Reviewing the catcher’s first two years in Atlanta and looking ahead to what we can expect from him in 2025
Picture this – you wake up. It’s March 29th, 2024. After yesterday’s Opening Day was rained out, your Atlanta Braves are set to begin the 2024 season in Philadelphia. Fresh off a 104-win 2023 campaign backed by the greatest offense in MLB history, the only change in the lineup is that the Eddie Rosario-Kevin Pillar platoon in left field is now manned by a higher upside combo of Jarred Kelenic and Adam Duvall. Atlanta is projected for 97 wins, 4 more than the next best team in the league.
If you’re a nerd like me, one of the players you were most looking forward to watching is Sean Murphy. He had a terrific 2023 season – 4.9 fWAR, 130 wRC+, and 21 HR – but based on the expected stats, it looked like there may be even more in the tank. He ranked 10th in MLB in xwOBA, and the hitters directly in front of and behind him included Bryce Harper, Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, Freddie Freeman, Marcell Ozuna, Matt Olson, Mike Trout, and Kyle Tucker.
Unfortunately for us nerds, Murphy suffered a nasty oblique strain in the 7th inning of the first game of the year. At the time, it seemed like a temporary inconvenience, a hole that was pretty easily filled by giving Travis d’Arnaud the lion’s share of the playing time in Murphy’s absence.. Looking back with the benefit (curse?) of hindsight, however, it’s hard to label Murphy’s injury as anything other than an omen for what was yet to come.
When Murphy returned in late May, he didn’t look right at first, slashing a putrid .143/.208/.224 with a 22 wRC+ and uncharacteristically poor plate discipline (5.7% BB, 28.3% K) in 53 PA over his first three weeks back. Starting with a 2 HR game on June 19th, he looked a bit more like himself over the final 3½ months of the season. His plate discipline returned to normal (11.5% BB, 24.5% K) and his power output (9 HR, .182 ISO) approached his career levels, but he had a miserable .238 BABIP in that stretch, far below his career BABIP of .271. All told, he had a 95 wRC+ in his final 208 PA – palatable, but certainly below expectations – and he finished the season with a dreadful .193/.284/.352 triple slash and a 78 wRC+.
It should be mentioned that, while Murphy’s batted ball data and expected stats were far below his career levels, they weren’t nearly as bad as his actual 2024 results. He had a .308 xwOBA – just slightly below the league average of .312 – but a .281 actual wOBA that was far below the league average of .310. It should also be mentioned that this isn’t terribly unusual for Murph, as he has a career xwOBA of .349 vs. an actual wOBA of .330. There’s likely some noise in there, but there are also certain hitters who tend to underperform their expected stats, usually due to the direction they tend to hit the ball and/or a lack of speed to leg out infield hits or stretch singles into doubles.
In some cases, a low BABIP being the driving force for a slump can be chalked up to randomness or bad luck. Not here, though. Even in that 208 PA stretch where he looked more normal, he ran a 49.6% ground ball rate (which would be a career-high for him), a 13.7% line drive rate (which would be a career low for him), and an 88.5 mph average exit velocity (which would be a career low for him). Murph isn’t the type of player to make excuses, but many players who return from oblique injuries have talked about how it takes a long time for their everyday athletic movements to feel normal again. It’s plausible that some lingering discomfort was a key factor in his poor batted ball data.
On that note, there was also a definitive decline in most aspects of Murphy’s defensive game.. He remained among the game’s best blockers (+11 Blocks Above Average per Statcast, 3rd in MLB despite the limited playing time), but his framing (+1 Catcher Framing Runs) and arm (-2 Caught Stealing Above Average, 63rd percentile pop time) were all well below what he has shown throughout the rest of his career. Again, the Braves are surely hoping that this was the result of lingering discomfort from the oblique injury.
From the perspective of some fans, Murphy’s disastrous 2024 season was simply a continuation of his poor performance in the stretch run of 2023, but I reject that notion. As you may recall, Murphy was blistering hot in his first few months with Atlanta but cooled significantly after starting the All-Star game, slashing just .159/.310/.275 for a 70 wRC+ in the second half of 2023. In my view, however, this was a complete farce. Out of 264 players with at least 150 PA in the second half of 2023, Murphy was the single unluckiest player by wOBA-xwOBA, and it wasn’t particularly close. Take a look at the xwOBA vs. actual wOBA for all the players within .001 of Murphy’s xwOBA in the 2nd half of 2023:
(If you are on a mobile device, this table is best viewed in landscape mode.)
That .344 xwOBA, by the way, is only 5 points shy of Murphy’s career xwOBA. In most ways, he was pretty normal in the second half of 2023. Just horrendously unlucky.
The fanbase may have soured on Sean Murphy after his career-worst, injury-riddled 2024 campaign, but Atlanta’s front office certainly hasn’t. In Brian Snitker’s post-season interview, he mentioned that they came into the 2024 season with the intention of starting Murph in 75% of their games. TdA was hitting better for most of the season, so even when Murphy was healthy, they split their time pretty evenly.
The Braves brass seemingly gave Murphy a vote of confidence by declining Travis d’Arnaud’s $8M option for 2025. They are unlikely to relegate their top positional prospect Drake Baldwin to a backup role, and as of now the other internal options (Chadwick Tromp and the newly signed Curt Casali) are uninspiring backups. It’s safe to assume that they are banking on Murphy carrying the workload in 2025.
So, what can we expect from Murphy in 2025? I’m inclined to believe that his 2024 was rough mostly due to the after-effects of his injury. I’m more interested in the 119 wRC+ and 4.1 fWAR per 450 PA that he produced in the first five years of his career than the 78 wRC+ and 0.8 fWAR he put up in 264 PAs during a season in which he suffered a significant injury. He’s certainly less of a sure thing than he was before, but he has an excellent track record that extends well beyond his two seasons in Atlanta.
The projection systems at FanGraphs all agree that Murphy will be an above average hitter and player. Steamer has him at a 105 wRC+ and 2.7 fWAR in 406 PA. OOPSY has him at a 116 wRC+ and 2.9 fWAR in 429 PA. ZiPS projects him for a 108 OPS+ and 3.2 fWAR in 417 PA. The Braves would happily accept any of these outcomes, but I’m taking the over on all of them. Perhaps I’m simply an optimist. Feel free to cook me 9 months from now if I’m wrong.
One thing’s for sure. Without Travis d’Arnaud as a starting-caliber safety net, the 2025 Braves will need Sean Murphy. Now more than ever.