{"id":600597,"date":"2026-03-01T23:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T23:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/600597\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T23:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T23:05:18","slug":"can-tre-morgan-hit-enough-to-capitalize-on-his-defensive-prowess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/600597\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Tre\u2019 Morgan Hit Enough To Capitalize on His Defensive Prowess?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tre\u2019 Morgan<\/a> had a very solid 2025 in his first full season with the Durham Bulls.<\/p>\n

He actually increased his walk rate, leading to a near-.400 OBP for the year.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, his power production was still mediocre at best, with a .137 ISO.<\/p>\n

How does he project to the majors?<\/p>\n

Can he hit for enough pop to capitalize on his elite defense?<\/p>\n

Morgan\u2019s Strengths and How They Translate to the Bigs<\/p>\n

The former LSU Tigers\u2019 strengths are pretty obvious to anyone vaguely familiar with prospect discussions.<\/p>\n

He has likely the best glove at first base of anyone in any minor league system.<\/p>\n

His defensive prowess has earned him a 70 current grade on his glove on FanGraphs, with the potential to grow to a full-blown 80.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s obviously enticing, especially for a team that prides itself on defense and pitching.<\/p>\n

Carson Williams<\/a> throwing to Morgan would be a fun sight to see, especially for those who love watching superb fielding.<\/p>\n

Morgan\u2019s walk rate was superlative in 2025, sitting at 15.9%, and he posted a 78th percentile zone swing rate.<\/p>\n

So he will give the Rays a great glove at first, as well as a competitive at-bat at the plate, both valuable outcomes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s his drawbacks, especially at a power position like first, that give pause.<\/p>\n

Morgan\u2019s Weaknesses and if He Can Improve<\/p>\n

Power is such a valuable tool for any position, but at first base, it\u2019s a borderline necessity.<\/p>\n

Rod Carew<\/a> may have gotten away with having no pop, but Morgan is unfortunately not Carew.<\/p>\n

Morgan has cracked double-digit home runs only once in his professional career through 2025.<\/p>\n

His career-high ISO for a full season was posted across three levels in 2024, coming in at a fine-but-not-good .158 for the year.<\/p>\n

Last year, over 92 games with the Bulls, he was pretty much average at best with quality of contact marks across the board.<\/p>\n

He posted a 37.4% hard-hit rate and a 41st percentile barrel rate.<\/p>\n

But, if some narrative ball wanted to be played and some stretching was done, he did submit a .340 xwOBA and a .254 xBA.<\/p>\n

Both were solidly above-average for the Triple-A level last year.<\/p>\n

Now, there are some qualms about how much to buy into those expected metrics versus the raw quality of contact numbers.<\/p>\n

But regardless, there\u2019s at least reason to hope for Morgan becoming at least an average power guy in the majors.<\/p>\n

Even if he\u2019s below-average in this regard for his position, his glove and on-base skills will hopefully make up for it.<\/p>\n

Plus, his pull rate was only 18.8%, which isn\u2019t horrible.<\/p>\n

But if he can get a bit more loft in his swing, perhaps that would unlock a bit more slug.<\/p>\n

Player Comp for Morgan\u2019s Ceiling: Diamondbacks Christian Walker\/Rays Casey Kotchman<\/p>\n

This is probably the easiest comparison that can be made for any Rays prospect.<\/p>\n

Thinking about glove-first first-baseman, Christian Walker<\/a> is the very first guy that comes to mind for active players.<\/p>\n

Another guy who popped up when thinking about this topic was a former Ray, Casey Kotchman<\/a>, a quality player in his own right.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Kotchman put up a 2.1 fWAR season, with a 127 wRC+ that was carried by his .378 OBP.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t quite the defender that Morgan was, so if Morgan managed to put up those kinds of offensive numbers, he\u2019d be even better than Kotchman.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s probably Morgan\u2019s upside: a Walker-type defender with Kotchman\u2019s offensive production.<\/p>\n

Player Comp for Morgan\u2019s Downside: Evan White<\/p>\n

Ah, Evan White<\/a>, what a tantalizing prospect.<\/p>\n

He was fun to use on MLB The Show when he was first called up, with an elite defensive rating and a bit of pop.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, in real life, White couldn\u2019t hit a lick.<\/p>\n

Not for power, and not getting on base.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a very real possibility for Morgan.<\/p>\n

He has all the upside defensively, and has more on-base and contact ability than folks would think.<\/p>\n

But, at a position like first, where there needs to be at least some semblance of pop, the leash could be shorter.<\/p>\n

Closing Thoughts on Morgan<\/p>\n

Overall, Morgan is still a very fun prospect.<\/p>\n

His upside as a great defender who can get on base at a solid clip leaves no doubt that the Rays will give him a shot.<\/p>\n

When he gets that chance, with Jonathan Aranda<\/a> taking up the playing time at first for now, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tre\u2019 Morgan had a very solid 2025 in his first full season with the Durham Bulls. He actually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,17802,78248,100,23679,307,4,297,24484,2550,68,2551,2549,57966],"class_list":["post-600597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-baseball","tag-carson-williams","tag-casey-kotchman","tag-christian-walker","tag-evan-white","tag-jonathan-aranda","tag-mlb","tag-rays","tag-rod-carew","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays","tag-tre-morgan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116156427492442565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}