Crooked Pitch

With a 6.39 ERA last season in five starts for the Rockies, Franklin Morales didn’t show too much to support his top pitching prospect billing. The 23-year-old lefty did finish his Venezuelan Winter League stint strongly with a 10 strikeout performance and looks towards Spring Training to improve on his command.

His winter numbers showed that he’s making strides in fixing command issues that plagued him in 2008. In his five starts in 2008, Morales posted 0.53 K/9 and 6.04 BB/9 ratios in 25.1 innings of work. His Venezuelan numbers are much better. In 46.1 innings of winter work he’s working with a 6.45 K/9 and a 2.34 BB/9 ratio. In nine winter starts Morales is 3-3 with a 3.11 ERA. He’s struck out 33 and walked 12.

If Morales can keep this positive trend going in Spring Training, expect him to compete for a rotation spot. He’s still got loads of upside. Fantasy GM’s need to watch him carefully.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Fall & Winter Leagues, Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.