I saw a post by a San Diego Padres website about what his team would have to give up to get Sean Murphy in a trade. It was a hilariously low cost, trading a .189 hitting centerfielder who Padres fans want to get rid of anyway and 3 middling prospects to get Murphy. Typical stuff: you take guys we don't want for a guy everybody wants.
So, it made me think. What are the bloggers saying about trade packages they think their team could put together to get Murphy.
San Diego
Trent Grisham (.189 hitting CFer, Gold Glove Winner), sam Zavala (#4 SD prospect), Adam Mazur (#6 SD prospect), Jackson Wolf (soft tossing lefty not listed in Padres top 30 prospects.
Analysis - SD has only 2 prospects in MLB Pipeline's top 100 prospects in baseball and they rank #89 and #93. Thus they have a weak system. Grisham is a great fielder but what would the A's want with a .189 hitting CFer who is arbitration-eligble? This sounds like the Padres dumping their mediocre excess on the A's.
Cardinals
Murphy and Nick Allen for Matthew Liberatore (#80 prospect in baseball), Nick Hence (#91 prospect in baseball) and Nolan Gorman.
Analysis: This blogger did a worth vs salary projection analysis and his logic seems sound to me but remember, Mark Twain said there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. Still, this is a reasonable package for Murphy, in my opinion. I love Murphy but he improves a team incrementally that already has an average catcher (Andrew Kizner). Plus, he is coming off a career year. Liberatore and Gorman are coming off sub-par years in the majors and while highly rated, the A's are taking some risk in this trade. Nevertheless, I think this is a fair trade for both teams.
Yankees
Oswald Peraza (SS, #3 Yankees prospect, #50 in baseball), Austin Wells (C, #5 Yankees prospect, #80 in baseball), Will Warren (RHP, #8 Yankees prospect), Elijah Dunham (OF, #19 Yankees prospect).
Analysis: This trade, on paper, looks pretty good for a rebuilding team. You get an infielder, and outfielder, a catcher and a RHP pitcher, all of whom are good prospects both within their own system and within baseball.
Guardians
So, looking at the three trades above two of them represent reality of what Murphy is worth as the A's have to get that they are selling high on Murphy, who is coming off a career offensive year, and, after being burned at the deadline because their request was over-the-moon in terms of what a Murphy trade would bring back,
So, looking at the packages above what would the Guardians have to give up to get Murphy?
OF: George Valera (#2 Guardians prospect, #31 in baseball)
IF: Brayan Rocchio (#4 Guardians prospect, #69 in baseball)
P: Gavin Williams (#3 Guardians prospect, #53 in baseball)
First, I think this beats the other 3 trades above hands down. Second,this seems heavy compared to other trade proposals so I would have to get AJ Puk back in this trade, as well and throw in Owen Miller (preferred) or Richie Palacios to sweeten the deal for the A's. Still, this would be a high price to pay for the Guardians who could just re-sign Maile or Hedges as a backup and throw Naylor in the fire and I would only do this if I could sign Jose Abreu and, maybe, Mitch Haniger. Murphy and Puk simply do not bring us THAT much closer to the WS by themselves, especially not with what we are giving up, which is an importnat piece in 2024 (Williams) and potential 2023 pieces or trade chips (Rocchio and Valera). However, with the other free agent additions I believe this team could compete for the WS next year if Haniger is healthy.
So we will see what happens but with all the interest I see a Murphy trade happening sooner rather than later. I don't know whether we will get Murphy but I hope we don't look at the players some other team trades for him and say to ourselves that we could have easily beaten that return.
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