Look, let's get one thing straight: there are people whom you root for; every one on the current Mariner roster falls into this category for me. That's because the Mariners have been, are and always will be my team. This also includes names like Randy Johnson, even when he was pitching for Arizona, New York and San Francisco. It includes Derek Lowe. It includes Mike Cameron, prized center fielder who helped Seattle forget the pain of Griffey leaving us just by being awesome himself.

But then...then there are players for whom rooting is not enough. There are players that you idolize, to whom you ascribe fantastical powers--even in a slump, you want that man hitting because dammit, no matter what, he's your guy! These guys, you go to the stadium and you make posters, you buy their jerseys. And even if they're not the best guy on the team, you want their autograph. For me, this has been a fairly short list: Jay Buhner (even when he played in the same outfield as baseball god Ken Griffey, Jr.), Ichiro Suzuki, Kenji Johjima. Over the last three seasons, one name has taken this fervor to heights I haven't known since Mike Blowers was the M's third baseman. Brandon Morrow is that man.

I just want to get that out there: I am not a Brandon Morrow supporter. I am a Brandon Morrow fan. I have put my hope in his progression; I have seen his performance, his flashing moments of brilliance, and I want to believe that he will one day put it all together and be a name people mention in the same breath as Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke. I have a stuffed rabbit form Build-A-Bear decked out in a Mariners uniform. His name is Morrow. Brandon's first career start, against the Yankees, during which he no-hit the most formidable offensive line up in baseball for more than 7 innings? I was there. His second no-hit bid against the A's a year later? I wish I had been there, but I watched every inning with a giddy excitement thinking Finally! and anticipating the moment I could leap and tell everyone I told you! I told you! Morrow's awesome!.

So what I am about to type should be taken with that grain of salt. I know Morrow hasn't put it all together yet. On raw facts, on just watching, rationally speaking, he's crumbled as often as he's injected me with that maddening hope. But I don't care. I'm not a supporter. I'm a fan.

I hated the Brandon League-Brandon Morrow trade. Despite my fandom, I just want to throw out that the trade doesn't even sit well with me on a rational level.

I have bored so many people to death with baseball statistics that it probably just lets people glaze over it, but I want to go into that arena anyway. I want to compare Brandon Morrow straight up to Brandon League, and look at his statistical postings against similar players throughout baseball history. I want you to be a Brandon Morrow fan.

In 2007, Brandon made his major league debut as a reliever for the Seattle Mariners. He did this after being drafted in 2006 and throwing only 8 games in the minors--all below A-ball; he skipped AA and AAA completely--five of which were starts. His cumulative inning totals in those five starts/seven games? Sixteen. I say this not because Morrow wasn't good in the minors--for such a small sample size, he was pretty filthy: against 62 batters, Brandon struck out 17, walked 9; he gave up four runs and 10 hits. His WHIP was 1.188. His FIP was 3.28. His batting average against was a minuscule .189.

By comparison, Tim Lincecum (who was picked up right behind Morrow in the draft, the Mariners letting him slip), University of Washington product now pitching full time for the San Francisco Giants and owner two Cy Young Awards, pitched literally 4 times as much as Morrow in the minors--including time spent in AAA in 2007; he didn't make his big league debut until two months into the 2007 season. Moreover, he was used full-time as a starter. No relief nonsense. Ever.

And yet, for their early going you can look at these lines:

Pitcher A: 23-24 yrs old, 3.83 ERA, 7.6 H/9, 9.4 SO/9, 4.0 BB/9, 195 IP
Pitcher B: 22-24 yrs old, 3.96 ERA, 7.4 H/9, 9.3 SO/9, 5.8 BB/9, 197 IP

Pitcher A is Lincecum, Pitcher B is Morrow. These are their lines across the first 200-ish innings of their respective major league careers. Morrow's glaring flaw is apparent right away: way too many walks. Morrow's control issues hamstring his promise quite a bit. But the talent is all there. What's utterly bizarre in Morrow's case is the extra year of time to get to 197. That 197 is split across three years of MLB service, during which he threw 63.1, 64.2 and 69.2 innings respectively--some while relieving, some while starting.

Let's make this absolutely clear: Brandon Morrow's development was fracked by the Bill Bavasi front office. After throwing as a reliever in 2007, during which he posted a respectable 4.12 ERA (against a 4.19 FIP, whoa, talk about true talent level!), K'd 66 and surrendered 3 home runs to the 283 batters he faced, Brandon was cemented in the bullpen. This despite continued control issues that saw him walk 51 batters (yikes!).

Lincecum spent 4x as much time as Morrow in the minors, all as a starter, and has never worked out of the pen. The development of Morrow was fucked from the beginning.

As a junior in 2006, Morrow split time between starting and relieving and posted a 2.05 ERA across 92.2 innings in14 appearances. Lincecum posted a 1.94 ERA across 125.1 innings in 22 appearances as a pure starter. To put that into perspective, Morrow averaged 6.2 IP per appearance to Lincecum's 5.2, and posted an ERA only 0.1 points higher. For FIP: Morrow=3.45, Lincecum=2.60.

Should the Mariners have drafted Lincecum? That really comes down to your evaluation of talent at the college level, and quite honestly they're about a push based on production. To say Lincecum as a Mariner would be the same Lincecum as a Giant is results-based, not process-based. And the thing is, do you really think Bavasi would have given Lincecum 60+ innings in the minors and brought him up as a pure starter when he didn't do the same for Morrow? The whole process is different.

Aside from the walks issues (control), Morrow and Lincecum are about a push on pure talent. Hell, they're college walks numbers prove it--Lincecum walked 4.5/9 IP in his junior year. Morrow walked 3.65/9 IP in the same span. Morrow has raised his college walk rate in the majors; Lincecum has dropped his. Methinks it's got a lot to do with coaching and development.

His 2008 campaign was reassuringly dominant. Before being sent to Tacoma in August, Morrow's relief pitching yielded 11.5 K/9, 0.9 WHIP, 3.63 FIP in 36.2 IP. The FIP should have been a red flag, as it indicated Morrow's continued control issues in spite of his 1.47 ERA--he walked 15 batters at a clip of 3.68 for every nine innings he pitched. This puts him somewhere between current Andy Pettite (old, past his prime) and the bad version of Barry Zito (old, past his prime). Of 77 qualified pitchers in 2009, 66 had lower BB/9 than Morrow did in 2008. Ugh.

But Morrow was sent to Tacoma to become a starter. Oh, it was a joyous moment for me. So many people were excited by it. This is what Morrow was drafted for--he was our Tim Lincecum, and wasn't Lincecum on his way to winning his first Cy Young in San Francisco? Morrow's time in Tacoma was less than thrilling. He appeared in six games and made five starts. He only threw a cumulative total of 23.1 innings. His ERA at the end of it was 5.01 (respectably, at least, it was against an FIP of 3.50). But 20 innings over 5 starts is less than four per start. That's not big league ready. But the season for AAA ends before the big league season is over, so it's time to bring Morrow up anyway.

And there it was. His big league debut as a starter. He could have faced anybody. The Royals. The A's. Some team with an anemic offense and an empty Safeco Field devoid of anything resembling pressure. But he didn't. He faced the New York Yankees. Stepping onto that mound wasn't friendly. How could it be? Half the stadium during that dismal season (the Mariners lost over 100 games with a payroll greater than 100 million, the first team in MLB history to do that) was full of Yankee fans rooting for him to fail. I figured he'd throw maybe 5 innings, really get his feet wet at the big league level and then call it good.

Brandon Morrow was not there to throw 5 innings. Brandon Morrow came to play baseball. Correction: Brandon Morrow came to make the New York Yankees look like a bunch of little leaguers. He threw 7 innings without giving up a hit. Sure, he walked three, but he made up for it every time: 8 strikeouts. Of the 106 pitches he threw that night, 72 were strikes. Of the 15 non-strike outs he recorded, seven never left the infield. I remember watching in something close to awe when A-Rod almost did a pirouette flailing helplessly at...wait, what the hell, that wasn't a fast ball! Brandon Morrow throws 97, and that thing went 83 with enough bend to to make Beckham jealous. That was one sick curve ball! After recording 2 outs in the 8th, Morrow gave up a double to a pinch hitter, ending a bid to be immortalized in Seattle's collective memory. In post game interviews, Derek Jeter would call Morrow's stuff "electric", and claim that when you run into a pitcher who's on his game like that, there's not much you can do.

The Brandon Morrow era had arrived in Seattle. Or so we thought.

The rest of the season wasn't so kind to Brandon. Over the last 4 starts of the season, Morrow was still promising, but not quite as refined. Against the Angels, Morrow went 5 innings and gave up 2 runs on five hits. Not bad, really, until you considered that he also walked 4 in those five innings. Against the Royals--the ROYALS!--he threw 4 innings and surrendered 6 runs, once again giving up as many walks as strikeouts. He would throw a nice game against Oakland: 6.1 IP, 6 K, 3 R. (Of course, he'd also still walk 5 people in this game...ugh.) The bullpen would end up blowing Morrow's shot at a second win, even as he left the game with a two-run lead. In his final start, once again facing the A's, Morrow got that win...but not for pitching well. He surrendered 6 runs in five innings of work, striking out 8...but walking five.

So here's the winter between 2008 and 2009. Morrow can go to the winter leagues and refine his starting, come into his own in 2009, right? I mean, finally give him genuine development time and that's what he'll be--a starter. But no. After continuing to work his arm all through the offseason, Brandon entered spring training with "dead arm", fatigued and without much feeling, he couldn't throw much. No problem: send him to Tacoma, let him work some more on starting and rehab.

Except that's not what the Mariners did. Morrow elected to become the team's closer, to start the year in the bullpen, with only two weeks left of spring training. The results were disastrous. In his first two opportunities in Minnesota, Morrow blew both saves--he walked 4 hitters in the ninth inning of game one. He was relegated to a role as a set up man and swing-reliever. After a couple weeks, Brandon complained of shoulder tightness and was put on the fifteen day DL. Upon his return, Wakamatsu put him straight back to the closer role he had so ineffectively handled in April. Morrow ended up throwing only 16 games out of the pen, and to be fair he was just as terrible as those first couple outings indicated: 6.38 ERA, a 5.46 FIP (so he was at least a little better than his ERA, huzzah!), 14 walks in 18 innings, 3 home runs in same, and if you care about the state, a save percentage under 70 (6 Sv/9 SvO).

So when the team finally wises up and says Morrow's a starter, what do they do? They say "Hey, we'll send you to Tacoma and you'll be back up in July. Get some work in." Literally, they said that. But here's what they actually did: on a warm day in mid-June in Colorado, Don Wakamatsu goes to Brandon Morrow and says "Hey, you wanna start today!?" And Brandon Morrow says "Uh...sure, I guess." Or something like that. He ends up starting without ever getting his stint in Tacoma. At this point in the season, Morrow hasn't even made it three innings in any appearance.

He goes 3 in Denver, gives up only one run, but continues his massive control issues: he walks 4 in those 3 innings, and only throws 36 of his 64 pitches for strikes. He continues in this vein for a while: a so-so appearance in San Diego, a resurgent apperance in Safeco against the Padres once more, a bipolar outing in New York sunk by bad defense (of three runs surrendered, only 1 was earned, but Morrow also walked 5) followed by a brilliant start in Boston (6 IP, 7 K, 2 BB, 3 R--all of homers in the Red Sox's high school-sized joke of a stadium) and a disaster in Texas.

By now it's July and Morrow is firmly in the rotation. He's made six starts and is pushing into the fifth and beyond every game. Do you know what that means!? It's a perfect time to send Brandon Morrow to Tacoma! Yahoo! In AAA, Brandon proves to be head and shoulders against the competition. He throws 55 innings in 10 starts including one complete game. He still has control issues, walking 3.76 every nine innings, but he's striking out at twice that rate. In the Pacific Coast League, which is very hitter-friendly, Morrow only surrenders 2 homers. He has an FIP of 3.53. The minors still can't touch him.

The AAA season ends and the Mariners finally bring Morrow back into the major league fold. Brandon doesn't disappoint--no, really, he doesn't disappoint at all. After people really getting down on his inconsistency, and his moments of promise and the letdowns, Brandon is remarkably consistent in September. He gets 4 starts, wins two of them and posts two no decisions. In those 4 starts, he cumulatively collects 23.2 innings (every start saw Brandon working thru the 5th or farther) and drops his ERA by a whole run. The control issues are still there: 13 BB's to 18 K's. He does all this with less than 100 pitches per outing. (Heck, his outing in Tampa Bay I still maintain that at only 73 pitches, Morrow should have been allowed to continue thru at least the 6th.)

And just in case we forgot why we could be excited about him, Brandon's last outing for the Mariners was like his first: lights-out. He went 8 innings against the A's and allowed only one hit. He surrendered no runs, struck out 9 and walked only 2. It was another jaw-dropping "Wow, this kid is good" moments.

On a list of pitchers who have accumulated at least 150 innings before age 25, walk more than 5.5 per nine, give up less than 7.5 per nine and strike out more than 9 per nine, there are only five names: John Rocker, Nolan Ryan, Herb Score, Matt Mantei and Brandon Morrow. How do you like those odds?

You should like them a lot. Matt Mantei was essentially where Morrow's at now: a career reliever with an ERA hovering around 4.0. Herb Score was a career starter with an ERA of 3.36. John Rocker was another career reliever, but his ERA ends up around 3.42. I trust I don't need to illuminate on Nolan Ryan.

But here's another interesting thought exercise for you.

Pitcher A: 6.46 ERA, 69.1 IP 5.59 FIP, 42 K, 40 BB, .292 BAA, .874 OPS
Pitcher B: 4.42 ERA, 79.1 IP, 5.22 FIP, 71 K, 49 BB, .232 BAA, .739 OPS

Pitcher A is Jon Garland in the first fifteen starts of his career. Pitcher B is Brandon Morrow across the same span, during which he was jerked around as reliever--minor leaguer--reliever--starter--reliever--starter--minor leaguer--starter. If you don't believe in the Nolan Ryan upside of Brandon Morrow, how 'bout settling for Jon Garland?

In his first full season as a starter, Garland posted these numbers: 3.69 ERA, 117 IP, 5.34 FIP, 61 K, 55 BB, .277 BAA, .786 OPS. Make those same improvements across the board for Brandon and you get this: 2.52 ERA, 134 IP, 4.98 FIP, 70 K, 63 BB, .220 BAA, .665 OPS. As FIP is a better indicator of performance than ERA, and defense has such an influence on the latter, I think it's more reasonable to regress Morrow closer to a run off his ERA than 2. That still makes him a mid-3's pitcher.

I said I wanted to compare Morrow to Brandon League, but I just spent a lot of words here saying nothing more than "Morrow is better than you think." Here's some pretty pictures from Fangraphs that shows League's wild inconsistency relative to Morrow's career line. It's a pretty straight comparison of the two on raw numbers. (Hint: Morrow's better.) As a starter, Morrow is also inherently more valuable than the reliever League. In three seasons of going back-and-forth, Morrow's cumulative worth is 1.3 WAR, roughly $5.5 million. In six seasons of all relief work (minus time on the DL and rehab assignments in the farm system, League has only managed 5 more innings than Morrow (202 to 197), strikes out less and has been worth 1.5 WAR.

2010 Morrow on the Blue Jays is not the same as 2010 Morrow on the Mariners. It's a different division, facing the Red Sox and Yankees a lot. It's a different park, turf instead of grass that will see groundballs become quick singles, and a park that gives up more home runs on average than Safeco. And it's a different defense. But 2010 Morrow is poised to be much better than Jack Zduriencik valued him to be.

In point of fact, Dave Cameron of USS Mariner slated Morrow to be a relief pitcher throughout to 2009 and to add +0.5 wins from June 4th 'til the end of the season. Brandon, as mentioned above, was converted to a starter at the big league level and didn't spend much time in the bullpen. He spent 2 months completely out of the MLB working in Tacoma. And yet he still added 0.5 WAR from his mid-season total by the season's closing. As a starter, wtih two months of that not available. If you figure he was worth 4.0 runs as a starter (via Fangraphs) in 10 starts, then you can dilate that to about 12 runs over the course of a full season--and probably more, as he will be there full time, no DL, no bullpen, no mid-season conversion throwing less than five innings per game. He will be worth 1.5-2.0 WAR without even reaching his full potential.

Morrow won't contend for the Cy Young in 2010, no matter what team he's on, but he will be a valuable addition.

As far as scouting reports go, the idea that Morrow is inconsistent is just statistically unfounded. When you disclude his first two starts in 2009 (both of which he threw less than 80 pitches, went less than 4 innings, and was--if you recall--converted to starter at the big league level mid season), he averaged 5.5 innings per appearance. Brandon Morrow will take you into the sixth inning and sometimes beyond. If you look at the Fangraphs comparisons, Morrow has a far more consistent career line than League. The issue is purely his control, sidelined by development. And it hasn't stopped him from being valuable. He's healthier, he's younger, he has more upside and he's just as productive. You guys got a slick deal.

A few weeks ago this site posted a "make your predictions" post for Morrow. I wasn't a member then, but I joined just to give you guys this piece. I will, however, make predictions now, with this lengthy post as my rationale.

IP: 160-180 in 28 starts
ERA: 3.80-4.20
SO: 140-160
W-L: 14-6
1.7 WAR