RHP Matt Morris
Right-handed pitcher Matt Morris was a first-round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1995, and he lived up to his billing as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Morris attended two All-Star Games as a member of the Cardinals, and he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 1997. After missing the 1999 season due to Tommy John Surgery, Morris took a bit of time to get back to his old self. He finished 2000 with a 3-3 record and a 3.57 ERA in just 53 innings. His best year came just one year later in 2001.
Morris finished with an MLB-leading 22 wins that year with a 3.16 ERA across 216.1 innings. He finished third in NL Cy Young voting that year and fourteenth in NL MVP voting.
He pitched in the postseason in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005, but he wasn't able to help lead the Cardinals to the ultimate prize of a World Series trophy in any of those years. He has a career 2-6 record with a 4.05 ERA across 73.1 postseason innings.
The Cardinals' best shot at winning a World Series with Morris on the roster came in 2004 when they made it to the World Series to face the Boston Red Sox. In his lone start in that World Series, Morris went just 4.1 innings of four-run ball, en route to a series sweep by the Red Sox. Morris's final year with the Cardinals came in 2005.
Morris signed a three-year deal with the San Francisco Giants prior to the 2006 season, the same year the Cardinals would win the World Series without Matty Mo on the roster.
Matt Morris eclipsed the 100-win mark as a Cardinal in 2005, and he is fourth overall among Cardinals pitchers with 126 quality starts. His 986 strikeouts rank seventh, and his 24.6 FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement are good enough for thirteenth in franchise history among all pitchers. Morris was the beginning of a golden era of Cardinals baseball throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, but he was unable to win a ring with St. Louis. The ever-reliable Cardinal pitcher barely missed his window of winning a World Series.
