One Step Away
After 9 years in minors, Shen grad Smith nears big leagues
A couple of beer bottle-toting fans leaned over the railing peering into the Buffalo Bisons bullpen as Murphy Smith warmed up to enter his first game in five days.
“Ball,” one of the drunk fans shouted as Smith bounced a breaking ball in the dirt.
“Hey, we don’t need a commentator,” another reliever who’d been watching the game yelled back.
The fans didn’t stop heckling or trying to annoy Smith -- announcing each of his pitches and trying to get his attention.
Only when Smith was done throwing his warmups did he turn around. He took the ball he’d been throwing and offered to give it to them as a souvenir.
“You want to give us the ball,” one of the fans asked, surprised by undeserved generosity.
“Nah, I’m just kidding,” Smith said, before putting the ball back in his glove. He then walked down the stairs to the bullpen exit, and ran out on to the field where he pitched three scoreless innings.
Smith is in the middle of his ninth season of professional baseball. He’s seen everything -- the highs. The lows. The hecklers. The Shenendehowa High School graduate was a 13th round pick in 2009, and has spent nearly a decade toiling in the lower and mid-
dle levels of minor league baseball. This season has represented his first chance to play in Triple-A. His first chance to be one step away. His first chance to see teammates called up to the Major Leagues all the time, and know that it soon could be him too.
“You’re a phone call away,” Smith said. “It’s definitely been a long journey. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’m real thankful for the opportunity to compete at the Triple-A level and see how I can play here, and hopefully string together a few good outings.”
Smith skyrocketed through three levels of the minor leagues in 2009, his first professional season in the Oakland Athletics’ organization. He joked with his friends during his first offseason that making it to the Major Leagues would be easy.
Then came three full years pitching in DoubleA for the Midland Rockhounds. The same team, same city, same affiliate year in and year out with no mobility. Then came his release from the A’s at the start of the 2015 season. Then came the odd jobs in the offseason -walking dogs and delivering mail. Making it the Major Leagues has been a dream for a player who has never been a prospect and has never really been on a big league radar, let alone roster.
“It’s hard for me to put myself in their shoes,” Bisons manager Bob Meacham said. “I probably should more often. I’m sure he is really proud of making it to the Triple-A level. But from my perspective and hopefully all of their perspectives, including Murphy, it’s just one stop on what their biggest dream is.”
Now, though, Smith is on that radar. At the beginning of June, he had been pitching to the tune of a 1.10 ERA. The Blue Jays were reaching out Meacham to see if Smith was more than just a Triple-A stopgap. They wanted to know if he was the real deal. Since then, Smith had terrible outings where he allowed 11 earned runs in a combined 4.1 innings. It was that night Rochester when he finally got his season back on track. But the struggles put a hold on any Big League hopes.
As it stands now, Smith has a 3.98 ERA with three saves and 18 strikeouts to go with 13 walks in 31.2 innings.
“He’s an older guy,” Bisons pitching coach Bob Stanley said. “He was given an opportunity and he probably never had an opportunity like that before. He’s taken advantage of it. I believe he can pitch in the Big Leagues.”
Pitching in the Northeast has been good for Smith, who gets to have his family come and watch him compete. He pitched in New Hampshire last season, and has a brother who lives in Syracuse, which would be the next stop of Buffalo’s road trip.
When Smith was pitching his best, he said the game slowed down and he didn’t have to think. He’s a command pitcher, with a fastball that tops out at about 92 miles per hour. It’s part of why he never considered himself a prospect, even when he surprised everyone with a magnificent junior season at Binghamton and the ensuing early draft pick.
Smith felt like he was really close to starting the 2014 season in Triple-A after two straight seasons in Midland. But he didn’t start the year there, he never made it there. And at the beginning of the next season, he was looking a new team after being cut entering the final year of his contract with the Athletics. He didn’t know if that would be the end of the line for him. But Toronto scooped him up. It was then, following a shoulder injury, that he transitioned from a starter to a reliever to help minimize the workload. And Smith thrived in the new role.
“That’s the nature of the beast,” Smith said. “That’s the way the game works. You need to be really good. In fact, you need to be great to make it to the Big Leagues. But you kind of need to be lucky, too.”
Smith doesn’t know how long he will continue to pursue his dream. Money is no object, he says. And he recently married in the last year. The original hope and expectation for Smith was that he’d spend a full season at each level, prove himself and move up. But nine years later, that isn’t the case. Smith understands better than anyone that there’s a thin line between proving yourself at one level, and proving you belong at the next.
He knows that he won’t play baseball forever. “The jersey’s going to be taken off your back,” he readily acknowledges. But until someone or some team comes and takes it off, Smith has no plans to do it himself. It’s an addiction, he says. He’ll always want to keep coming back to play.
Smith’s stagnated on Double-A team in Texas. He’s been released. He’s been injured. And, in Rochester, he was heckled. But he keeps coming back for more.
“Baseball has a funny but cruel way of beating you down over and over again,” Smith said. “You’ve got to force the organizations to make a decision on you, rather than hope it will happen for you.”