Murphy War Crimes

TD is going on 35 and has a 700 ops. He shouldn’t be anyone’s personal catcher. He should give Murphy a rest 3.5 out of every 10 games and maybe this time of year 4 of every 10.

I think our manager legitimately believes TD is better than Murphy.
 
So you think TDA should be playing 35/40% of time. Then why are you upset. He should be Fried’s catcher. 20% playing time. Done. We don’t have anymore double headers.
 
AJonesATL said:
TD is going on 35 and has a 700 ops. He shouldn’t be anyone’s personal catcher. He should give Murphy a rest 3.5 out of every 10 games and maybe this time of year 4 of every 10.

I think our manager legitimately believes TD is better than Murphy.
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We've had catchers far worse than TDA act as a personal catcher.
 
I know it’s how we did it with Maddux but I prefer the guys I need “going to war” to have experience together. So I’m ok with a personal catcher, I personally just don’t love it with pairing my ace and the backup catcher.

In any event, I’m focused on the bigger issue at hand. TD is down to a below 230 average. He’s got a 282 OBP. Like this is not a case of having your cake and eating it too. TD has been serviceable as a catcher but Murphy is on a different level this year. I’m still just in shock that it’s gotten to this extreme. It’s almost like a bad joke. I thought there was NO WAY I’d see Murphy out of the lineup again tonight and then like clock work he was…how is it that TD has earned the starting job over Murphy, with the way he’s plummeted? It’s not even like TD has caught fire and we are frustrated at snit riding the hot hand. He’s riding a borderline deteriorating 35 year old catcher
 
AJonesATL said:
I know it’s how we did it with Maddux but I prefer the guys I need “going to war” to have experience together. So I’m ok with a personal catcher, I personally just don’t love it with pairing my ace and the backup catcher.

In any event, I’m focused on the bigger issue at hand. TD is down to a below 230 average. He’s got a 282 OBP. Like this is not a case of having your cake and eating it too. TD has been serviceable as a catcher but Murphy is on a different level this year. I’m still just in shock that it’s gotten to this extreme. It’s almost like a bad joke. I thought there was NO WAY I’d see Murphy out of the lineup again tonight and then like clock work he was…how is it that TD has earned the starting job over Murphy, with the way he’s plummeted? It’s not even like TD has caught fire and we are frustrated at snit riding the hot hand. He’s riding a borderline deteriorating 35 year old catcher
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You know how you buy a fresh new tube of toothpaste but before you start it you make sure you’ve squeezed every gram out of the old one? Maybe it’s like that.

It is curious. d’Arnaud can’t throw and hasn’t had a hit since July. He can be in all the prep meetings and carry a clipboard during the game.
 
As elite as Murphy is on defense and framing, I wonder if the pitchers prefer TDA, whether out of comfort or his ability to call a game. That’s the only thing I can think of.
 
CyYoung31 said:
You can’t see that this isn’t normal?
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Nothing this org has done has been “normal” either.

We have a built a freaking dynasty that is locked in for years to come at an absurd low cost.
We are very arguably in the conversation for greatest offense in the entire history of the sport.

We also built a city.
And told our host city to pound sand. At our new ballpark….. we are breaking attendance records. In ATL where people used to laugh at us for not selling out playoff games.
We have Cy Young candidates. MVP candidates. ROY candidates ( well, not this year, but some of those arms down on the farm are coming) - and speaking of, we have all the runway in the world to re-load our farm and are in the process already with all those arms.

We replaced FF and Dansby and got better.

We just smoked every team in all of baseball without 2 of our very best pitchers for most of the year.

We are breaking records all over the place, and our team has an amazing clubhouse energy and cohesion.

We showed patience with Ozuna and Minter and Harris and Rosario when a lot of people were calling for platoons and DFAs and etc.

We even let our MVP bat leadoff when “normal” says to bat him lower.

“Normal?” Not this organization. I don’t understand why they do a lot of things until after the fact,,, and I don’t need to understand. I just love it and don’t even question it anymore. It works. And I hope it does in October - which I bet it will. :)
 
Hulavol said:
Nothing this org has done has been “normal” either.

We have a built a freaking dynasty that is locked in for years to come at an absurd low cost.
We are very arguably in the conversation for greatest offense in the entire history of the sport.

We also built a city.
And told our host city to pound sand. At our new ballpark….. we are breaking attendance records. In ATL where people used to laugh at us for not selling out playoff games.
We have Cy Young candidates. MVP candidates. ROY candidates ( well, not this year, but some of those arms down on the farm are coming) - and speaking of, we have all the runway in the world to re-load our farm and are in the process already with all those arms.

We replaced FF and Dansby and got better.

We just smoked every team in all of baseball without 2 of our very best pitchers for most of the year.

We are breaking records all over the place, and our team has an amazing clubhouse energy and cohesion.

We showed patience with Ozuna and Minter and Harris and Rosario when a lot of people were calling for platoons and DFAs and etc.

We even let our MVP bat leadoff when “normal” says to bat him lower.

“Normal?” Not this organization. I don’t understand why they do a lot of things until after the fact,,, and I don’t need to understand. I just love it and don’t even question it anymore. It works. And I hope it does in October - which I bet it will. :)
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Professional sunshine pumper.
 
mqt said:
Or the Braves are just a million games up and playing Catcher is rough on the body?
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This is the answer. Murphy is in the first year of a 6 year deal and expect to be playing deep into October. If Murphy was hitting the cover off the ball I could understand the frustration but he isnt. By the end of our playoff run I bet Murphy has a very similar amount of games played at catcher as he did last year.
 
TDA starting game 1 again. I think it is gettng clearer and clearer that TDA will be splitting time with Murph in the postseason.. Probably so Murph has plenty of rest for the rest of his contract.. pretty smart of the team I think.. Maybe since TDA is signed next year, they can just let Murph not play at all and he will be fire for those last few years of the contract..

I hope we don't get to witness and early exit because a curcial game 3 was decided by a stolen base or a bases loaded pop up... Murphy is by a long way the superior player, yet he will split time in the post season to an inferior player.. all because Twitner has this love for him.
 
cajunrevenge said:
This is the answer. Murphy is in the first year of a 6 year deal and expect to be playing deep into October. If Murphy was hitting the cover off the ball I could understand the frustration but he isnt. By the end of our playoff run I bet Murphy has a very similar amount of games played at catcher as he did last year.
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I will take that bet. In fact, I will bet he is about 100+ PA's less than he was last year.
 
Kind of infuriating that, after a day off, d’Arnaud is still back in the saddle, presumably meaning he’ll start two of the three games this weekend.
 
TD is our starting catcher at this point. Murphy has been demoted to a back-up role. The facts support this. Anyone thinking we don't have a problem is delusional at this point. At best, one can just be betting that the front-office will confront Snit for the playoffs.

Murphy hasn't played back to back games in weeks. He literally has started 3 of our past 8 games, is fresh off a day off and still not starting, setting him up to once again only play once this series.

I've felt this way a few weeks ago and didn't want to say it out loud, but I'll be honest about it now. I'm on the verge of actually rooting against TD simply to hope that at some point his legitimately awful numbers will awaken Snit to the horrendous errors he is making. Truly the first time I've ever felt that way about a Braves player, but its just the most extreme scenario I've ever seen.

TD is legitimately hitting 229 with a 698 OPS. He has 29 AB's in September to Murphy's 20. After tonight it will be 33 to 20. So He's literally played this month >50% more than Murphy. This is after he had 55 ABs in August to TD's 56. TD btw hit 198 in August. Since September 6 Murphy has played 3 games. Does anyone realize how bad that is????? 3 games in 10 days in a timing sport. That level of activity off a real injury would literally warrant a player going to AAA for a rehab assignment. Like literally

If I was in Murphy's shoes I would wait till the end of the season and then have my agent go to AA "requesting a trade if my client is going to continue to be benched to a 35 year old ageing, declining and inferior player" - winning is fun, but if you are a competitor in your prime, playing just naturally has to be your priority.

I titled this thread Murphy War Crimes. It's reached the Baseball equivalent. This is ****ing one of the most egregious rotational acts I've ever seen in my life. The fact that Murphy is also not exactly hot right now only escalates the problem. We need him to get his bat right to be effective in the playoffs.

I'm on the verge though of converting from blaming Snit to front office. I know management likes to stay out of the day to day, but when its this bad, at some point part of having a good partnership is having the ability to be direct. A partnership is not a partnership if you can't have a transparent conversation and my takeaway of all of this is the front office does not have a strong enough relationship to just be direct on this point - and before I get ****, I believe we have the best GM in the game. But I'm also a believer that while you never want to overstep, if its a true partnership in any business, blunt conversations are sometimes needed and for whatever reason, we jsut keep letting this go on.

I saw someone post the below on another Braves news source that I read and I couldn't agree more...

"I have a basic theory - Snitker didn’t like the Sean Murphy trade. So at the beginning of the year, they treated him like a platoon player. Then d’Arnaud got hurt, and Murphy started playing everyday and raking. He couldn’t sit a guy who was hitting that well, so he kept him in the lineup. Now that Murphy is struggling, he’s using that as an excuse to make d’Arnaud the starting catcher again despite the fact that he’s been even worse than Murphy."
 
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