{"id":795931,"date":"2018-02-26T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/?p=795931"},"modified":"2018-02-26T08:00:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T13:00:35","slug":"logan-morrison-is-an-upgrade-and-insurance-policy-for-the-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/logan-morrison-is-an-upgrade-and-insurance-policy-for-the-twins\/","title":{"rendered":"Logan Morrison Is an Upgrade and Insurance Policy for the Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"
The nightmare that has been free agency for first baseman Logan Morrison<\/a> seems to have concluded. He’s reportedly agreed<\/a> to a one-year, $6.5 million deal with the Minnesota Twins (pending a physical), with an an option for a second year that’ll vest if he accumulated 600-plus plate appearances in 2018.<\/p>\n This kind of contract is surely not what Morrison — who is entering his age-30 campaign — was hoping for after a banner offensive year highlighted by a career-high 38 home runs. On the Twins’ side of this situation, though, they’ve found an inexpensive way to upgrade their roster as they prepare to attempt chasing the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central.<\/p>\n Potentially bringing Morrison aboard wouldn’t have been overly noteworthy if he didn’t make significant adjustments to his approach at the plate. His presence not only strengthens a weak spot for Minnesota, but he also provides a bit of insurance on a couple fronts.<\/p>\n You don’t have to look hard to see why Morrison posted a career-high 130 wRC+, .363 wOBA, and 3.3 fWAR for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2017. His power exploded.<\/p>\n After hitting 23 homers with a .221 ISO through 525 plate appearances in 2011, he never got close again to that production. Entering this past season, the closest he had come to that homer total was in 2015 (17 dingers, which was accompanied by a .383 slugging percentage) and the closest he’d come to that ISO mark was in 2016 (.176).<\/p>\n That all changed this past year because of the changes he made. Morrison made a dramatic improvement to his launch angle, but he also continued to lower his chase rate while staying aggressive within the strike zone, which also led to making hard contact more often.<\/p>\n Check out how his ground-ball rate (GB%), fly-ball rate (FB%), chase rate (O-Swing%), swing rate on strikes (Z-Swing%), walk rate (BB%), and hard-hit rate (Hard%) changed between 2015 and 2017.<\/p>\nThe Obvious Change<\/h3>\n