{"id":11774,"date":"2015-12-26T20:40:12","date_gmt":"2015-12-27T01:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=11774"},"modified":"2015-12-26T20:40:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T01:40:12","slug":"murphy-signing-i-guess-im-ok-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=11774","title":{"rendered":"Murphy Signing: I guess I&#8217;m ok with it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11776\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Murphy-Daniel-mets-2015-via-bleacherreport.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11776\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11776\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Murphy-Daniel-mets-2015-via-bleacherreport.com_-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Murphy makes the drive down I-95 to Washington. Photo via bleacherreport.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Murphy-Daniel-mets-2015-via-bleacherreport.com_-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Murphy-Daniel-mets-2015-via-bleacherreport.com_.jpg 630w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-11776\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murphy makes the drive down I-95 to Washington. Photo via bleacherreport.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I may have buried the lead of the post in the title, but I figured we&#8217;d want a place to react to the big Xmas gift the Nats gave themselves; pending a physical the Nats have signed <strong>Daniel Murphy<\/strong> to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/nationals-journal\/wp\/2015\/12\/24\/daniel-murphy-reaches-three-year-deal-with-nationals\/\">3yr, $37.5M contract<\/a>.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll assume that the contract doesn&#8217;t get cancelled for physical reasons (ala <strong>Hisashi Iwakuma<\/strong>) or some criminal issue (ala <strong>Aroldis Chapman<\/strong>) in the next 72 hours or so and the team makes it official at some point over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Nats acquire the left-handed bat they needed to play a position they suddenly found themselves needing coverage in thanks to the <strong>Yunel Escobar<\/strong> trade.\u00a0 They also acquire a guy who makes a ton of contact (just 38 Ks last year in 538 PAs &#8230; by way of comparison <strong>Michael Taylor<\/strong> struck out 158 times in 2015, in *fewer* plate appearances (511 to Murphy&#8217;s 538).\u00a0 Murphy also can contribute with some power; 14 homers last season (and another 7 in last year&#8217;s post-season), and some speed (not a ton of SBs last year but he stole 23 in 2013).\u00a0 He makes a ton of sense batting in the #2 hole (assuming of course the team finds someone who can actually get on base for him), but he could also slot in at #5 (assuming <strong>Bryce Harper<\/strong> bats 3rd, in order to split up the lefties).<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, the Nats take a veteran solid bat off their closest rivals, who don&#8217;t really seem in any hurry this off-season to back-fill their holes in the lineup by the departing Murphy or <strong>Yoenis Cespedes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Some thoughts on the the deal and its ramifications on the Nats:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Assuming he gets an even $12.5m in 2016 per his contract&#8217;s AAV, the Nats 2016 payroll just jumped up into the $141M range.\u00a0 I think that comes down a bit (assuming the Nats can shed themselves of one or both of their highly paid closers).<\/li>\n<li>The signing costs the Nats the 17th overall pick in the draft.\u00a0 A tough pill to swallow; on his own i&#8217;m not entirely sure Murphy is worth that pick.\u00a0 perhaps you can see the value in the significantly lower contract value than what Murphy was probably worth on the open market.\u00a0 I guess you don&#8217;t really covet the 17th overall pick when you have just one year left with <strong>Scherzer, Strasburg<\/strong> and Harper all together.\u00a0 You have to try to win now with these guys, since more and more it seems clear the team won&#8217;t retain either of its young starlets (not with talk of Harper getting a $400M contract).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ben Zobrist<\/strong>: 4yrs\/$52M from the Cubs.\u00a0 Zobrist is four years older, had only a slightly better 2015 split than Murphy (.276\/.359\/.450 versus .281\/.322\/.449), play a similar set of positions (4 5 7 and 9 last year for Zobrist, 4 5 and 3 last year for Murphy), and had similar bWARs (1.9 for Zobrist, 1.4 for Murphy).\u00a0 Yet Zobrist gets $14.5M more and one additional year despite being 4 years older and almost guaranteed of being a fossil at the end of his contract.\u00a0 Do you think Qualifying Offers are working?\u00a0 Do you think this is going to be topic #1 to address in the next CBA?<\/li>\n<li>Murphy will require a roster move; the team is at 40\/40 on its 40-man.\u00a0 My uneducated guess: <strong>Erik Davis<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m guessing there&#8217;s an open competition between <strong>Espinosa<\/strong> and <strong>Turner<\/strong> to be the opening day SS.\u00a0 And my guess is that Espinosa wins it for now.\u00a0 Something in my gut tells me that the improvements he&#8217;s made plus his superb defensive ability will win out over Turner&#8217;s potential.\u00a0 But, no more 2B for Espinosa; he&#8217;s either the starter at Short or the utility guy.\u00a0 I could be wrong; maybe Espinosa is destined to be Mr. backup infielder again in 2016, riding the pine while Turner learns how to be a major leaguer.\u00a0 I hope not; I think at this point in his career he&#8217;d be so gutted if he got beat out that he&#8217;d be close to useless as a super-sub.<\/li>\n<li>Murphy is not especially gifted at 2nd defensively.\u00a0 Negative UZR\/150s across the board.\u00a0 But, its not nearly as important having a plus defender there as it is on the right hand side of the infield, and the return of the gifted Rendon plus the near gold-glove quality of Espinosa at short could really help the Nats and their pitching staff convert more ground alls to outs.<\/li>\n<li>All the 2B on the Nats depth chart just became serious trade bait.\u00a0 40-man roster guys <strong>Wilmer Difo<\/strong> and <strong>Chris Bostick<\/strong>?\u00a0 100% blocked for 3 years.\u00a0\u00a0 Murphy may be able to play other positions &#8230; but the positions he can fill are also filled by guys who are better than Murphy and also here for more than 3 years.\u00a0 So I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised by some dealing coming soon.\u00a0 Maybe <strong>Billy Beane<\/strong> can give us something we need in return for some closer-to-the-majors middle infielders and 5th starters (of which we have plenty in AAA).<\/li>\n<li>$12.5M AAV for a 1.4 bWAR player.\u00a0 Yeah; there&#8217;s some serious money in the game right now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Does this move make the Nats a better team?\u00a0 Yeah I think it does.\u00a0 By himself Murphy doesn&#8217;t move the needle a ton, but he gives this team some things they didn&#8217;t have yesterday.\u00a0 I like his contact hitting, his lefty bat, the addition of some needed power.\u00a0 The team missed out on so many other guys this off-season, they probably felt they had to make this deal.\u00a0 So they did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I may have buried the lead of the post in the title, but I figured we&#8217;d want a place to react to the big Xmas gift the Nats gave themselves; pending a physical the Nats have signed Daniel Murphy to a 3yr, $37.5M contract.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll assume that the contract doesn&#8217;t get cancelled for physical reasons [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[569,1209,212,164,2689,1859,135,61,2055,1037,708,38,2426,2650,393,1569],"class_list":["post-11774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-aroldis-chapman","tag-ben-zobrist","tag-billy-beane","tag-bryce-harper","tag-chris-bostick","tag-daniel-murphy","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-erik-davis","tag-hisashi-iwakuma","tag-max-scherzer","tag-michael-taylor","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-trea-turner","tag-wilmer-difo","tag-yoenis-cespedes","tag-yunel-escobar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11774"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11780,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions\/11780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}