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Tag Archives: ThreeTeam
Rosenthal: Inside the trade of Sean Murphy to Braves and the catalyst for the three-team deal
The Oakland A’s wanted two major-league-ready position players for catcher Sean Murphy. The Braves weren’t about to trade Vaughn Grissom, whom they are grooming to potentially replace free agent Dansby Swanson at shortstop. And the A’s didn’t need William Contreras, not after acquiring another catcher from the Braves, Shea Langeliers, in the Matt Olson trade nine months ago.
Effectively, the teams had no match. But on Tuesday, the Braves landed Murphy anyway, parting with six players in a three-team trade. Contreras and minor-league right-hander Justin Yeager went to the Brewers, along with reliever Joel Payamps from the A’s. Left-hander Kyle Muller, catcher Manny Piña, and minor-league righties Freddy Tarnok and Royber Salinas went to the A’s, with Muller substituting for the second position player Oakland was unable to acquire.
Two separate occurrences helped the deal come together, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The first was the Cardinals’ pivot away from Murphy to sign Contreras’ older brother, Willson Contreras, to a four-year, $87.5 million free-agent contract. The second was the Braves’ willingness to send William Contreras to the Brewers so they could access center fielder Esteury Ruiz, a player whom the A’s had identified to clubs as one they wanted for Murphy.
Ruiz, who turns 24 on Feb. 15, was part of the Brewers’ return for Josh Hader at the trade deadline. His arrival in Oakland could jeopardize the future of Cristian Pache, another player the A’s acquired in the Olson trade. Ruiz finished the season with a .447 on-base percentage in 541 plate appearances at Double A and Triple A. He also stole 85 bases in 99 attempts, and should benefit from the new rules baseball is introducing to enhance base stealing in 2023 — bigger bases, pickoff and step-off limits, a pitch clock.
Esteury Ruiz (Joe Camporeale / USA Today Sports)
Why would the Brewers trade such an athlete? Because in William Contreras, they are getting a different type of athlete, a 2022 All-Star they are confident their coaches can help improve defensively, even if the Braves viewed him more as a bat-first catcher. Why would the A’s value Ruiz so highly despite his lack of power? Because they love his speed and ability to play center. Because he improved his contact and walk rates last season. And because they never agreed on a trade with the Cardinals.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, citing a source, reported the A’s sought a return from the Cardinals that included outfielder Lars Nootbaar, Gold Glove-winner Brendan Donovan and a power young pitcher like Gordon Graceffo. However, another source briefed on the talks said the A’s wanted Nootbaar or Donovan plus Graceffo. The Cardinals were unwilling to trade any of those players, and instead wanted the A’s to choose two from a group of four consisting of outfielder Dylan Carlson, second baseman Nolan Gorman, outfielder Alec Burleson and first baseman Juan Yepez.
When the teams could not reach agreement, the Cardinals signed Willson Contreras, forfeiting their second-highest pick in the 2023 draft and $500,000 from their international bonus pool, but keeping all of their young talent. The evaluation of the Murphy trade, then, will include an analysis of whether the Cardinals would have been better off trading for three years of Murphy, 28, than signing Contreras, who turns 31 on May 13, to the largest deal in club history to a free agent from another club. And the questions won’t end there.
Was this deal necessary for the Braves? Did they give up too much? The answers will not be apparent immediately, and might change if the Braves sign Murphy to one of their patented long-term extensions. Still, William Contreras, Piña and Travis d’Arnaud helped the team produce the highest OPS at catcher of any team last season. Contreras, who bats right-handed but produces opposite-field power like a left-handed slugger, is under club control for five more years.
One of the fascinating aspects of this deal is that the Braves set a high bar for their catchers defensively and view William Contreras as similar to Willson, merely adequate behind the plate. Brewers general manager Matt Arnold, on the other hand, noted that Piña, Yasmani Grandal and Omar Narváez became better defenders under the tutelage of Milwaukee’s staff, indicating he believes William can do the same.
The rest of the Brewers’ haul is less intriguing. Payamps, one of the two pitchers they acquired, was likely to be designated for assignment by the A’s, who need to clear 40-man roster spots. Yeager, the other pitching addition, was left unprotected by the Braves and did not get selected in the recent Rule 5 draft.
Muller, Tarnok and Salinas, the pitchers who went from the Braves to the A’s, are more highly regarded. Muller was down on the Braves’ depth chart, and likely would have been out of options at the end of the season, but the A’s believe he has nothing left to prove at Triple A. Tarnok, too, was part of the Braves’ 40-man roster, and the A’s see him as a potential 100-mph reliever. Salinas, more of a lottery ticket, struck out 175 in 109 innings last season at two levels of A ball.
One executive with another team that wanted Murphy described the A’s return as, “meh,” saying the messaging from Oakland was, “never volume but two of your best.” As is always the case in baseball trades, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And for the A’s, so much will depend upon Ruiz.
If the A’s had wanted William Contreras, they could have made this deal straight-up with the Braves, without including the Brewers. But the A’s only began entertaining offers for Murphy at the trade deadline because they were dealing from a position of strength at catcher.
Langeliers is entering his first full season. Tyler Soderstrom, the A’s No. 1 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, was the team’s first-round pick in 2020, and could end up at first base rather than catcher. Daniel Susac, the team’s first-rounder in 2022 and No. 4 prospect, is further away from the majors, but likely to stay behind the plate.
Ruiz, meanwhile, could be the A’s long-term solution in center, another up-the-middle position. He appeared in only three games for the Brewers during a week-long call-up, but made a strong impression. “He’s really mature,” one Brewers person said. “Billy Hamilton fast with an aggressive swing and an idea at the plate. A 60 to 70 stolen-base type. Impressive in short stint. Unfazed by MLB.”
On Monday, he was the catalyst of a three-team, nine-player trade. The A’s think he can be the catalyst of much more.
(Top photo of Sean Murphy: G Fiume / Getty Images)
Braves Acquire Sean Murphy, Brewers Acquire William Contreras In Three-Team Trade
The Braves, Brewers and A’s have agreed to a three-team blockbuster that will see each team get a new catcher with nine players involved in total. The full trade is as follows:
Braves get Sean Murphy, giving up Kyle Muller, Royber Salinas, Justin Yeager, Freddy Tarnok, Manny Pina and William Contreras.
Brewers get William Contreras, Joel Payamps, Justin Yeager, giving up Esteury Ruiz.
A’s get Kyle Muller, Esteury Ruiz, Freddy Tarnok, Royber Salinas and Manny Pina, giving up Sean Murphy and Joel Payamps.
This move finally brings an end to a trade saga that has been going on for about a year now. After the 2021 season, the A’s leaned hard into a rebuild that saw them trade away Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Sean Manaea and Chris Bassitt before Opening Day, with Frankie Montas getting flipped at the 2022 deadline.
Murphy was widely seen as the next to go for a number of reasons. Firstly, he just crossed three years of MLB service time in 2022 and will now be making higher salaries via arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected that Murphy will jump to $3.5MM in 2023 with two further bumps before reaching free agency after 2025. Secondly, the A’s received an excellent catching prospect from Atlanta in the Olson deal in Shea Langeliers. He had an excellent season in Triple-A and carried himself well in a 40-game debut in the majors. Given all those factors, it seemed more and more likely that the A’s would hand the job over to Langeliers and trade Murphy for improvements elsewhere on the roster.
By taking this path, the A’s are parting with one of the best catchers in the game. The 28-year-old Murphy has 330 games in the big leagues under his belt thus far and has performed well in just about every facet of the game. He’s hit 46 home runs and has a combined batting line of .236/.326/.429. That production leads to a wRC+ of 116, indicating he’s been 16% above the league average hitter and even further ahead of the average catcher, since they generally come in a bit lower than others. He also took a step forward at the plate in 2022, striking out in just 20.3% of his plate appearances after being above 25% in his career prior to that.
Defensively, Murphy gets rave reviews as well. Since the start of 2020, he’s posted 13 Defensive Runs Saved behind the plate, a number that places him in the top 10 in the league. FanGraphs’ framing metric gives him a 19.5 in that timeframe, the third-highest such tally. Those all-around contributions have allowed him to produce 10 wins above replacement in those three seasons, according to FanGraphs, second among all MLB catchers with only J.T. Realmuto ahead of him.
Taking all that into consideration, it’s hardly surprising that Murphy garnered plenty of interest around the league. The Diamondbacks, Astros, Cubs, Guardians, Twins, White Sox, Red Sox, Rays, and Cardinals were some of the teams connected to him at various points in recent months. It was reported about a week ago that the Braves were getting close to acquiring him but president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos shot down those reports, saying that he didn’t anticipate a trade. That was either a bluff or something drastically changed in the past week since Atlanta have now indeed closed the deal.
Atlanta always seemed a curious fit for Murphy given that they already had three viable catchers on the roster in Contreras, Pina and Travis d’Arnaud. They have cleared out that logjam and acquired Murphy in one fell swoop by including two of those catchers in the deal. On the surface, it seems that the club was keen to swap out Contreras for Murphy as a way of improving behind the plate. However, since the A’s seem set to give Langeliers a shot, it’s possible they were less interested in Contreras, which necessitated Milwaukee’s involvement.
That’s not to say that Contreras isn’t an exciting young catcher in his own right. It’s just that, as mentioned, Murphy is one of the best in the game. Contreras will now join his older brother Willson Contreras, who recently signed with the Cardinals, in the NL Central. The younger Contreras has gotten into 153 games in his career so far, hitting 28 home runs and producing an overall batting line of .260/.338/.471 for a wRC+ of 121. His defensive work isn’t as highly rated as his bat, but he’s still quite young, turning 25 later this month. Even with subpar defense, he’s produced 2.5 fWAR in his brief career thus far, meaning any developments in that department would make him tremendously valuable. It had been recently reported that the club was interested in catching upgrades, but since the club has been paring back a tight payroll, they never seemed like candidates for a big free agent splash. Instead, they’ve acquired a young backstop who has yet to reach arbitration eligibility and has five years of club control remaining.
For the A’s, it’s been reported that they have been prioritizing MLB-ready talent in their trade talks and they have achieved that here. Muller, 25, has appeared in each of the past two major league seasons, logging 49 innings so far. He has an unimpressive 5.14 ERA in that time, but he’s fared much better in the minors. He’s made 40 Triple-A starts in the past two years and has a 3.40 ERA, 28.4% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. Baseball America recently ranked him the top prospect in Atlanta’s system.
More to come.
Talkin’ Jake of Jomboy Media first reported that the Braves, Brewers and A’s were lining up on a deal, as well as the involvement of Contreras (Twitter links). Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported Murphy going to the Braves, as well as the involvement of Pina and the eventual final deal. Robert Murray of FanSided first mentioned Ruiz and Tarnok (Twitter links). Joel Sherman first mentioned Payamps and Yeager on Twitter. Kiley McDaniel first had Muller’s name on Twitter.
Jalen Duren, Kemba Walker To Pistons In Three-Team Trade
9:47pm: Zach Lowe of ESPN confirms (via Twitter) that the Bucks’ 2025 first-rounder is headed to the Knicks in the deal. That means the trade, as reported so far, looks like this:
- Pistons acquiring Jalen Duren and Kemba Walker.
- Knicks acquiring Bucks’ 2025 first-round pick (top-four protected; from Pistons).
- Hornets acquiring Nuggets’ 2023 first-round pick (top-14 protected), Knicks’ 2023 second-round pick, the Jazz’s 2023 second-round pick, either the Mavericks’ or Heat’s 2023 second-round pick (whichever is more favorable), and the Knicks’ 2024 second-round pick (all from Knicks).
9:29pm: According to Rod Boone of The Charlotte Observer (Twitter link), the Hornets are receiving the Nuggets’ 2023 first-round pick, the Knicks’ 2023 second-round pick, Utah’s 2023 second-round pick, either Dallas’ or Miami’s 2023 second-round pick (whichever is most favorable), and the Knicks’ 2024 second-round pick.
All of those second-rounders belonged to New York, while the Nuggets’ 2023 first-rounder (top-14 protected) was held by the Thunder — it’s presumably one of the picks headed to the Knicks in the Ousmane Dieng trade.
Boone’s report suggests that the Bucks’ 2025 first-rounder will go from Detroit to New York rather than to Charlotte, but we’ll await further confirmation to be sure.
8:26pm: The Hornets will trade Memphis center Jalen Duren to the Pistons after selecting him 13th overall in tonight’s draft, according to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report (Twitter link).
According to Fischer (Twitter link), it’ll be a three-team trade that also involves the Knicks. Sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link) that New York is sending Kemba Walker to Detroit as part of the trade.
However, it seems unlikely that Walker will remain with the Pistons for long, as sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link) that the two sides are expected to discuss a buyout of the final year of his contract, which is worth $9.17MM next season.
James L. Edwards III of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter) that a deal was close, while Wojnarowski says (via Twitter) that Charlotte is acquiring the 2025 Milwaukee first-round pick (top-four protected) that Detroit is receiving from Portland in the Jerami Grant trade.
Meanwhile, Rod Boone of The Charlotte Observer reports (via Twitter) that the Hornets are acquiring four second-round picks in the deal. The details on those second-rounders have yet to be reported, but it seems likely that most, if not all, of them are coming from the Knicks as part of the price for dumping Walker’s contract.
Duren averaged 12.0 PPG, 8.1 RPG, and 2.1 BPG in 29 games (25.3 MPG) during his first and only college season, earning AAC Freshman of the Year honors and making the All-AAC First Team. He won’t turn 19 until November after graduating from high school a year early, making him one of the youngest players in the draft class.