He was Ranked Higher than Trout and Harper - What Happened to Matt Moore?

as a baseball fan you really have to appreciate the work that pitchers put in learning more and more about the injuries associated with the position it is a fairly dangerous position to be in not just how you're throwing the ball but where you're standing injuries can happen at any time and the effects can be both instantaneous and long-standing that's why anytime you see a pitcher start to show signs of discomfort after a pitch everyone watching is holding their breath it could literally be anything from a pulled muscle to a torn muscle or broken bone maybe the dreaded words Tommy John or uttered by the commentators or at least it's in the back of everyone's minds we see this too often nowadays especially with young promising pitchers of course you could come back stronger than ever we saw that with Chris paddock last season just going to knock on wood real quick and other pitchers earlier in the decade like Rich Hill Jacob degrom Masahiro Tanaka Stephen Strasburg and hopefully Shohei Otani real soon however there are many cases where a pitcher is just never the same again unfortunately this happens more often than not one pitcher who's promising career felt the effects of injury is Matt Moore as a prospect Matt Moore was ranked among the likes of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper in some cases he was even ranked above them yet now his name is rarely mentioned well today I want to discuss the career of Matt Moore and what caused him to fall off the radar of baseball fans minds matt moore's baseball career starts in new mexico in 2007 while attending moriarty high school in Edgewood New Mexico he was named Gatorades New Mexico Player of the Year following his high school career in the 2007 MLB Draft he was drafted in the eighth round by the then-known Tampa Bay Devil Rays he had actually committed to play college baseball at the University of New Mexico along with his brother Bobby but he took the 115 thousand dollar bonus that the Devil Rays offered him before we continue with more let's try to understand where the Rays were as a franchise the franchise started in 1998 but by 2007 they were no better than they were in the previous decade basically the team had gone through a long stretch of losing seasons and last place finishes apart from one season however 2007 was the final season before a drastic turn for the franchise they had many young talented players like Carlos Pena James Shields Carl Crawford Scott Kazmir BJ Upton and talented prospects in Delmon Young and of course Evan Longoria the 2007 draft was a way for the Rays to add to an already talented farm system as they had the number one overall pick they chose consensus top pick David Price however in the eighth round they would pick Matt Moore a pitcher who would soon find himself among the top end of prospect list across many publications Baseball America said more was 2007 stop high school prospect to come out of New Mexico yet he was drafted in the eighth round well he did have some flaws in his game he had to overcome to realize his potential mainly his command and the effectiveness of his off-speed pitches he did have one aspect to his game at stood out that was his velocity as a 17 year old left-hander he threw 91 to 92 miles per hour that's something you just have to marvel at fortunately for the Rays his impact in the minors was felt almost immediately in eight appearances in 2007 he had 29 strikeouts in 20 and a third innings pitched he had the stuff but his command was noticeably weak as he walked 16 batters totaling a walks per nine of 7.1 2008 would be much better for Moore as he would continue to dominate the competition in rookie ball with a one point six six er a a twelve point eight k's for nine along with an improved walks per 9 and 12 starts the most notable stat was his 77 strikeouts in 54 and one third innings pitched the organization was starting to take a notice of his improvements which he would continue the show in the following season in a level ball the further improvement of his strikeout numbers in 2010 led to Baseball America naming him as a minor league all-star however 2011 is where he really took off in the prior seasons Moore had been steadily rising on many top prospect lists now he was ranked among the likes of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper different lists had different arrangements of these three players but the consensus was that these three players were the best three prospects in the league 2011 would prove to be the season where he would become a nationally known prospect he started off the year in double-a and he crushed the competition On June 16 2011 Moore would throw the first no-hitter in the history of the Montgomery biscuits as he struck out 11 batters and a walked only two and an 8 2-0 win against the Mobile Bay Bears he was also selected to take part in the all-star Futures Game and all-star weekend festivity were all the best prospects play and show off their talents well more definitely showed off at one point in the game he threw a hundred miles per hour keep in mind this is 2011 100 miles-per-hour pitches not as common as they were today later in the season he went the triple-a and why don't you know it he played even better I mean come on his case for nine was an absurd 13.5 he was ready to go to the majors well the Rays clearly saw this to Moore made his debut on September 14th 2011 and a relief appearance he struck out two but he also gave up a two-run home run to Matt Wieters however when he made his first start against the Yankee's of all teams he made his presence felt he struck out 11 gave up only four hits and walked only one batter in five scoreless innings that's a pretty good debut start when was his next game you may ask only in Game one of the ALDS against the Texas Rangers you know the Texas Rangers team that was one strike away from a championship sorry Rangers fans anyway this was going to be a tough task for any pitcher let alone a rookie making his second start ever in the majors how did he fare well Moore only gave up two hits in seven innings striking out seven batters and leaving the Rays to a 9 to 0 win which would end up being the only game Moore would play as the Rays loss of next three games ending their season however Matt Moore gave the Rays and rays fans hope they had many good players on that team and they were destined to be a playoff contender for years to come with more leading the way well at least that's what the Rays front-office felt as they gave more a five-year 14 million dollar contract in that same offseason the contract also had Club options that can make the contract up to eight years long and being worth thirty nine point five million dollars this is a guy who pitched nine and one third innings in the regular season and ten innings in the postseason and he already signed a multi-year contract vice president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman was quoted as saying matt is one of the most talented young players in baseball and exactly the type of person we look to build around for us making a long-term commitment to a player is not only a question of his ability but also his work ethic competitive Drive and character Moore's contract was the biggest ever given to someone with under two years of service time he was expected to contribute to what was arguably the best rotation in baseball with young stars James Shields price and Rookie of the Year winner Jeremy Hellickson 2012 was the start of something great for both Moore and the raise if he thought the 2011 prospect rankings were crazy check out 2012 mlb.com FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus all ranked him as the number one overall prospect above Bryce Harper and Mike Trout so while there was clickbait it was true he was actually ranked above Mike Trout and Bryce Harper well looking at Moore's 2012 stat line he played pretty well stats of note were his walk and strikeout rates his strikeouts per 9 while solid you would expect better from the strikeout machine that is Matt Moore his walks per 9 still signaled issues in his command of course it was his first full season in the majors make all the mistakes now and make the adjustments to become the better player tomorrow 2013 was mattemore second full season as a starter in the MLB he had high expectations set upon him he had just signed a big contract and was the number one overall prospect in 2013 he was starting to live up to his expectations just look at this stat line that is some very significant improvement compared to his 2012 season one stat I thought was pretty interesting though was that he was tied with Trevor Cahill for the league lead in wild pitches with 17 also his case for nine actually decreased and his walks per nine actually increased however that does not take away from the impressive overall season this season allowed more to be an all-star along with his teammate Ben Zobrist unfortunately for the Rays the team would lose in the ALDS in four games Matt Moore pitch of Game one and it wasn't pretty the past few years for the Rays have ended in disappointment but the team was still buzzing with young talent 2014 was going to be the year Matt Moore was going to keep improving making us contract even more of a steal for the Rays organization I mean the Rays were unlikely to lose money on more contract the worst case scenario was more missing significant time due to injury well you on April 7 2014 in the bottom of the fifth inning Matt Moore displayed visual signs of discomfort after throwing a pitch Moore wanted to stay in the game but he ultimately left rightly so as it would be discovered that he suffered a sprain to UCL in his elbow the strain was incomplete likely below 25% but a contrast MRI done at the Andrews Institute did show what orthopedist would call a significant sprain at between 25 and 33 percent depending on the doctor and the surrounding structures the UCL is doomed to fail and rupture under new stress it would be a tough decision as it was not a torn UCL but Tommy John surgery was ultimately the safe call and that's what more would elect to do this would be the turning point of Moore's career despite the fact that people thought he could come back and return the form just like prior pitchers have done he would never reach the heights he experienced in 2013 ever again he missed the rest of the 2014 season and he returned on July 2nd 2015 against the Houston Astros let's just say it wasn't a good comeback unfortunately he never really returned to form in 2015 as his stat line shows however it was only 12 starts you need to get the rust off at some point in 2016 Moore was starting to recover and return to old form which allowed the Rays to trade him to the Giants for a decent package of players his overall season was good as he played pretty much the same for both the Rays and the Giants notably on August 25th 2016 more nearly threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers before Roe was broken up by Corey Seager with two outs in the ninth he had a great postseason performance too in Game four of the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs Moore pitched eight innings giving up only two runs only one of them earned in two hits while striking out 10 batters unfortunately the Giants bullpen couldn't hold the lead and the Giants lost the game despite all the signs of optimism 2017 was the mark of Moore's downfall he led the league with a 5.5 to er a as well as tying for the National League lead and losses with 15 on December 15 2017 the Giants traded more to the Texas Rangers likely in hopes that the rebuilding Rangers could flip a midseason unfortunately his struggles worsened in the 2018 season he started the season in the rotation but was ultimately moved to the bullpen but a season wouldn't really get any better in 2019 Moore signed a one-year 2.5 million dollar deal with the Detroit Tigers he actually started off the season really well throwing nine strikeouts and allowing no runs in ten innings pitched unfortunately his season would end early as he suffered an injury in his second start of the season while initially thought to be only around a month long injury it was found that more needed surgery on his meniscus in his right knee and as a result he missed the entire 2019 season just to illustrate the two halves of Matt Moore's career here are his stats before and after Tommy John surgery today Matt Moore is a free agent I imagine that he will get an offer from someone at least a minor-league deal or spring-training invite maybe the Orioles or Marlins will give him an offer he's only thirty years old I like to think he could take the route of Drew Pomeranz Pomeranz was not cutting it as a starter and when he became a full-time reliever he was lights out earning him a big new contract it's really unfortunate what happened to Matt Moore maybe in some other parallel universe he has a sigh Young award-winner that led the Tampa Bay Rays to a World Series I think one thing you can't overlook is that he made his money many players who suffer career altering injuries never signed the big contract they were destined to receive more may not have gotten the giant contract but he got the contract that set him up for the rest of his life and I don't think he's done yet I know I'll be rooting for him wherever he signs this upcoming season and I like to imagine that you will do hope you guys enjoyed the video thanks for watching

Channel: SportStorm

Views: 124,174

Keywords: mlb story, mlb storytime, mlb, baseball story, matt moore, matt moore baseball, matt moore pitcher, matt moore rays, matt moore top prospect, mike trout, bryce harper, mike trout prospect, bryce harper prospect, he was ranked higher than trout and harper, what happened to matt moore, matt moore injury, baseball, sportstorm, tampa bay rays, matt moore free agency, mlb prediction, mlb top prospect, matt moore japan, matt moore softbank hawks, matt moore npb

Id: HDIK-Tvyv-0

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 26 2019