywhere. He’s spent the most time at third base, in left field and at second base. Metrics like Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average peg him only slightly below-average at second base (in 577 innings); he grades out well below average at every other spot he’s logged some notable time.
Of course, none of that will matter if Morel can’t hit better than he has across the past three seasons. He’s always had a free-swinging, low-contact approach at the plate, which makes it all the more critical that he taps into his considerable raw power. That hasn’t happened in recent seasons, and Morel apparently didn’t find a club willing to place him on the 40-man roster this time around. He’ll try to get his swing back on track in Syracuse for now, but Morel’s career 65.6% contact rate ranks last among the 200 major league hitters with at least 1500 plate appearances since his debut, so he’ll have his work cut out for him.
If Morel can both hit his way back to the majors and continue to produce at the big league level, there’s some long-term control still available to the Mets. Morel crossed the four-year service threshold with the Marlins earlier this season. He’d be controllable for two more years via arbitration.