Jonathan Morales

Jonathan Alexander Morales

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 200 lb.
• School Miami Dade College
• High School Escuela Natividad Rodriguez Gonzalez

• Born January 29, 1995 in Arroyo P.R.

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Catcher Jonathan Morales has played in the minor leagues since 2015, when he was a 25th-round selection by the Atlanta Braves in the 2015 amateur draft. The scout was Lou Sanchez. A native of Puerto Rico, he went to high school on the island before moving to Miami, FL for junior college, from where he was drafted. He has appeared repeatedly in the Caribbean Series.

He started off his career with a good year for the GCL Braves, hitting .304/.378/.511 in 46 games. In 2016, he hit .269/.313/.356 in 113 for the Rome Braves of the South Atlantic League. He started playing winter ball in the Puerto Rican League with the Criollos de Caguas after his first pro season and in 2016-17 was a member of a championship team, appearing in the 2017 Caribbean Series and helping the Puerto Rican squad to the title. In the finale on February 7th, he drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the 10th inning to give Caguas a 1-0 win over Águilas de Mexicali. In 2017, he split the season between the Florida Fire Frogs of the Florida State League and the Mississippi Braves of the Southern League, but fell to .219/.268/.272 in 92 games. That winter he played for both Caguas and the Leones del Escogido in the Dominican League. Playing for Caguas in the 2018 Caribbean Series, he was part of a second title winner in as many years.

In 2018, he played just 70 games due to injuries, and that included 8 games back in the Gulf Coast League on a rehabilitation assignment. However, he also played in AAA for the first time, with the Gwinnett Stripers of the International League, in addition to playing for Mississippi. In all, he batted .265/.325/.340, a nice bounce-back from his struggles the previous year. He was back with Caguas that winter, but they failed to win a third straight league championship. In 2019, he played 80 games between Mississippi and Gwinnett, hitting .240/.305/.309. He then played for Caguas but it was as a player on loan to the Cangrejeros de Santurce that he made a third trip to the Caribbean Series in three years. He helped Santurce win games against the Astronautas de Chiriqui on February 1, 2020, with a sacrifice fly in the 10th inning, and again on February 4th with a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch in the 8th against Vaqueros de Monteria, but those were the only two wins for the Puerto Ricans in the six games they played.

With the minor leagues shut down by the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, he spent the summer at the Braves' alternate training site, working with some of the organization's top pitchers, the played winter ball for Caguas and made it four Caribbean Series appearances in five years when Caguas won its 19th Puerto Rican League championship. The Criolos were the runner-ups that year, losing the finals to the Aguilas Cibaenas, representing the Dominican League. He spent all of 2021 with Gwinnett, but hit just .145 in 49 games, which likely cost him a change at appearing in the majors, given the major league Braves had a number of injuries to their catchers that season, on their way to winning the 2021 World Series. But he was still a fixture with Caguas, who won yet another Puerto Rican League title that winter. He thus played in the 2022 Caribbean Series, but the Criollos only went 1 for 4 and were never in title contention. In 2022, he moved to the Colorado Rockies organization and had a very nice bounce-back year with the Albuquerque Isotopes, batting .308/.385/.432 in 86 games. However, Caguas had a down year in 2022-23, failing to make it even to the Puerto Rican championship series.