The Sean Murphy trade ended up being an absolute win

The Atlanta Braves shocked the baseball world by winning the Sean Murphy sweepstakes in December, sending All-Star (at DH) catcher William Contreras and top pitching prospect Kyle Muller, plus others, out the door in a three-team trade with the Oakland Athletics and Milwaukee Brewers to bring in Sean Murphy.

#Braves acquire C Sean Murphy from the Oakland Athletics as part of a three-team trade: pic.twitter.com/O59odpfakR
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) December 12, 2022

The total trade compensation leaving Atlanta included catcher/DH Contreras (to Milwaukee), veteran backup catcher Manny Pina (to Oakland), pitchers Muller, Freddy Tarnok, Royber Salinas (to Oakland) & Justin Yeager (Milwaukee).

It was a steep price to pay, to many Braves fans, with Murphy coming off a year in Oakland where he batted .250/.332/.426 with 18 home runs and already being 28, while Contreras was seen by many as a better option offensively.

Those same fans expressed concern with Atlanta signed Murphy to a six-year, $73M extension that locked him up through his age 34 season, with a club option for a seventh year that would guarantee Murphy a total of $88M over the seven years of the deal.

Good thing Alex Anthopoulos doesn't run the team via fan vote, huh?

As we enter Wednesday, Murphy is batting .299/.440/.636, and leads the National League in RBIs (32), slugging (.636) and OPS (1.076). Fangraphs grades Murphy as the best defensive catcher in baseball, factoring in blocking, framing, and controlling the running game. At his current offensive pace of nine home runs and nine doubles through thirty-two games, he's on a full-season pace to hit 41 HR & 41 doubles with 144 RBI and 9.9 fWAR.

Not bad!

And the cost was their top prospect in Muller, two organizational top fifteen pitching prospects in Tarnok and Salinas, a depth arm in Yeager, and a veteran backup catcher.

In retrospect, there's a lot of teams that hesitated to move the top prospects Oakland was asking for in the deal and that proved to be the wrong decision.

Tampa Bay was asked for top pitching prospect Taj Bradley, as well as AAA 1B Kyle Manzardo. Bradley was a top five pitching prospect in baseball, with a 3.52 ERA in his first three major-league starts before being demoted to AAA due to workload management and service time concerns. They're getting a slash line of .214/.266/443 from catchers Francisco Meija and former Brave Christian Bethancourt.

St. Louis was asked for OF Lars Nootbaar, utility man Brendan Donovan, and a young pitcher, most commonly thought to be #4 prospect Gordon Graceffo. Instead, St. Louis pivoted to signing Willison Contreras away from the Cubs for five years and $87.5M, a move that's backfired so spectacularly that they have already moved him to DH in an attempt to get better gamecalling and defensive production behind the plate.

Right now, Nootbaar is one of six potential outfield options that St. Louis is having to rotate through, with Tyler O'Neil (currently on the IL), Dylan Carlson, Nootbaar, Yuan Jepez, and Alec Burleson at the major league level with top prospect Jordan Walker at AAA. Donovan was working as the primary second baseman, but with his offensive struggles this year and Nolan Gorman being pushed off of DH by Contreras and working in at 2B, Donovan's playtime has been negatively impacted.

In Alex Anthopoulos we trust.

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