Fangraphs Trade Value Rankings
#40 - Jazz Chisholm
39 - Dylan Cease
38 - O’Neil Cruz
37 - SEAN MURPHY
36 - Max Fried
…..
Just some perspective. Braves basically made the 2022 version of the Realmuto trade.
EDIT
here’s the write up from Fangraphs
Let’s get a few things out of the way at the top of this comment. Murphy is a solid hitter, and while recent approach changes make me think he won’t walk as frequently going forward, he has enough power that his overall line looks like an average-hitting first baseman. What would be average for a first baseman is excellent for a catcher, of course. Murphy would be a tremendous player even if he were an average defender.
Except, he’s a great defender. Of the six wins we give him credit for over the past two years, 1.5 of those come from framing alone. That gave me pause when placing him; framing feels far less sticky these days, with pop-up guys becoming great and established framing specialists declining seemingly every year. You could have made an argument for Jacob Stallings on a trade value list last year, and indeed, the Marlins traded a bunch of players to acquire him. This year? He grades out as one of the worst framers in the game. Projecting future defensive value based on this particular skill strikes me as irresponsible, and that’s before trying to time the arrival of the robo zone.
If Murphy continues to be the best defensive catcher in baseball, I’m too low on him. It’s as simple as that. But I think teams are wising up to defensive volatility, or at least, they should be after the Stallings and Austin Nola trades. Murphy is awesome, and teams will offer the A’s a ton in return for him (or already have, perhaps, since Oakland is certainly open for business). I simply think that framing is going to command less on the trade market going forward than it once did.
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