The Chicago Cubs made the unpopular decision to send Christopher Morel to Triple-A to begin the 2023 season and the right-handed hitter is doing everything he can to make it back to the majors as soon as possible. Morel hasn’t just been good with the Iowa Cubs through the first four weeks of the regular season, the 23-year-old is posting video game numbers down at Triple-A.

Christopher Morel Destroying Triple-A Pitching

Christopher Morel had a stretch earlier this week, when he went back-to-back games without a hit and then he said enough of that and proceeded to go 6-for-10, with three home runs, four RBI and six runs scored. In Thursday’s slugfest between Louisville and Iowa, Morel had his first multi-home run game in 2023, going 4-for-6.

These weren’t cheap home runs either. The first one couldn’t even be tracked by Statcast.

And the Morel crushed a ball to right-center field for his 10th home run of the season.

Morel has played in 21 games with the Iowa Cubs and his name is near the top of several offensive categories.

Christopher Morel Through 21 Games at Triple-A
.345/.444/.810, 1.254 OPS, 209 wRC+
10 HR, 21 RBI, 25 R, 7 2B, 1 3B

Triple-A Ranks
10 HR: t-1st
21 RBI: t-8th
25 R: t-2nd
.345 BA: 14th
.444 OBP: 21st
.810 SLG: 2nd
1.254 OPS: 2nd
209 wRC+: 2nd
.464 ISO: 2nd

The thing is, as much as I love watching Morel play baseball and want to see him back in the big leagues, unlike complaining about production at first base and DH for the Cubs, Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom have played well at third base to begin the 2023 season. So yeah, Morel is crushing it, but it’s not like the Cubs are missing his bat all that much at the hot corner.

Plus, the main reason Morel is still in the minors after spending most of 2022 in the majors is because he does need to cut down his strikeout percentage and get more comfortable playing third base.

In his absence, here’s how Wisdom and Madrigal have performed in the first month of the season with the Cubs.

Patrick Wisdom
.241/.315/.639, .954 OPS, 152 wRC+ (92 Plate Appearances)
9 HR, 18 RBI, 19 R, 4 2B, 1 3B

Nick Madrigal
.273/.319/.364, .683 OPS, 89 wRC+ (47 Plate Appearances)
0 HR, 4 RBI, 6 R, 2 2B, 1 3B

Sure, you could make the argument that Morel could take Madrigal’s spot, but I’m not sure the Cubs want Morel only playing 2-3 times a week. Also, Morel is only 23-years-old and this is the first time he’s had extended time at the Triple-A level. It was impressive that he was able to come up from Double-A in 2022, but we saw that he was overmatched in the final couple of months of the season.

I’ll stick with my original thought when the Cubs announced their Opening Day roster for this year and Morel wasn’t it on it, I don’t like it, but I completely understand the decision and in the long term, Morel getting more time in the minor leagues will benefit his career.