Brewers News: Sip N’ Rip! Logan Morrison Makes Opening Day Roster

We’re less than a week away from finally reaching Opening Day of the 2020 Brewers season, and the roster is taking shape.

When the Brewers signed Logan Morrison to a minor league contract this offseason, little fanfare was made of it and expectations weren’t very high. Then spring training started.

Morrison was playing well in the spring and he had pushed himself into consideration for one of the 26 Opening Day roster spots in March.

Fast forward to Summer Camp, the initial Opening Day roster has now been expanded to 30 spots, the DH has been temporarily added to the National League, and Morrison returned in the best shape of his life while still hitting the ball well.

Now he’s officially going to make the Opening Day roster, per Robert Murray.

This isn’t particularly a surprise given his excellent play and the additional opportunities presented by the new rules in place for the shortened 2020 season.

What Will Morrison’s Playing Time Opportunities Look Like?

In the original plan back in March, Morrison was likely to fill the same role Jesus Aguilar played in 2017: A power bat off the bench that’s a priority pinch hitter and gets the occasional first base opportunity. Instead of being behind Eric Thames, though, Morrison would’ve been behind Justin Smoak and Ryan Braun.

Now, Morrison can be a part-time 1B/DH bringing power from the left side of the plate. With Braun likely to occupy mostly DH at-bats when he’s healthy, Morrison can slide ahead on the first base depth chart and perhaps platoon with Smoak to get some more playing time. The only issue is that Smoak is not the ideal platoon partner for Morrison since he’s a switch-hitter that has good power from the left side himself.

Morrison could also get some ABs as the DH when Braun needs a day off and someone else like Christian Yelich or Keston Hiura or Omar Narvaez doesn’t need one.

Still, Morrison is not going to be an everyday player with the current roster construction. If a spot opens up, he could step in and do the job, again similar to Jesus Aguilar’s Brewers career, but he’s going to have to spend some time on the bench.

Morrison is just a few years removed from a 38 homer season with Tampa Bay. Although he’s not going to reach that number in a 60 game season this year, he’s going to be a useful power bat that could come in during key situations and maybe bat in place of a weaker hitter.

The Brewers will have Morrison mic’d up during Sunday’s scrimmage and from his famous “Sip N’ Rip” Instagram stories and the stories other players have told about him, Morrison is going to be a lot of fun to listen to on the mic and a lot of fun to watch play the game this year.

There are few more opt-out decisions the Brewers will have to make soon on veteran players, including Mike Morin and Justin Grimm.