Is A's Catcher Sean Murphy Worth White Sox Andrew Vaughn?

There has been a discussion online whether the White Sox should trade their first baseman for the A's catcher

It has come to my attention that some people believe that Sean Murphy is not as valuable a trade chip as Andrew Vaughn. Jim Bowden of The Athletic was talking off-season trades over at The Athletic, and he was asked who else would have to be included in a Sean Murphy deal, aside from Andrew Vaughn. 

Bowden replied, "The White Sox are not going to trade Vaughn for Murphy. Vaughn is going to be their everyday first baseman. He also has more trade value than Murphy."

The first part of that response makes sense. Why address one area by subtracting from another? It's a fair question to raise, but we're not building the White Sox roster. If they feel that adding Murphy would help them in 2023 and beyond, then great! 

It's the part where he said that Murphy isn't as valuable in a trade as Vaughn that didn't sound correct. I rarely do this, but I had to read the comments on this one, and sure enough, it was readers debating who was more valuable and their reasoning for their stance. 

The site Baseball Trade Values, which should only be used as a loose approximation, and not as cold hard proof on how a team did in a trade, has Murphy with 51.3 in trade value, and Andrew Vaughn at 25.5, so Murphy is worth double according to their analysis. 

They also wrote about why they have Murphy's value so high, and they start with the fact that Murphy put up 5.1 fWAR (FanGraphs WAR) in 2022. According to FanGraphs'  own measure of WAR, a 5.1 win season is on the border of either an All Star season or a superstar. 

In 2021 he played in fewer games (119 compared to 148 in 2022), but on a per game basis, he would have put up a 4.1 win season over 148 games instead of the 3.3 he finished with. That's a solid All Star level season, and you have to remember that 2021 was his first full season in the big leagues, too. He was called up in 2019 and played in 20 games at the big league level, then he played in 43 games in the shortened 2020 season before his 119 in 2021. 

You can look at this from a couple of different ways, but the fact that he hasn't had a ton of time in the big leagues should actually be a point in his favor, since he still has room to grow, as we saw in the second half of 2022 where he had a 140 wRC+, meaning he was 40% above league average, compared to 8% above league average in the first half. 

The Murphy detractors will point to his batting average and ask why a player that has hit just .236 over his career could be worth so much. Well, there's WAR, which makes a pretty compelling case, and then there are his defensive metrics. 

He can control the running game with a strong arm and a pop time that ranks in the 96th percentile. Only one catcher in all of baseball had a better pop time, and that's J.T. Realmuto, who signed a five year, $115.5M contract with the Phillies before the 2021 season. Realmuto will be making just under $24MM next season while Sean Murphy is projected to make $3.5MM through arbitration. 

Murphy's framing of pitches is also top tier, ranking in the 86th percentile, and sixth overall. You're getting all that added value on defense, plus a guy that can mash it pretty well for a catcher. Baseball Savant lists similar batters to Murphy in 2022 as J.T. Realmuto, who is set to make $20MM more than Murphy at the same position, Carlos Correa, who made $35MM with the Minnesota Twins in 2022 and could approach $300M this offseason, and Francisco Lindor, who is set to make $34MM per season for the next nine years. 

You could say that Sean Murphy at $3.5MM is pretty valuable. He also has three years of team control left, including 2023. 

Andrew Vaughn has four years of control left on his deal, and will be set to hit arbitration next winter. From an A's perspective, he is the type of player that they would certainly love to have in this potential deal, but there are two major questions at play here: Are the White Sox willing to part with him, and do the A's want to add just one extra year of team control for the likely centerpiece of this deal, or do they want to shift their own focus to the Sox farm system? 

Vaughn hit .271 with a .321 on-base in 2021 at the age of 24, and he also smacked 17 homers and drove in 76 runs. Like Murphy, he still has room to grow offensively, and one reason the A's could be after him is that he is a guy with some pop that doesn't strike out a ton, K'ing just 17.3% of the time last season. That is a major bonus for the A's, who have been targeting more contact bats of late. Vaughn also finished the season with a 113 wRC+, making him 13% above league average. Murphy finished with a 120.

Defensively is where the trade value argument starts to become a little lopsided, since it was Vaughn's defense, primarily as a corner outfielder, getting 45 games in right and 44 in left field, that had him finish the season with a -0.4 fWAR. 

That's a lot less than Murphy's five-win season. 

The hope for either team is that moving Vaughn to first base will take care of some of those defensive woes that accounted for -8 Outs Above Average (OAA) in right field and -9 OAA in left field in 2022 alone. He had a -3 OAA at first base in limited playing time too, giving him a -20 OAA overall. 

Sean Murphy is a top five player at his position, and you could even argue top two when accounting for both offense and defense. Andrew Vaughn just isn't there yet, but there is still a lot of promise with him, if he can settle in at a position and work on his defense. 

Obviously the White Sox have a huge void at first with José Abreu hitting free agency, and Vaughn would be the logical replacement at first. He'd probably be a pretty good replacement, too! 

But I said that there were two major questions at play, and "are the Sox willing to trade Andrew Vaughn?" was one of them. There were reports early on in 2022 that they didn't want to trade him for Frankie Montas, so we at least know that the A's are interested in him. 

You have to think that since the White Sox have inquired about Sean Murphy, they at least already know which player the A's would be after in a deal. The White Sox inquiry went one of two ways.

Version one: "Hey do you guys still want Andrew Vaughn?"

"Yes."

*Click*

Version two: "We are willing to include Andrew Vaughn for Sean Murphy." 

It seems pretty straightforward that Sean Murphy is the more valuable piece in this trade, even though he's the older of the two players and has one less year of team control. He was a flat-out better hitter in 2022, plays a premium position, and plays it really well. It's obvious why teams are calling about him, but they better be ready to give up some real talent for a guy that has only hit .236 in his career. 

Here is what a trade with the White Sox could look like in addition to Andrew Vaughn.