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Credit Where It’s Due: Adrian Morejón Is a Legit Weapon
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Credit Where It’s Due: Adrian Morejón Is a Legit Weapon

Originally posted on Just Baseball  |  By Ethan Hyatt  |  Last updated Aug 17, 2025 12:48 PM ET

Adrian Morejón, a left-handed reliever on the San Diego Padres has been one of the most unbelievably strong arms so far in 2025. He notched a strong 2024 season and had some buzz about being a solid lefty bullpen arm, but his performance this season has cemented him as one of the league’s premier bullpen pieces.

It’s time to acknowledge the incredible job that Morejón has done to adjust to a bullpen role over the past few seasons. He’s been one of the most effective pitchers in all of baseball in 2025 and San Diego has MLB’s most dominant bullpen as a result. Morejón boasts a rare combination of both velocity and movement, but he’s not bent on missing every hitter’s bat entirely.

He leads all relievers in fWAR (2.0), xERA (1.89), and FIP (1.95), and he’s pitched in the 4th-most games this season, so it’s safe to say that Morejón is having a fantastic year. He’s spent the last few seasons crafting one of MLB’s most incredible pitch arsenals, and every one of his pitches have the ability to get hitters out at an elite rate.

Morejón’s Dominant Arsenal

Morejón has one of the most disgusting pitch mixes in the league, boasting a combination of velocity and movement. He throws, in order of usage, a sinker (97.6 MPH), slider (87.7 MPH), changeup (90.3 MPH), cutter (94.0 MPH) four-seam fastball (96.7 MPH), and a splitter that Baseball Savant lists as a Knuckleball due to the way he grips the ball (86.3 MPH).

Morejón has ended 39 at-bats with his changeup and no hitters have successfully recorded a hit on it yet in 2025, and his slider (2800+ RPM) has a .089 opposing batting average. Both of these pitches boast a whiff rate of over 40%, reaching as high as 48% on his changeup.

Morejón’s sinker coming in at 97.6 MPH is tied as the 8th-fastest pitch of its type in MLB this season, and it’s notched a Run Value of +12 already this season, making it the third-most valuable sinker in baseball by this metric. By all means, this is an overpowering pitch that spearheads one of the league’s most dominant bullpen arsenals this season. And Morejón is just one of many incredibly successful pitchers in the Padres ‘pen this year.

He’s got an incredible 1.96 ERA across 55 innings in his first career All-Star season, with 55 strikeouts to just 11 walks. Looking at Morejón’s Baseball Savant page is, well, awe-inspiring. Red bubbles indicating ranks in the league’s upper 10% of players fill his front page and only attempt to depict how dominant he’s been in 2025.

Here are the metrics in which Morejón ranks in the top 10% of big league pitchers this year: xERA (1.89), xBA (.200), average exit velocity (84.8 MPH), chase rate (32.4%), walk rate (5.2%), barrel rate (2.7%), groundball rate (55.1%), and Pitching Run Value (+18).

The only thing Morejón doesn’t do at an elite level in 2025 is completely miss bats. His goal on the mound is not to miss bats, but to miss the barrel of the bats . This reflects in his below-average whiff rate (24.9%) and his very high groundball rate (55.1%). His sinker is not only a hard-thrown pitch with a lot of movement, but one that is hard to barrel up. While his All-Star teammates Robert Suárez and Jason Adam largely rely on strikeouts to find success on the mount, Morejón is able to live off inducing weak contact. But how easily could this arsenal and style of pitching translate to the starting rotation?

Could He Start Games?

Morejón was one of San Diego’s three All-Star relievers (along with Robert Suárez and Jason Adam) but what if he was able to be converted to a starting pitcher to aid their rotation? The Padres have the 13th-best rotation ERA this season (as of August 15) with a 3.99, but are well in first place in bullpen ERA at 2.97. If Morejón, who was once a starting pitcher for the Padres, could transfer his now-improved pitch a rsenal to their rotation he could be a legitimate weapon.

This question might not have a very easy answer, as we haven’t truly seen Adrian Morejón in a starting role with the arsenal that he’s honed over the last few seasons in San Diego’s bullpen. This is the first season of his career in which he’s limited opposing hitters’ barrels at an above-average rate. If he could translate this success into a somewhat-lengthened role, it could serve to benefit the Padres long-term.

MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell wrote in February on the possibility of Morejón pitching out of the Padres’ starting rotation beyond the 2025 season. He mentions that the Padres sat down with Morejón to discuss the possibility of him starting games and agreed that, at least for 2025, he should remain in the bullpen for now. If there’s anybody who knows a pitcher nearly as well as he knows himself, it’s his pitching coach – in this case Ruben Niebla.

Cassavell notes that Niebla said the team is “hoping to take the next steps” with Morejón going forward, and this could hint at the possibility of a return to the rotation for the flamethrowing left-hander. Morejón never truly was able to spend much time honing his craft in his time as a starter for the Padres, only making 9 career big league starts with a limited workload due to injury and poor performance.

Morejón has been used for more than 3 outs in an outing 11 times in 2025, and in these games he’s allowed zero runs, 5 hits, 17 strikeouts, and 2 walks scattered across 18 innings of work. Converted into rate-based statistics, this is a 2.5 H/9, 8.5 K/9, 1.0 BB/9, 0.00 ERA sample size. Although none of these outings lasted more than 2 innings, it’s still indicative that he’s been willing to take on a somewhat more lengthy role. Perhaps this could foreshadow a conversion to the rotation for the young lefty.

While Morejón is one of the league’s most effective left-handed relievers this season, one can only wonder if his newfound success in the bullpen could translate well to a starting role for a Padres team whose pitching staff is so bullpen-heavy and could use rotation help.

Closing Thoughts

Whether Adrian Morejón stays in the Padres’ bullpen or makes his return to the rotation, he’ll still likely put up incredible numbers in whatever role he finds himself in. He’s never pitched more than 63.2 innings in a single season thus far in his MLB career and he only has one more year before becoming an unrestricted free agent after the 2026 season, so it could also be understandable if he chooses not to make this shift.

Morejón is one of the league’s top arms, not just relievers, and his electric stuff has led him to a career season that’s brought the Padres postseason-calibre success in 2025. He’s going to be one of the most important pieces for San Diego as the season comes to a close this year, and he’s been one of the main reasons why they’ve succeeded as much as they have already.

This article first appeared on Just Baseball and was syndicated with permission.

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