Beast Mode Morse Code Appreciation Thread

[Evolution33]

Without Morse against Philly there is no way we win a game of that series. Hopefully he'll be good to go.

Morse wouldn't make that much of a difference. Going to be hard to win a game in the series being outscored 27-3. 

[Mr Clean]

Cue the Cavalry charge music:  Time to call up Marrero, Lombardozzi, Antonelli etc.

[PatsNats28]

Who do we send down to clear up a spot for Marrero?

We've got 8 relievers, it's a bit ridiculous. 7 is okay (although generally high), but 8 is a ton.

Storen, Clippard, Mattheus, H-Rod, Burnett, Coffey, Gorzelanny, Balester.

As much as it sucks to do so, Balester's got options...

[Slateman]

We've got 8 relievers, it's a bit ridiculous. 7 is okay (although generally high), but 8 is a ton.

Storen, Clippard, Mattheus, H-Rod, Burnett, Coffey, Gorzelanny, Balester.

As much as it sucks to do so, Balester's got options...

Considering our starting pitching, I think 8 relievers is probably a good thing ....

[imref]

Who do we send down to clear up a spot for Marrero?

Good question - it would seemingly make sense to call up Marrero for a few days unless they plan to play Nix at 1st and Gomes in LF.

Of course we could always re-sign Matt Stairs.

[PatsNats28]

Lannan and JZ are unlikely to blow up. Livo can eat innings even if he sucks and we're down by 7. Detwiler goes at least 5, and has been keeping his PCs low recently (Davey's been yanking him for no reason). Wang is the only real threat of blowing up, and even then, he's been getting better. If I wanted to field the best team (without considering development, etc.), I'd go with this pen:

Storen, Clippard, Mattheus, Burnett/Balester (haven't seen enough of Balester in this call-up yet), Gorzelanny, Coffey. You could even keep both and go with 12 pitchers.

I don't mind HRod as much as others do, but I don't want him here next year if he doesn't figure it out.

[shoeshineboy]

Good question - it would seemingly make sense to call up Marrero for a few days unless they plan to play Nix at 1st and Gomes in LF.

Of course we could always re-sign Matt Stairs.

Calling up Marrero would cost money. Doubt they will spend the time necessary to fill out the financial justification reports. More likely to bring up Bernadina if someone goes on the DL since they already pay for him. Would be nice to see Marrero with the September callups though.

[shoeshineboy]

As much as it sucks to do so, Balester's got options...

He also hasn't pitched well. So he gives them no motivation to consider the alternatives.

[PatsNats28]

He also hasn't pitched well. So he gives them no motivation to consider the alternatives.

I know, it just sucks cuz we keep shuttling him up and down.

[tomterp]

I know, it just sucks cuz we keep shuttling him up and down.

He gets an inning or two each week when he's up, not sure that's optimum.

[tomterp]

A discussion of Morse's injury in BP:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14778

Cracking the Morse Code
by Corey Dawkins and Ben Lindbergh

Mike Morse, WSN (Left elbow contusion) AGL: 1 (13DL), ATD: -.023 (+.019DL)] (Explanation)
Even though bruises sound simple enough, they can be debilitating and shut an athlete down for a few weeks or more. In many ways, bone bruises and fractures react the same in times of acute injury, such as when Morse took a Ryan Dempster fastball off his left arm just above the elbow yesterday. If the ball catches you just right—and it looks like it hit this spot on Morse—the ball will actually strike two of the three bones in the elbow. The ulna and its olecranon process is the bone you feel when pushing on the elbow in a bent position. The lateral epicondyle is the bump that is on the outside of the elbow in the same bent position.

Two main points before we move on. First and foremost, until a CT scan is performed, you can't completely rule out a fracture. How many times have we seen an initial diagnosis of a bruised bone in the hand, wrist, or foot that ended up being a small fracture not seen on x-ray? Second, an MRI will tell us that there is swelling in the area, including bones, but it can't rule out what we classically think of as a fracture. It can be helpful in assessing stress fractures, but in an acute injury like this, swelling in the bone from a bruise or from a fracture looks the same on MRIs.

The most common structures involved in the area—where we tend to see a ton of HBP—are the wrist extensors, distal triceps, lateral epicondyle, and olecranon. The wrist extensors are close to the surface on the outside of the elbow and insert into the lateral epicondyle of the humerus. The triceps is on the back of the arm but inserts onto the olecranon process and can also be bruised easily.

We've all experienced a bruise at some point, so we know the general symptoms. With a bruise, especially at the location where Morse’s was, the joint becomes very stiff as a protective measure and will remain stiff at least until the swelling dissipates. The area can remain painful and limiting until the swelling leaves the bone, and this can take several days to several weeks. As of now, Morse is day-to-day.

[PC]

Nix should have been on the DL a month ago.

It just galls me so much that NONE of the Nationals AAA prospects have been called up while almost every other team has done it, this season.  There have been AAA and AA players called up on other teams with far inferior numbers than some of our players.

It makes no sense, this level of roster stagnation.

[PatsNats28]

A discussion of Morse's injury in BP:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14778

this post:me :: advanced stats posts:sportsfan

[blue911]

A discussion of Morse's injury in BP:

Rather long walk to say "It hurts like a mother-freaker"

[welch]

He gets an inning or two each week when he's up, not sure that's optimum.

I can't remember when Gorzo pitched last; I groan every time I see Burnett; cover my eyes when I see HRod. I have a hunch -- just a gut feel -- that Balester could be more effective than HRod and Burnett if he pitched more. Of course, there is "the options issue", but I think HRod is hurt...can he be this erratic just naturally?

(and I'm curious about Marrero, and Nix certainly looked hurt when he came off the field about two night ago)

[wpa2629]

acomak Amanda Comak
Michael Morse said he should be good to go for tomorrow's game. Didn't take BP today just as a precaution.

[Tyler Durden]

I just came across this video - the dance at the end is hilarious!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/post/video-of-michael-morse-singing-take-on-me/2011/08/11/gIQAV5eX8I_blog.html

[imref]

fantastic interview with Morse.  He's having fun this year.

http://mlb.mlb.com/shared/flash/video/share/ObjectEmbedFrame.swf?v=3&featureSet=fb&property=mlb&content_id=17897469&topic_id&c_id=was

New t-shirt too.

[tomterp]

fantastic interview with Morse.  He's having fun this year.

http://mlb.mlb.com/shared/flash/video/share/ObjectEmbedFrame.swf?v=3&featureSet=fb&property=mlb&content_id=17897469&topic_id&c_id=was

New t-shirt too.

I saw somebody wearing a "Beast Mode" t-shirt at the P-Nats/Strasburg game Friday.  Where do you get those?

[blue911]

I saw somebody wearing a "Beast Mode" t-shirt at the P-Nats/Strasburg game Friday.  Where do you get those?

http://store.22fresh.com/?p=home

[tomterp]

http://store.22fresh.com/?p=home

That's the one!

$39 before shipping, though.   

[imref]

beast mode is outdated, it's hammer time now.

Did you guys watch the video?  I won't spoil it, but if you watch it to the end you'll never look at "Take on Me" the same way again.

[Tokeydog]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/joe_lemire/08/24/all.underrated.team/index.html?xid=cnnbin&hpt=hp_bn10

Nice write up about Morse.

The 2011 season's least heralded breakout star precedes each at bat by walking onto the dirt that surrounds home plate and stopping just before entering the righthanded batter's box. He purses his lips, lifts his left leg up and back like a starting pitcher and rotates his torso and shoulders forward as if mimicking the first half of his swing in slow-motion.

The Nationals' Michael Morse explains that this seemingly unnatural contortion serves a dual purpose as an at-bat ritual. The overexaggerated stretch is a remnant of exercises he learned to alleviate tightness he experienced earlier this season in his hips, and the act of winding up into a spring of potential energy helps him visualize his murderous swing.

"Like when a cobra's about to strike, he coils up before he strikes," Morse said Tuesday.

Morse, the MVP of SI.com's All-Underrated Team, has become a 6'5", 230-pound predator in a baseball uniform. He leads Washington in batting average (.317, home runs (21), doubles (30), slugging percentage (.550) and OPS (.923) and has been baseball's most productive first baseman since replacing Adam LaRoche, who suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in May, in the lineup. At the game's most star-studded position, Morse leads all his counterparts -- from Miguel Cabrera, Adrian Gonzalez and Mark Teixeira in the American League to Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols and Joey Votto in the National League -- with a 1.016 OPS while playing first.

Morse, 29, has slugged the club's six longest home runs this season, according to the ESPN Home Run Tracker, including two this month of special note. His 466-foot bomb to Wrigley's deep centerfield ranks as one of the top-10 longest home runs in the majors this year, and a 455-foot jack at Nationals Park -- to the upper-deck of the opposite-field -- demonstrated his brute force to all fields.

The gift that Washington shortstop Ian Desmond handed Morse earlier this season -- a t-shirt with "Beast Mode" screen-printed across the chest -- thus seems fitting in hindsight. Morse began wearing it everyday before games. "That was me," he said, "I turned into the Beast."

Indeed, Morse's baseball story could be a Disney tale for his having overcome a troubled start, though the plotline is reversed: morphing into the Beast is his happily ever after.

But where did all of this come from? Morse, who split his early childhood between his mother's house in South Florida and his grandparents' house in Jamaica, starred as a big-framed high school shortstop shortly after Alex Rodriguez, who hailed from nearby, had made the hulking shortstop en vogue. The White Sox drafted Morse in the third round in 2000 then traded him four years later to the Mariners as part of the package for Freddy Garcia.

Morse reached the majors at shortstop in 2005 and batted .395 in his first 24 games in Seattle but finished the year at a .221 clip over the next 48 games. Thanks to a series of injuries (most prominently a torn meniscus in 2006 and a torn shoulder labrum in 2008), position changes (to the corner outfield and first base) and a few more missed opportunities, Morse didn't have 50 major-league at bats in a season again until he was traded to the Nationals for outfielder Ryan Langherhans in 2009.

Morse finished the 2010 season as Washington's rightfielder and did so with a flourish. He ended up with 15 homers, a .289 average, a .352 on-base percentage and a .519 slugging percentage. For the first time he seemed poised to make the Opening Day roster as an everyday player.

And then, for a $126 million, the Nationals signed Jayson Werth to play rightfield.

"I was like, 'What do I have to do?'" Morse recalled. "I was mind-boggled."

He opened the year in a leftfield platoon with the lefty-swinging Laynce Nix, a part-time gig Morse had effectively lost by the first two weeks of May when he was primarily relegated to pinch-hitting. Then the injury to LaRoche created an opportunity for playing time.

Morse thanked hitting coach Rick Eckstein for his help but noted that the biggest change has simply been the assurance of being in the lineup everyday, which allows players more opportunities to get on hot streaks and break out of slumps.

"I always knew I could hit," he said. "I haven't changed anything. I'm the same person I was and always have been. I'm getting the opportunity to play every day. No matter what you do today, you know you're going to be in there tomorrow. If you don't get them today, you know you're going to get them tomorrow. That's the kind of mentality you can have, which takes a lot of pressure off of you and just brings out the talent."

So it should come as no surprise that Morse's season turned around as soon as he became entrenched in the Nationals' everyday lineup. Manager Davey Johnson has suggested that Morse might return to leftfield next year when LaRoche is healthy but has assured Morse that he'll be in the lineup somehow, some way.

Should he keep up this pace for the next few years, Morse will be a marketer's dream, a man whose personality matches his prodigious power. With little urging he sang A-Ha's "Take on Me" in an appearance on MLB Network's "Intentional Talk" show. He gives himself a celebratory slap on the helmet during home-run trots. And he comes replete with his own slogans, starting with "Beast Mode" but now moving into a new phase of the season -- and thus a new t-shirt -- that he has taken to calling "Hammer Time" because, as the season winds down over the next six weeks, "now it's time to hammer it down."

As the baseball calendar moves into the stretch run, SI.com unveils its All-Underrated Team. The only strict requirements are that a player couldn't have made this year's All-Star team or appeared on a top prospect list the past two years, but there must also be an (inherently subjective) underappreciation of the player's talents.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/joe_lemire/08/24/all.underrated.team/index.html#ixzz1Vy1cSr9i

[MarquisDeSade]

Excellent write-up.  The Nats should really get a marketing team together to pimp our guys out there.  Morse, Zimmerman, and anyone not named Strasburg could walk past you on the Metro and they'd never notice. 

Anyone know if Morse is Catholic?  Mrs. de Sade and I have been trying to figure out if that's a rosary or not tattooed on his left arm. 

[Lintyfresh85]

Surprised (in a good way) that they glossed over his PED suspension back in the day.