NO-FRILLS CATCHER OF THE FUTURE
Sean Murphy isn’t here for any hoopla or introspection; the A’s catcher for years to come wants to get to work and leave the talking to others.
Jason Whited was just trying for Sean Murphy’s voicemail.
Then an assistant coach at Centerville (Ohio) High School, Whited tagged along to the all-area meeting. That night, all 18 high school baseball coaches in the Dayton, Miami Valley area had unanimously voted Murphy the player of the year.
Whited wanted to be the first to deliver the news. He called Murphy, expecting the phone to ring four times then beep. It was a Saturday night, Murphy should have been having fun. Hell, it was prom night — Murphy’s senior prom — he should have been having the time of his life.
Instead, he picked up on the second ring. The news Whited called to deliver suddenly took a back seat to a more pressing question.
“I’m like, ‘What are you doing, man? Are you not at prom?’” Whited said. “And he said, ‘No, me and a bunch of players decided just to hit.’”
••••••••
Mike Murphy popped the tailgate of his son’s 2001 red Ford Ranger. That truck had been
through the ringer. Its odometer was nearing 200,000 and the truck bed was miles past being a mere mess.
Sean was 900 miles away, playing baseball against the best competition he had ever faced in the Cape Cod summer league. His folks figured it was as good a time as any to declutter the pile in his flatbed, to have it tidy for his return.
Mike began to scour. There were dozens of baseballs. Plenty of other equipment. Enough Gatorade bottles to fill a vending machine. And, buried amongst it all, Sean’s Ohio All-state Award — broken in two.
He called his son.
“I said, ‘Sean, we found your all-state plaque, do you want it? I’d have to fix it,’ ’’ Mike remembered. “And he said, ‘No, I don’t want that.’ Every one of his awards, every one of his college rings and all that, I have all those.’
“I said, ‘I’m going to hang onto those, because someday it will mean something to you.”
••••••••
Sure, people have labeled him as the Oakland A’s No. 2 prospect. He’s been tagged as Oakland’s catcher of the future, the one expected to help guide the A’s young pitching staff deep into October. Murphy pays little attention to things others say, things on the outside.
Murphy has always gone about his business without much thought of perception.
And he plays baseball in the same vein. He deciphers situations and conversations judiciously rather than emotionally. He’s always thinking. Always scheming. Anything to garner an advantage.
In college, it wasn’t uncommon for him to take a lead off first bending down and limping. He’d grab at his leg and hobble off the bag. Then the pitcher’s leg would kick up and Murphy would bolt toward second base.
“I saw it work more than once,” J.D. Orr, Murphy’s teammate at Wright State, said.
Added Murphy: “No one is
going to expect the catcher whose limping down to first to take a bag. And then, all of a sudden, you take off and everyone is surprised.”
During one game in high school, his Centerville team was facing off against Ohio powerhouse Archbishop Moeller — the alma mater of Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Larkin. Centerville had a late lead and Whited wanted to prevent any damage with runners on. Knowing Murphy would make a fool of any soul brave enough to steal on him, Whited wanted to bait Moeller into taking off.
He wanted a cheap out to get out of the inning. His catcher pulled his veto card.
“He said, ‘You know, Coach, I just want to completely eliminate the running game. There’s four scouts here from different teams (we’ll play later in the tournament), I just want to completely eliminate the running game,’” Whited said Murphy told him. “He’s already thinking four or five games ahead.”
Opponents don’t often dare to dash on Murphy. In high school, his pop time consistently hovered around 1.9 seconds, Whited said. In his six big-league throw downs, he was clocked, on average, at 1.98 seconds. Even for the small sample size, that was 21st in MLB last year amongst catchers with at least five attempts.
“(Pitching coach, and former major league pitcher, Bill Bray) and I are sitting in the dugout one night and Murphy threw a guy out at third base by a mile,” said Kelly Nicholson, Murphy’s coach with the Orleans Firebirds of the Cape Cod summer baseball league.
“And Billy just turned to me and said, ‘He’s got the best arm I’ve ever seen.’ And I said, ‘Ever?’ And he said, ‘Ever.’ ”
• • • • • • • •
Murphy does all the things he’s lauded for. He has a rocket launcher for a right arm. His knack for reading hitter’s tendencies has been commended by his pitchers and coaches alike. And his bat, the one that shot a 409foot opposite-field home run in September for Murphy’s first hit, it has some pop.
Playing in the minors for all of 2018, Murphy had a slash line of .285/.361/.489. With the A’s at the end of last year, the 6-foot3, 232-pound catcher posted a .245/.333/.566 slash line in 20 games. He also set an Oakland record, clobbering a quartet of homers in his first seven games.
He just doesn’t like to talk about it. Never has. In some ways, those around him love him for that. His personality and his emotions never waver. Through the roller coaster of a baseball game and season, he’s a straight line.
“He was a very quiet guy, but if you ever had a question about anything he wasn’t afraid to talk to you about it or give you his piece of mind,” Orr said. “I truly can say I don’t think I’ve seen a time (when he wasn’t calm).”
“He’ll come out (to the mound), maybe if you’re not doing too well, and calm you down,” A’s pitcher A.J. Puk, who was drafted in the same 2016 Oakland draft class as Murphy said. “It’s a great characteristic he has.”
Josh Phegley agreed — about everything. He didn’t hear Murphy say a whole lot. He couldn’t tell when he was frustrated. And, to him, it didn’t matter.
“He’s got all the tools,” Phegley said. “He’s a big target. He’s got a lot of power at the plate. He’s got a good swing. He’s got a cannon for an arm.
“I think he’s going to have a long and great career.”
When Murphy arrived in Oakland as a September call-up in 2019, Phegley was the A’s starter. And in a move that signaled a clear shift to Murphy as the future behind the plate, Oakland let Phegley, who is now with the Cubs, go in his final year of arbitration.
Regardless, the former A’s catcher worked closely with Murphy upon his promotion. Phegley joked that Murphy told him he was nervous when he first reached the bigs. Only thing was, no one could tell.
While Mike and Sean’s mother, Marge, yelled to the heavens with their arms outstretched above their heads, hugging while tears streamed down their face, their son hardly flashed a smile rounding the bases after his first MLB home run. A few days later, his teammates from Wright State posted in their group chat congratulating Murphy on, you know, what every kid dreams about.
“He was just like, ‘Oh, cool, thanks. I appreciate it,” Jeremy Randolph, Murphy’s roommate and roommate at Wright State said. “It was like (he had) a home run against Youngstown State.”
• • • • • • • •
Leaning against a wall in the A’s spring training clubhouse, Murphy was trying his best to downplay his intelligence on the diamond. It was stuck up to say he had a higher baseball IQ than anyone else, the catcher noted. But his teammates and coaches were the ones who felt he saw the game at a different level, he was told.
“I’m happy they say that,” Murphy said. “It’s like anything, the more you do it, the easier it comes to you. You’re not born with it.”
Just as Murphy was about to finish his thought, A’s pitching coach Scott Emerson’s lengthy 6-foot-5 frame popped around the corner and waltzed down the hallway adjacent to Oakland’s catcher. Murphy’s head perked up. His voice rose an octave so his coach would hear.
“When you have great pitching coaches like Scott Emerson writing up good scouting reports, it helps.”
In mid-stride, Emerson responded: “You’ve got to execute them, Murph. Not me.”