Christopher Morel's Career Challenges After Non-Tender

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00:00Now I want to get to Christopher Murrell, who is non-tendered by the Tampa Bay Rays.

00:04The name that was on the trade block forever for the Chicago Cubs, and they were just looking

00:09to move, looking to move.

00:11Murrell was a big piece of the Isak Paredes deal that got him to Chicago before the reroute

00:16to Houston in the Kyle Tucker trade.

00:18But Murrell has been brutal since going over to Tampa, and now Christopher Murrell is non-tendered.

00:25Him and Fraley were the two non-tenders for Tampa.

00:28Jake Fraley is a defensive-oriented outfielder.

00:31Christopher Murrell is one of the bigger question marks in baseball.

00:34Murrell is just our new version of Jose Siri, where the ability is there to be an all-star.

00:39You just got to hit the baseball, and he hasn't.

00:41What does a gamble on Christopher Murrell look like?

00:44Well, the hardest part with Murrell is, at least with Siri, when he's not hitting, he's

00:48going to go play elite center field.

00:50Murrell should be a good defender.

00:52I don't know why he's not.

00:52He's an above-average runner.

00:53He has an elite arm.

00:54But you put him in the infield, and he throws sinkers, so your first baseman's miserable.

01:01You put him in the outfield, and his reads and routes just aren't great.

01:05And then offensively, it's kind of one swing for one spot.

01:07He is trying to pull the ball in the air to left field as hard as he can every single time.

01:12And that may work for some guys, but when you have some swing and miss and chase issues,

01:16it can really be easy to expose.

01:19And that's exactly what we saw.

01:20But at 26 years old, when you've got the tools that he's got, if I have an open spot,

01:26I'm very intrigued still in giving a guy like that the opportunity.

01:31But to me, it's kind of a frustrating game, similar to Siri, where it's just like,

01:36you're just going to do the same thing and struggle with the same things consistently.

01:39And it seems like for now, the answer is yes.

01:44But he does have time to potentially improve those things.

01:48He hits the living crap out of the ball.

01:50And I think the biggest hurdle for me with him, though, is just like,

01:53you're kind of just sticking him somewhere by default.

01:56There's nowhere that he is necessarily good defensively.

01:59Yeah.

01:59The Rangers did not deem Adolis Garcia worthy of his about $12 million arbitration estimate.

02:06What do you deem Adolis Garcia worthy of?

02:10If you were sitting in one of these decision-making chairs, and you were told,

02:14hey, we can bring Adolis Garcia in on a one-year deal, what are you comfortable giving him?

02:21Ooh.

02:23Because the answer is not 12.

02:24Is it 6?

02:25Is it 10?

02:27I was thinking 6.

02:28I don't think I'd go above 6.

02:29I mean, we're talking about back-to-back seasons here where he has been below the league average

02:35offensively.

02:36And, you know, I think he's still worth a shot, but we're talking about hits the other

02:39side of 30.

02:40So age 31, age 32 seasons are both bad.

02:43That's not the most encouraging side of things, but, you know, and off of some injuries as

02:49well.

02:50But at the same time, he's still hitting the ball really hard.

02:54I change the scenery could help.

02:56You know, I think you look at some aspects of the batted ball quality.

03:01He actually hit the ball harder in 2025, full mile per hour up in the average exit velocity

03:07department.

03:08His launch angle was up a little bit.

03:10Like, there were some encouraging underlying aspects.

03:13And I think from that perspective, like, you look at the Woba, Ex-Woba, they're about 25 points

03:18there.

03:19The expected slug, about 25 points there.

03:21So maybe you drop him in the right stadium and, you know, you can squeeze out a little

03:25bit more, you know, in value.

03:26And I wonder, like, if I'm the Reds or something like that, I'd give him 6 to 8 million, I think,

03:31on a one-year and give it a shot.

03:34What about Jonah Haim, who is the other guy non-tendered?

03:36He's not worth 6, according to the Texas Rangers.

03:39He's an interesting one to me because I can see another team saying, you know what?

03:43I think you are worth 6.

03:45That's the funny one.

03:46Because I was going to say, I think in the right situation, he's a pretty easy tender

03:51and contract candidate.

03:53Like, it just, I think with the situation that they were in, and again, Haim, where it's

03:56back-to-back years of him being bad, you're like, yeah, we'll just, you know, if Haim

04:00is the same player he was the last two years, we're going to be kicking ourselves because

04:05every dollar matters right now, and we could have allocated that 6 million elsewhere.

04:08Whereas, I think another team says, well, he could bounce back in worst-case scenario.

04:13You know, we have a fine backup at a little bit more than we wanted to spend.

04:17So, I think a team's going to end up coming in at 4 million or so, and, you know, I don't

04:21think he's going to lose too much.

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