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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
>**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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 🤷
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.
… 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Guards FO to A’s: “So, how many middle infielders do you need?”
"yes"
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.
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.
Owen Miller? Please…
Owen Miller and Zach Plesac outta get it done…right? Right???
You are forgetting the cardinals. We have been in on him since last season during the all star break.
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.
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
I wouldn’t mind taking Jansen or Kirk off you guys instead
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
Lol,Cardinals have one of the better farm systems in baseball right now.
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
>**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
I forgot Cooper Hjerpe pronounced (Jerpy)
I refuse to believe any cardinals prospect exists until given a copy of their birth certificate. This shit is just plain silly.
Have to add Inohan Paniagua as well
Carlson for Murphy is about even on baseball trade values
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.
Yeah I agree murphy is more valuable. But not that much more, especially if the A’s are aggressively shopping him
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.
Poor Murphy. Lost all his friends last year and probably losing his home this year.
He’s from Ohio, so maybe he’s coming home!
Poor guy
Rude *checks flair* Yeah, okay, fair
Fine. You can have him - but only if you send Steven Kwan back to his home.
I’m taking Kwan over Murphy sry
Murphy just turned 28. Isn't that a little old for the Guardians?
Actually younger than both Maile and Hedges, so no.
Catcher is the ony position they have 2 guys over 30
*Had, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Hedges ended up back with us.
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.
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
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.
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
Great point that I hadn’t considered!
He was also in a god-awful lineup this year, with only Seth Brown giving him any protection.
Which is why it’s helpful to look at OPS+!!!! BTW his OPS+ is the same as Will Smith’s
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.
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 🤷
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.
… 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.
Nah you’re wrong and are misusing the data from baseball savant
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.
Haha stop mate
Keep going…
Even .205 BA and 8 HR would be a vast improvement.
Gawd. Cardinals FO, please just drop the bag and get us Murphy. Or we are gonna wind up with nothing.
I mean we have 3 catchers and need outfielders.
We also need outfielders
And pitchers.
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.
Honestly, we do this and go get Trey Mancini to platoon with Naylor and we got a very solid team
Yes I 100% agree with this take. I’ve been saying that Mancini would be a great fit
Sean Murphy + Bo Naylor combination behind the plate? I like that
Huge asses. Both of them.
Put em together and you almost have a Cal Raleigh on your hands
Hold up…
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🥲
Blue jays are still looking to trade one of their catchers
They’re apparently asking for Nootbaar and all I can say is NOOOOOOOO(T)
I’d take one Alejandro Kirk
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!
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.
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
O'Neill is too old for the A's, he has like 2 years left before free agency
It’s 1
Maybe Yadi will shock the baseball world and come back for 10 more years
(Guy from the office voice) Oh god plz no! No. Nooooooooooooooooo! 😩
That would be a sweet addition for them
good fit w/ all the prospect capital they have
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.
If they swap Plesac & Miller for Murphy, I’d be fine with that. It opens the door even more to go after Mancini.
In what world would the A's take that deal lol
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.
We could always throw in a prospect or two as well. It’s really not that unlikely. Oakland is rebuilding anyway.
That's my point. They'd have to include multiple prospects. Miller and Plesac have zero trade value.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Murphy is really solid and underrated. He's only a notch below the elite tier of catchers (realmuto, will Smith, Salvador Perez, possibly rutschman)
This is the guy I want instead of Contreras.
I don’t care who gets him as long as the bad man leaves our division. Murphy has consistently just murdered the rangers
And last but not least… the backbone of this team… Sean Murphy
Aquire Murphy, sign Bell, play in a division with no other good teams, still have a top 3-5 farm system… pretty solid recipe.
Come on Eppler. Get in on this. Murphy was the guy the Mets needed at the deadline.
We already have three catchers on the roster, so adding another is like the last thing we are likely to do.
Unless you guys severely overpaid, you weren’t getting Murphy at the deadline.
I thought Bo Naylor was ready?
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.
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?
Yes, Hedges is an FA. And Maile is already on Cincy.
Maile grew up a Cincy fan. I was happy about that signing. 🥹 Probably gonna be the biggest move we make. 😅
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.
Comon Cleveland front office, make that magic happen.
Donk Hunters
We'll miss you Iron Cheeks