Sean Murphy Trade - What Does It Mean and What Is Next

 So, Mr. Murphy is finally traded...to Atlanta.

The kneejerk thoughts by people who blog for teams who wanted but did not get Murphy is generally: Could my team have payed that much or more to get Murphy.

To make it more complicated this became a 3 team deal, including Milwaukee.  However, for purposes of this deal let's assume that Milwaukee traded Contrares for Esteury Ruiz and Justin Yaeger first and that any other players that went to Milwaukee are assumed to have gone to the other two teams, Atlanta and Oakland.

Using this oversimplification, here is what the trade looked like:

Oakland traded:

Sean Murphy C and Joel Payamps RHRP

Atlanta traded

Manny Pina C, Freddy Tarnok (RHP, #6 Braves prospect), Esteury Ruiz (OF, #8 Milwaukke prospect), Kyle Muller (RHP, #1 Atlanta prospect) and Royber Salinas (RHP, #18 Braves prospect)

Unpacking this as it relates to Cleveland:

Pina is a veteran backup catcher.  Sort of a fill-in to help the A's stud young catcher Shea Langeliers (also a former Braves prospect) break in. 

Muller is the Braves #1 prospect.  That being said, he did not even make the MLB Pipeline top 100 prospects, showing how weak the Braves' farm system is.

Tarnok, with that in mind, is the Braves' #6 prospect and Salinas was their #18 prospect

Ruiz was the #8 prospect for the Brewers.

So, in summary, none of these guys were top 100 prospects in baseball.   To put this in perspective, the Guardians would have had to likely give up:

Tammer Bibee

Tanner Burns

Richie Palacios

Konnor Pilkington or Peyton Battenfield

I would have made that deal.  Bibee is a lot to lose but Burns isn't throwing hard, Palacios is good but has no place on this roster and either Pilkington or Battenfield are useable but not needed in Cleveland and, in and of themselves, has little trade value.

Now some may scoff at the package I proposed being equivalent to what Oakland got back but I think these two groups of players are VERY similar.

So, there you have it.  We lost out on Murphy.   It is really possible that the A's tried to gouge the Guardians and the package they proposed was much stronger than the package they got from Atlanta.   We will never know because we won't know what was asked or offered.  

Still, I think looking at what the A's got back for Murphy and Payamps, the Guardians could have easily matched that without significantly damaging their farm system.

Just one guy's opinion.  

So, now, where do we go from here?  Christian Vazquez?  Danny Jansen?  Bargain basement shopping or trading?  Who knows.

But we still need more offense out of catcher, a lefty bullpen arm, and maybe a better right handed right field power bat than Gonzalez.  Also, Carlos Rodon, if we are really going for it, would look good in a Guardians' uniform.