Between 2001 and 2002, FanGraphs says that St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Matt Morris was the eighth-best pitcher in Major League Baseball, topping the likes of Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Tim Hudson and Andy Pettitte.
Over that two-year stretch, Morris made two consecutive All-Star Game appearances. Morris finished third in National League Cy Young Award voting in 2001, behind just Arizona Diamondbacks teammates Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Heck, he even finished 13th in National League MVP voting in 2001, a fairly significant accomplishment for a pitcher during The Steroid Era.
The totality of Morris' career didn't put him on the Hall of Fame track with some of the names he's mentioned with above, but for a few seasons in the early 2000s, he was one of baseball's 10-best pitchers. He's the first entry in our "Good MLB players no one talks about anymore" series:
Draft: Selected in the first round (12th overall) of the 1995 MLB Draft by the Cardinals out of Seton Hall University
Organizations Played For: Cardinals; 1997-2005, San Francisco Giants; 2006-2007, Pittsburgh Pirates; 2007-2008
Best Season: 2001 - 22-8, 3.16 ERA, 3.05 FIP, 1.257 WHIP and 6.1 fWAR across 216 1/3 innings
The Rest: While the Cardinals won a lot of games that Morris started in 2004 and 2005, the organization let him walk a year before winning the 2006 World Series after he posted a 4.42 ERA and 4.47 FIP in his final two seasons in St. Louis...The Giants inked Morris to a three-year/$27 million deal in December of 2005. Like Barry Zito a few seasons later, the idea of signing Morris proved to be better than the reality of him with the Giants..In 54 starts made over parts of two seasons in San Francisco, Morris posted a 4.73 ERA. Days before Barry Bonds became baseball's all-time leader in home runs, the Giants traded Morris to Bonds' original team, the Pittsburgh Pirates...The trade proved to be a bad one for the Pirates, as Morris made his final 16 starts with the team, earning his release after producing a 7.04 ERA with the team.
Career Stats: 121-92, 3.98 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 1.316 WHIP and 28.9 fWAR across 1,806 innings
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