Breaking Down the Strange, Three-Way Sean Murphy Trade

The Brewers somehow wound up as the big winners in a trade primarily involving the Braves and A’s.

The trade market is finally up and running: The A’s sent catcher Sean Murphy to the Braves in a three-team deal with nine players and plenty of quirks.

Here are the details of the swap, which was first reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN. The Braves will receive Murphy from the A’s in exchange for major-league catcher Manny Piña and a prospect package of left-handed pitcher Kyle Muller and right-handed pitchers Freddy Tarnok and Royber Salinas. The Braves will also send two players—All-Star catcher William Contreras and minor-league pitcher Justin Yeager—to the Brewers. Finally, the Brewers will send utilityman Esteury Ruiz to the A’s, and they will get back minor-league pitcher Joel Payamps.

In other words? This is a bit of a weird one! The Braves were already plenty strong at catcher. (The fact that they were able to trade away not one but two major-league backstops here should be a good hint there.) But the best catcher available right now was Murphy—and Atlanta gave up an All-Star and a few serious prospects to get him. The Brewers, meanwhile, pulled off a huge win: They landed a legitimate impact bat (Contreras) while giving up very little. And the A’s … continued exactly what they have done for the last few years, trading away their best players as soon as they reach arbitration mostly in exchange for minor leaguers of varying talent, all in the service of ensuring their payroll stays as low as possible.

Let’s break it down one team at a time.

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Braves

Get: Catcher Sean Murphy. 

Give up: Catchers William Contreras and Manny Piña, minor-league pitchers Kyle Muller, Freddy Tarnok, Royber Salinas and Justin Yeager.

Murphy is deservedly the headliner of this deal. Since debuting in 2019, he’s emerged as one of the most well-rounded catchers in the game. Among backstops who have appeared in 150 games since ’19, there are only five who have posted a higher OPS+ than Murphy’s 114, and the only member of that set to beat him defensively is the Phillies’ J.T. Realmuto, the best in the game.

Which means there were plenty of teams that seemed like great landing spots for Murphy. But the Braves … weren’t really one of them. They were perfectly fine at catcher! They have Travis d’Arnaud (under contract for 2023 with an $8 million team option for 2024) backed up by All-Star offensive threat William Contreras and, behind him, veteran Manny Piña. That combination placed Atlanta third in FanGraphs catcher WAR in 2022—one of only three clubs in baseball whose catchers posted double-digit offensive WAR and defensive WAR. Remember the aforementioned five catchers who’ve hit better than Murphy? One of them was Contreras. (Actually, two of them were Contreras, since the group also includes William’s brother, Willson, but that’s neither here nor there.) Now, Murphy is a much better defender than Contreras. There are plenty of valid reasons to prefer the former to the latter. But it’s curious to give up Contreras and prospects just to land Murphy—particularly in a situation where Contreras was already paired with a solid defensive catcher in d’Arnaud. There was no weakness the Braves needed to paper over here. They already had it all covered. And that’s without even mentioning that Contreras has two more years of team control than Murphy.

In terms of the other players they’re giving up—Muller and Tarnok were among the best pitching prospects in this system. Both debuted in MLB in 2022 and should not be far off from being fully big-league ready. As with every assessment of young pitching talent, all the usual caveats about volatility, injury and unpredictability apply: There’s no such thing as a guaranteed pitching prospect. But this was no small pair to lose. And to deal them away just to upgrade what was already a strong position is odd.

That said, Atlanta’s front office is generally quite smart. There might be a factor here that isn’t publicly obvious right now. Maybe the Braves were sour on Contreras as a long-term option because of his glove, and they felt confident in their ability to extend Murphy, as they’ve made a habit of doing with young players. (Hey, they did it last spring with a fellow A’s acquisition, Matt Olson.) Maybe they have a deal all but ready to go for d’Arnaud. And, to be clear, they certainly haven’t made their current roster worse: Murphy is a fantastic catcher and should represent a better all-around option than Contreras. But the point of dealing from a position of strength is usually to upgrade a different position. This deal isn’t necessarily bad for Atlanta. But as it sits right now? It’s certainly strange.

Brewers

Get: Catcher William Contreras and minor-league pitchers Justin Yeager and Joel Payamps.

Give up: Utilityman Esteury Ruiz.

What the Brewers did here is nothing short of miraculous. They got a tremendous young hitter—a current All-Star!—for very, very, very little. That’s not intended as a knock on Ruiz. But if someone had asked you to draw up a deal where a team gave up one player to get back William Contreras … Well, let’s just say you would not have landed on that player being the 23-year-old utilityman who rounded out the Josh Hader trade package in August. You probably couldn’t even have named the 23-year-old utilityman who rounded out the Josh Hader trade package in August! Yet here we are.

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Contreras is a young talent at a premium position with a lifetime 120 OPS+. He’s still years away from arbitration, let alone free agency, and even if you don’t necessarily see him sticking at catcher long-term, he’s a formidable enough hitter that it doesn’t matter so much. Ruiz, meanwhile, is a fringe-y player who offers speed with some defensive versatility but no real hit tool to speak of. This feels almost more like a magic trick than a steal. And the Brewers got a few minor-league arms thrown in, too!

Athletics

Get: C Manny Piña, utilityman Esteury Ruiz and minor-league pitchers Kyle Muller, Freddy Tarnok and Royber Salinas.

Give up: C Sean Murphy and minor-league pitcher Joel Payamps.

The A’s were always going to trade Murphy: That’s simply what they’ve done with players who’ve reached arbitration in recent years. But they were in a real position to get back serious talent here. And, well, they did not.

Yes, Muller and Tarnok are legitimate prospects, and Salinas is a potentially interesting talent, too. But the A’s have been stockpiling arms who are close to major-league ready. They’ve already used their trades to build up a supply of these kinds of young pitchers, and now, they have plenty else to focus on. They should have been in the driver’s seat on this deal. Since Willson Contreras is now off the market, Murphy was the best catcher available, and Oakland was seemingly in a position to name its price. The A’s could have targeted more talent that could have made an immediate impact on the biggest areas of need for this roster. Instead, the best player the Braves gave up to get Murphy was William Contreras, and he went to the Brewers. The A’s seem to value Ruiz quite highly; his speed is impressive, and while he’s never really put it together at the plate, he showed flashes of success in his journey through the minors. But there’s no logical way they should value him this highly.

It should be damning that Oakland’s major-league return here consisted of Ruiz and 35-year-old backup catcher Piña. This is not a club serious about putting a respectable team on the field in 2023. Which you already knew. But this deal just underscores it.