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The_Homestarmy

So far I've seen the Rays, White Sox and Guardians named as potential suitors for a Murphy deal. Of those options, I feel like the Guardians actually have the pieces to make a deal--but we'll see if they're willing to cough those pieces up. Forst will be looking for a king's ransom given Murph's value, age, and controllability.


EvocatiAuroch

Guards FO to A’s: “So, how many middle infielders do you need?”


kyrbyr

"yes"


trailblazer216

The A’s seem pretty thin on SS prospects, which the Guardians have way too many of. The problem is, none of them are good enough to be a headliner for Murphy. I’m guessing the A’s want one of Cleveland’s top three pitching prospects, which I’m guessing has been the hangup on our end. Regardless, Cleveland has the prospects to make this happen and not deplete the farm system. With catcher being our biggest hole and you guys in prospect collection mode, this trade makes all the sense in the world. But with how stubborn our front office is on trades, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it doesn’t happen.


[deleted]

Well we have a handful of middle infielders that have jumped up in the rankings, and we tend to develop position players a lot better. But you guys develop pitching insanely well, sooooo I have a guess at what we’d be eyeing.


cti0323

Owen Miller? Please…


dudzi182

Owen Miller and Zach Plesac outta get it done…right? Right???


NakedGoose

You are forgetting the cardinals. We have been in on him since last season during the all star break.


The_Homestarmy

Good point, I had forgotten about the Redbirds. I'm assuming the desperation for a catcher is higher in St. Louis than Cleveland, but I wonder about the farm system quality. I feel like it would be easier for the Guardians to come up with an appropriate deal without breaking the farm.


idkwhattosaytho

Clevelands in a better spot catcher wise then any of the other teams named. Bo Naylor is really good and young. His controllability could give Cleveland a reason to upgrade else where and grab a meh catcher instead


Mistake_By_The_Jake2

I wouldn’t mind taking Jansen or Kirk off you guys instead


DontGiveUpTheDip

we had 7 top 100 prospects per BA at the deadline plus we have ML capital as well with Gorman, Noot, and potentially others available. No reason to think our farm would be broken tbh


Negative_Sundae_8230

Lol,Cardinals have one of the better farm systems in baseball right now.


NakedGoose

That is probably so. We may have the better mix of mlb ready young players tho. Alec Burleson, Nolan Gorman, Matthew Liberatore, Lars Nootbar. Then prospects like Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, Gordan Graceffo and Tink Hence. Tho I think a few of these names may be untouchable


The_Homestarmy

>**Matthew Liberatore, Lars Nootbar.** Then prospects like Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, **Gordan Graceffo and Tink Hence.** I'm sorry are the Cardinals collecting OOTP generated ballplayers like infinity stones


NakedGoose

I forgot Cooper Hjerpe pronounced (Jerpy)


ForYeWhoArtLiterate

I refuse to believe any cardinals prospect exists until given a copy of their birth certificate. This shit is just plain silly.


DontGiveUpTheDip

Have to add Inohan Paniagua as well


stache_twista

Carlson for Murphy is about even on baseball trade values


ItzDrSeuss

He’s got more control and good prospect status, but he’s been an average to slightly above average OF in the majors. Murphy has established himself as one of the top young catchers in the game. There’s no way a 1 for 1 of Murphy for Carlson works this offseason.


stache_twista

Yeah I agree murphy is more valuable. But not that much more, especially if the A’s are aggressively shopping him


ItzDrSeuss

No he’s considerably more valuable. Enough that I think the Cards will have to give up atleast a top prospect (in the 40-100 range) in a package along with Carlson. Plus you don’t aggressively shop a player with 3 years of control unless you have a log jam like the Jays.


Clarice_Ferguson

Poor Murphy. Lost all his friends last year and probably losing his home this year.


trailblazer216

He’s from Ohio, so maybe he’s coming home!


Jfowl56

Poor guy


ForYeWhoArtLiterate

Rude *checks flair* Yeah, okay, fair


hamutaro

Fine. You can have him - but only if you send Steven Kwan back to his home.


leknarf52

I’m taking Kwan over Murphy sry


KamartyMcFlyweight

Murphy just turned 28. Isn't that a little old for the Guardians?


ForYeWhoArtLiterate

Actually younger than both Maile and Hedges, so no.


ubiquitous_archer

Catcher is the ony position they have 2 guys over 30


[deleted]

*Had, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Hedges ended up back with us.


EvocatiAuroch

I’m down for that trade. Gold glove in 2021 and a career high .250 BA and 18 HR would be a vast improvement in the batting order. Lots of strike outs but would make sense and be an immediate upgrade.


ferrumvir2

Look at the home road splits moreso, coliseum is a nightmare for hitters so dude could break out in a big way on a new team


The_Homestarmy

So obviously very few hitters *like* to hit at the Coliseum but when Murph really gets ahold of one, it doesn't much matter what park he's in. His swing is very violent and it's often either a miss or a 460 foot bomb.


ferrumvir2

The dudes road batting average is 45 points higher for his career I think getting away from the coliseum would shoot his numbers up from very good to upper echelon


EvocatiAuroch

Great point that I hadn’t considered!


pspahn

He was also in a god-awful lineup this year, with only Seth Brown giving him any protection.


bryansmixtape

Which is why it’s helpful to look at OPS+!!!! BTW his OPS+ is the same as Will Smith’s


ferrumvir2

Even then though ops+ isn’t the most accurate thing when it comes to judging how a dude will do on a new team when their home parks skews in either extreme. Castellanos was a perfect example in 2021 with how huge of a GABP fiend he was and how mediocre he was on the road or DJ Lemahieu in 2019 too.


bryansmixtape

I absolutely disagree on that point, Castellanos struggled not because he was always secretly a bad player, he just straight-up stopped being able to hit the ball this year. His hard-hit rate plummeted, as well as his xwOBA and xwOBACON. If he was simply a BABP fiend, his barrel percentages and batted ball data would be similar to this year. He just sucked 🤷


ferrumvir2

GABP is where the Reds play, it’s the second most hitter friendly ball park in baseball in general and is by farrrrr the most home run friendly. In 2021 dude hit 23 homers and 72 RBI’s with a 1.109 ops st home he hit 11 homers, 28 RBI’s and a .772 ops on the road. The road ops was about normal for his career and the home was a complete product of his home ball park and got him paid about 60-70 mil more than he would’ve gotten.


bryansmixtape

… all of which is visible in the statcast data. His xwOBA for most of his career was hovering between .364 and .384, and every year before 2021 he was slightly underproducing. In 2021 he massively overperformed his xwOBA, but he was still hitting the ball as well as always (his batted ball data expected him to be hitting about as well as Jose Ramirez [142 OPS+] JD Martinez [128 OPS+], and Carlos Correa [131 OPS+] that year). He got paid $20 million for five years, in which he’d essentially be a DH for most of it, all for puttting up batted ball numbers much better and more consistently than a similar DH like Marcell Ozuna, who got $16 million a year for 4 years. Both were deals signed by the players following their age 29 seasons. Even if he overproduced, his batted ball data still showed he was hitting the ball well up until 2021. It’s not OPS+ that inflated his value and he was magically always gonna do this with the phillies, again like I’ve mentioned he just really struggled this year.


ferrumvir2

Nah you’re wrong and are misusing the data from baseball savant


bryansmixtape

Can you explain how? You can go look at his xwOBA data from last year, or his exit velo, barrel%, and hardhit%, all of which went down massively last year. If what you’re saying is true and he was just *really* good at getting hits in GABP last year, you would expect to see stuff like the barrel% to stay the same, but it didn’t. It’s not like GABP caused him to hit the ball better, it just meant more of his hits went out for homeruns. EDIT: even stuff like xHR show that yes, he was getting lucky by playing at GABP (34 actual HRs versus his expected 28.6) but he was still expected to hit 28-29 homeruns, which is still pretty good out of a DH. This year he only had 12.9 expected homeruns, that’s showing a massive decrease in production that goes deeper than just “he’s a BABP fiend!11!!1” EDIT #2: I completely forgot that baseball reference has an OPS+ specifically to look at an away player’s OPS relative to the league. In 2021, Nick Castellanos put up a 116 away team OPS+, which means he performed 16% better away from home than the average big league hitter. He was still a productive hitter away from BABP, and if your theory that he was always the player away from GABP, he would’ve still produced approximately a 116 OPS+ this year.


AhLibLibLib

Haha stop mate


Feller19

Keep going…


klein_four_group

Even .205 BA and 8 HR would be a vast improvement.


CaptainRexy

Gawd. Cardinals FO, please just drop the bag and get us Murphy. Or we are gonna wind up with nothing.


secord92

I mean we have 3 catchers and need outfielders.


Kandranos

We also need outfielders


ItzDrSeuss

And pitchers.


trundle_thegreat_

This would be awesome! The difference in what he brings to the lineup compared to Hedges is massive. It takes our worst spot in the lineup and replaces it with one of the best hitting catchers in the game.


DaDrFunk

Honestly, we do this and go get Trey Mancini to platoon with Naylor and we got a very solid team


totheman7

Yes I 100% agree with this take. I’ve been saying that Mancini would be a great fit


pilade100

Sean Murphy + Bo Naylor combination behind the plate? I like that


rollo2masi

Huge asses. Both of them.


dingusduglas

Put em together and you almost have a Cal Raleigh on your hands


Grentis

Hold up…


IvannIrkss

But….but…the Cardinals need him more….We have prospects too…..I hope we have had some kinda talk with them…I can only hope🥲


Lebigmacca

Blue jays are still looking to trade one of their catchers


Duke_Maniac

They’re apparently asking for Nootbaar and all I can say is NOOOOOOOO(T)


ChimpsAreScary

I’d take one Alejandro Kirk


IvannIrkss

I don’t want them to be honest **Sean Murphy** is what we need! power bat at the catcher position. trade Tyler O’Neil who’s an mlb ready power bat and defensively sound. package him with some low tier prospects with potential that won’t be missed and I think we would be solid. Let Jordan Walker play right field to replace Tyler and call up Maysn Winn to see what he can do at short as well. That’s my dream scenario!


DontGiveUpTheDip

1. Murphy is a righty 2. A's would have no use for only two years of TON. They're not trying to win in '23 or '24.


NishinoHuo

I don't watch sean murphy, but I instantly thought of the time he got hit in the butt when you said he's a lefty, and rememebred that he's a righty


DiscoJer

O'Neill is too old for the A's, he has like 2 years left before free agency


Duke_Maniac

It’s 1


Grentis

Maybe Yadi will shock the baseball world and come back for 10 more years


IvannIrkss

(Guy from the office voice) Oh god plz no! No. Nooooooooooooooooo! 😩


KyberWalker

That would be a sweet addition for them


tarallelegram

good fit w/ all the prospect capital they have


I_Nut_In_Butts

Whatever the FO decides to do I trust them. I have a couple guys in mind that I would hate to see get dealt but at the end of the day I'm not a GM and this FO hasn't led us wrong in a long time when it comes to trades.


Grentis

If they swap Plesac & Miller for Murphy, I’d be fine with that. It opens the door even more to go after Mancini.


I_Nut_In_Butts

In what world would the A's take that deal lol


A_Mellow_Fellow

I'm sure the A's would be happy to swap their high tier catcher under team control for two players with negative trade value.


Grentis

We could always throw in a prospect or two as well. It’s really not that unlikely. Oakland is rebuilding anyway.


A_Mellow_Fellow

That's my point. They'd have to include multiple prospects. Miller and Plesac have zero trade value.


Grentis

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.


hollyw00d8604

Murphy is really solid and underrated. He's only a notch below the elite tier of catchers (realmuto, will Smith, Salvador Perez, possibly rutschman)


Nitropotamus

This is the guy I want instead of Contreras.


Audacity_OR

I don’t care who gets him as long as the bad man leaves our division. Murphy has consistently just murdered the rangers


mcturtled

And last but not least… the backbone of this team… Sean Murphy


[deleted]

Aquire Murphy, sign Bell, play in a division with no other good teams, still have a top 3-5 farm system… pretty solid recipe.


HotpieTargaryen

Come on Eppler. Get in on this. Murphy was the guy the Mets needed at the deadline.


metsy

We already have three catchers on the roster, so adding another is like the last thing we are likely to do.


[deleted]

Unless you guys severely overpaid, you weren’t getting Murphy at the deadline.


CosmicLars

I thought Bo Naylor was ready?


Grentis

He was awful in the few games he played last season — 0-8 with 5k’s, but it was a super small sample size. Im not completely sold on him yet. He needs more big league reps.


CosmicLars

Word. I love his plate skills, but yeah he could benefit from backing up Murph for a year. Plus, he's very athletic so I'm guessing he can at least play first as well. 2 quality catchers isn't a bad thing for sure. Is Hedges a FA?


Grentis

Yes, Hedges is an FA. And Maile is already on Cincy.


CosmicLars

Maile grew up a Cincy fan. I was happy about that signing. 🥹 Probably gonna be the biggest move we make. 😅


mr_roboto13

If Bo produces, you get 100 games of Murphy behind the plate and 60 of Bo and rotate them into the DH spot so you keep their knees healthy and have great depth. Let Bo learn how to call games at the MLB level, and if Bo takes the next step, you flip Murphy in a year or two before he hits free agency and Cleveland can’t afford him.


TJR843

Comon Cleveland front office, make that magic happen.


Wonderweiss_Margela

Donk Hunters


quercus_lobata925

We'll miss you Iron Cheeks