How one Rays slugger can have a monster 2025 season

Ah, Christopher Morel.

He's a bit of an enigma; decent athlete, incredible arm, massive power, but very poor contact skills. Also, a lack of a true position where he can excel, and a bit of a penchant to chase.

But hey, if he can mash, all that other stuff doesn't really matter.

So what has to change (or rather, what has to go back to his previous levels of production) in order for that to happen?

Last season was a year of transition for Morel; the Cubs were trying him out at a few different positions, and then they traded him to the Rays and they did the same thing to him, so he never was quite able to settle in and ended up with a -1 fWAR season and an 82 wRC+. Not good.

But the Cubs had been moving him around the diamond even when he was decent in 2022 and 2023, with Morel splitting time between in a couple spots in the infield and center field (where he was pretty bad everywhere in terms of defense).

What seemingly changed in 2024 was his approach at the plate, as his strikeout rate went down and walk rate went up despite decreases in his overall offensive contributions, and he got a little unlucky, with a huge dropoff in BABIP.

If that sounds an awful lot like Yandy's struggles from a previous article, hey, thanks for reading, and you're right!

Except in the case of Christopher Morel, despite his slight improvements in chase and whiff rates resulting in better strikeout and walk percentages, his power numbers suffered.

Whether that was a result of his attempts (however futile) at becoming a more disciplined hitter or if it was just nasty rotten luck remains to be seen, but the former Cub wouldn't be entirely unwise to perhaps get back to that more free-swinging approach and worry less about trying to be, well, Yandy up there at the plate.

Some of us just aren't made to be disciplined people in general, and that applies at the plate.

What the Rays seem to do best with players, especially reclamation projects like Morel, is try to get them to focus on what they can do instead of trying to push them into developing into someone they're probably not capable of being; in this case, Christopher Morel needs to be his fun, Javier-Baez-like self in order to be able to hammer those mistake pitches he gets.

Last season saw an 18 point difference in run production on pitches in the heart of the zone, as he went to being +9 in this category in 2023 to -9 over during his 2024 campaign.

He was able to be a bit more disciplined on the edges, as he increased his production on the edges of the zone, but it wasn't worth it.

He went from absolutely obliterating pitches down the middle and middle-up, with 100+ average exit velocities in each of those areas during the 2023 seasons, to being just meh with those pitches, as he posted mid-90s exit velocities for 2024 when getting those locations.

As simple as it might sound to tell two players the same thing, because it's sort of what was said about Yandy, it's true; if Morel can try to stop getting in his own head as much with trying to have "plate discipline" and all of those other silly things and just hit the ball hard and have some fun, he can be at least more similar to his previous, at least playable versions of himself, if not even better.