You just don’t want to read too much into spring training results. The ball flies in the desert air, pitchers are building up arm strength and sometimes even working on secondary pitches they haven’t mastered, the adrenaline isn’t pumping like it will be on Friday.
Then again, when a pitcher comes to camp showing the exact weaknesses that have plagued him prior, it can be informative. Such was the fate of the talented-but-wild Jack Perkins who came into camp with the question of “Will he be put into the rotation or maybe slotted in as the closer?” The answer, as it turns out, is “No.” Perkins has been optioned to AAA to continue working on throwing more strikes.
Still standing, and presumed to be the A’s #5 SP when camp breaks, is another highly talented, but also raw, RHP in Luis Morales. Now 23, Morales got a taste of the big leagues in 2025 and generally acquitted himself well putting up a solid 3.14 ERA albeit it with less gushing underlying metrics (4.42 xERA, 4.54 xFIP).
Morales has a plus fastball and a wicked slider, but not always the ability to throw them where he wants to. This leads both to high walk totals and also centered pitches that can get whacked around. The hope, of course, is that with experience Morales can throw more and more quality strikes and harness the terrific arm he brings to the mound.
So far so bad.
Morales got knocked around again today, mostly thanks to a bases clearing double that followed 3 walks that loaded the bases. His final line today? 2.1 IP, 1 hit, 3 ER, 4 BB, 2 K. To get just 8 outs, Morales threw 61 pitches of which only 34 were strikes.
This only continues a trend from throughout the Cactus League. Here’s where Morales’ numbers stand at the end of spring training:
2-2, 7.58 ERA, 19 IP, 21 hits, 16 ER (3 HR), 14 BB, 17 K. For those of you scoring at home that BB/9 IP rate is 6.63.
Here’s where if the A’s had “too many starting pitchers” (a baseball oxymoron) they would probably send Morales to join Perkins at AAA to start the season. But with the only alternatives being JT Ginn, who faded terribly the second half of spring training, and Luis Medina, who has returned from Tommy John surgery electric and wild as ever (7.1 IP, 9 BB), it appears that Morales’ spot is safe and that he will most likely face the Atlanta Braves on March 31st out of the #5 slot.
Watching Kade Morris carve up the #1 farm system yesterday, he looked far more ready to toss 6 quality big league innings than Morales currently does. Morris threw just 56 pitches in his 4 innings, 37 for strikes (that’s 2/3).
Without question Morales has big time talent and stuff — there’s no question you would want him in your organization over any of the alternatives that could make starts in April. But whether that means he’s going to be at all effective in the big leagues now? You wonder.
Hopefully the natural talent wins out, but far more electric arms have been taken to the cleaners because they could find the strike zone or couldn’t stay out of the middle of it. Count me as one fan who will watching anxiously as he (presumably) toes the rubber in Atlanta. He doesn’t look ready to me — but ready or not here he comes.
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