Article: Hicks-Murphy Trade Looking Worse By The Minute

[Penthang]

I believe that moving Hicks could have had as much to do with keeping Santana, who they still seem to have some belief in, as anything else. That they filled an area of need with the move is a bonus.

[Han Joelo]

Emulating anything the Padres do would be as polar opposite as you can get to the Twins.  The Padres seem to be trying to hit on the next big market inefficiency, only they are a step behind and trying to do them all at once.  RH power?  Outfield defense is overrated?  Lockdown backend of the bullpen?  Rule V picks? Catchers with recognizable names?  Check, check, check.  They are the 76ers of MLB.  It looked good on paper...

 

Not to mention, if Atlanta is selling, I'm not buying.

 

The Twins have already been active in  "mediocre, back-up" catcher market this winter.  They netted an interesting outfielder at Dave Stewarts Prospect Haus for Chris Hermann.

 

I guess it is all in perception.  The Twins got john "not Gary Sanchez" murphy, when they could've gotten FORMER TOP PROSPECT CHRISTIAN BETHANCOURT!

 

 Of course, then we would have a  thread going decrying the loss of 

Felix Jorge and Levi Michael, or whomever it would have taken to get Bethancourt.

 

 

 

[Shane Wahl]

The various defenses offered for this trade still remain inadequate.

[Shane Wahl]

 

Can you imagine how much everyone on this board would be freaking out if we hadn't done anything about catcher as of this date and the end of the winter meetings? 

 

I wondering about the relevance of this comment? If the Twins didn't trade away one of their OF to fill the catcher spot, they could still have signed a catcher by this point.

[DocBauer]

 

My sentiments as well. On paper, it was a fair trade. Now it's going to take on-field results to determine the winner and loser of the deal (or both could be winners/losers).

 

Not a huge fan of the deal but it's now up to the scouts and players.

Further, I think we also have to keep the positions of these two players involved in their proper context. There is at least a decent chance that Hicks will hit for a higher AVG and OB than Murphy. He may have more power and more speed as well. But Murphy will be the guy behind the plate calling a game for the staff and receiving 90+ MPH fastballs and crazy breaking balls and balls in the dirt while also trying to catch base runners. All while trying to produce a league average OPS or greater.

 

Context.

[sane09]

 

Oh you mean two guys that were mediocre prospects who never cracked a top 100 list?

We already signed our  former top 100 prospect earlier.....Joe Benson!!
Baseball America twice ranked him in the 100 top prospects in baseball . (2010-2011)

[DocBauer]

 

Barring injury to a starting rotation is almost impossible.

If you will pay me $20 for each start missed due to injury, grieving, child-birth or undisclosed personal issue (Ervin Santana), I will pay you $200 if the five original Twins SP's can actually make all the starts.

Please don't take that bet, I can't do the jail time....

Absolutely. But you don't look at the construction of a roster, especially at this point, with the expectation or knowledge of when someone might be injured. So in a vacuum...opening day lets say...there is no room for everyone. Obviously there will be starts missed for some reason or another, or extra starts. But at that point, doubtful you'd pull a May out of the bullpen for that situation. More than likely, it would be your long reliever or someone from Rochester. 

 

In a dream scenario, though I intend no ill-will toward any of our players, the older Santana, (or someone) might be traded at some point to allow for all the younger arms to be in the rotation.

[Linus]

If Hicks figures it out lefthanded his upside is higher. I think there a very real possibility that never happens which means he becomes the right side of a platoon which severely diminishes his value.

[South Dakota Tom]

 

I wondering about the relevance of this comment? If the Twins didn't trade away one of their OF to fill the catcher spot, they could still have signed a catcher by this point.

I'm not so sure.   Yes they could have signed someone, I agree with that.   But who?   Yesterday was the first day that this San Diego glut appeared, and everyone seemed very underwhelmed by the FA catchers out there who already signed for cheap.   Maybe I should edit and add "or instead of Murphy, they had only signed a middling backup FA to address this glaring need"

[Thrylos]

Give it 2-3 years and we shall see how this trade would look.   2 seasons ago the Revere trade looked pretty bad.  Not so after last season...   

 

Give it time.

[savvyspy]

 

I have to admit, I not the biggest fan of Ryan but this is getting a little old.  He trades HIcks prior to the winter meeting - he acted too soon.  He doesn't pick up a RP in the meeting - what is he waiting for?

 

No wonder he tried to retire early.

That is the job.

 

Its not the timing aspect that has most people concerned, it is that he consistently makes bad decisions within the time frames he acts.

 

There was zero reason to trade one of your best assets early in the off season before the market had time to set up. To go and get a marginal return is flat out a bad decision.

 

On the bullpen front, that market was set at the Winter Meetings. Players began to move and Ryan, to no one's surprise sat on his hands and did nothing. What he did do was waste the entire time trying to unload an untradeable asset (Nolasco) and explaining how the Twins just missed on making some deals. That is Ryan's tired go to card every year.

 

This is a consistent pattern with Ryan. It doesn't excuse him from getting the well deserved heat he is.

[Boom Boom]

As a Hicks fan, I would have rather kept him and got a catcher some other way. I think he did start to figure it out, and I'm concerned that he may have been made available simply because some coaches lost their patience with him.

 

All that said, I'm willing to give Murphy a chance and I think that declaring the trade a loss at this point is extremely short-sighted.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

That is the job.

 

Its not the timing aspect that has most people concerned, it is that he consistently makes bad decisions within the time frames he acts.

 

There was zero reason to trade one of your best assets early in the off season before the market had time to set up. To go and get a marginal return is flat out a bad decision.

 

On the bullpen front, that market was set at the Winter Meetings. Players began to move and Ryan, to no one's surprise sat on his hands and did nothing. What he did do was waste the entire time trying to unload an untradeable asset (Nolasco) and explaining how the Twins just missed on making some deals. That is Ryan's tired go to card every year.

 

This is a consistent pattern with Ryan. It doesn't excuse him from getting the well deserved heat he is.

To be fair, it appeared the door on the catcher market slammed shut approximately 2.3 seconds after it opened. Nobody expected Wieters to accept the QO and Pierzynski resigning with Atlanta that quickly was somewhat surprising.

 

Without the recent Padres acquisition, the door would still be mostly closed and nobody in their right mind would have predicted SD picking up another catcher this offseason.

 

Like or dislike the trade, a GM should not be criticized for attempting to shore up the team's biggest problem at a position of extreme scarcity early in the offseason.

 

If he went and picked up three Blaine Boyers in early November, yeah, you absolutely tear a GM to shreds for that move... But not for picking up a catcher when the position is an organizational problem from top to bottom.

 

There are situations where you sit back and let the market unfold before committing to a player... But that situation rarely involves catcher, especially when the catching situation was as bad as it was for the Twins.

[sane09]

 

 I think that declaring the trade a loss at this point is extremely short-sighted.

When tallying up the pros and cons resulting from the Hicks-Murphy trade, there is one more overlooked item on the "pro" list to consider.
Since Murphy, John Hicks and Centeno were added to the catching  corps, how many posts have we had to read and explain to the poster  that Joe Mauer  CAN'T be moved back behind the plate?.........EVEN if the Twins threaten to withhold the balance of his $23M contact?
God Bless  Aaron Hicks, John Ryan Murphy and Tiny Terry!  And God Bless Us Everyone!

[gil4]

 

I have to admit, I not the biggest fan of Ryan but this is getting a little old.  He trades HIcks prior to the winter meeting - he acted too soon.  He doesn't pick up a RP in the meeting - what is he waiting for?

 

No wonder he tried to retire early.

If he retired because of the stuff he read on TD, he needs to retire again.  (If he even reads TD, he might want to think about retiring.)

[jimmer]

 

In fact, catcher is now such a position of depth for the Twins, that Kurt Suzuki has become a trade chip.

The Twins now have:

Suzuki, Murphy and Hicks on the 40-man roster.

Centeno, Turner and Paulino at AAA.

Garver and Navaretto at AA

Trade Suzuki (and Plouffe?) for whatever you think we need.

We don't have one catcher that should be starting in the majors and Suzuki wouldn't garner anything worth having.

[formerly33]

In fact, catcher is now such a position of depth for the Twins, that Kurt Suzuki has become a trade chip.

The Twins now have:

Suzuki, Murphy and Hicks on the 40-man roster.

Centeno, Turner and Paulino at AAA.

Garver and Navaretto at AA

Trade Suzuki (and Plouffe?) for whatever you think we need.

Er...um...how about the Phillie Phanatic? His value should be down since they've got a new GM who probably isn't too attached to him yet. In fact, we might even be able to get them to throw a prospect like, say, Matt Klentak into the deal.

[jimmer]

 

Aaron Hicks had one good month at the plate and hasn't been able to hit otherwise.  He was blocking the best prospect in the game and his bat certainly won't play in a corner - where he'd block Sano, Rosario and Kepler.  The Twins traded him away for what looks to be a nice solid catcher. Cripes, even Klaw liked the trade.  Ryan did a good job.

In what universe was Hicks blocking 'the best prospect in the game'?  That was not happening.

[jimmer]

 

*Looks at the calendar*

 

Yep, still not even mid-December. Ryan has made two significant moves and people are complaining he's not "trying to win" because he didn't make more moves at the winter meetings.

 

I'm as disappointed as anyone about not picking up guys at the meetings but, again, it's not even mid-December yet. There is over a month of solid activity left in this offseason. What is happening right now reminds me of people complaining about ST rosters on March 10th.

 

"Ryan moves too early!"

 

*December 11th rolls around*

 

"The offseason is OVER!"

I'm having a hard time believing he's made two significant signings.  Park is a low risk move that may never work out.  We have no idea, he's never played a professional game at any level for any MLB organization.  Then we signed a backup catcher.  Are these significant, or have some been conditioned to believe they are due to what we are used to?  It's possible neither significant move even affects our starting team come next season.due to the kind of action we are used to seeing. Signing two players who have proven nothing at the major league level and who may not even be starting come opening day doesn't strike me as significant.  And, you know, it's possible one move just ends up hurting our OF defense.  

Edited December 11, 2015 by jimmer

[jimmer]

 

 

 

Again, Bethancourt is an interesting reclamation project... But he's not the type of guy you rely on for anything, particularly when your starting catcher is named Kurt Suzuki. That's inviting disaster.

is it your contention that JR Hicks IS the the type of guy you rely on for anything when Suzuki is your starting catcher.

[jimmer]

 

Can you imagine how much everyone on this board would be freaking out if we hadn't done anything about catcher as of this date and the end of the winter meetings? 

We have done nothing to address the starting catcher role.  Backup catcher depth was well covered and still is, but as far as I'm concerned, we have done nothing to fix that particular problem.

[sane09]

 

We have done nothing to address the starting catcher role.  Backup catcher depth was well covered and still is, but as far as I'm concerned, we have done nothing to fix that particular problem.

Key phrase:"as far as I'm concerned"

And that is fine, but I believe Joe Girardi when he says that Murphy will be an MLB catcher.

Girardi was a professional catcher for 18 years and an MLB catcher for 15 years who knows enough baseball to become manager of the #1 professional sports franchise on the continent. He had Murphy on his team for part of two seasons and saw him in practice or in games on a daily basis while Murphy was in MLB.

I can believe in Girardi's judgement: or that of some blog posters whose names I do not know?

Who would YOU believe?

[sane09]

Joe Girardi on John Ryan Murphy
“I think he’s improved dramatically as a catcher from the time he was drafted,” Girardi said. “He’s very smart. He works very hard. He’s got an idea what he wants to do. I think it’s a good trade for both teams and I think he’ll be a good big-league catcher"

[Brock Beauchamp]

is it your contention that JR Hicks IS the the type of guy you rely on for anything when Suzuki is your starting catcher.

He's far from perfect but at least he's shown some level of competence at the MLB level.

[Hrbowski]

It is not.

[TheLeviathan]

This thread is really awful to read.

 

I think this trade was and is fine on value, how these two players handle full time roles is what will determine this and there is PLENTY of evidence the guy we dealt can't handle that.

 

Ryan has plenty of flaws but for gods sake some of you are ever satisfied short of a 300m deal. If this trade and Park aren't significant than neither would have a savvy signing of Lowe or another reliever. The bar for some of you is just ridiculous.

 

And this is from someone very upset we didn't sign Lowe and another good reliever the last week, but c'mon.

[jimmer]

 

Joe Girardi on John Ryan Murphy
“I think he’s improved dramatically as a catcher from the time he was drafted,” Girardi said. “He’s very smart. He works very hard. He’s got an idea what he wants to do. I think it’s a good trade for both teams and I think he’ll be a good big-league catcher"

How often do managers dog out the players they are about to trade or just traded?

[sane09]

How often do managers dog out the players they are about to trade or just traded?

Not as often as they say very little when they know that their opinion will be thrown back in their face if nobody agrees with it. A Yankee Manager who the Yankee fans don't trust is not long for that job. Deceit in public view is toxic!

[jimmer]

 

He's far from perfect but at least he's shown some level of competence at the MLB level.

Indeed.  172 PAs, an OPS in the .730s, with a .406 BABIP and playing in a band box  :-)

[Riverbrian]

I'm not sure how I feel about Hicks for Murphy but I'm willing to give Murphy the benefit of the doubt and decide on how I feel about him later.

 

As for the discussion on waiting for Bethencourt to become available because he is better than Murphy.

 

I don't know who is better but I have a question in my head.

 

Why would the Braves trade him?

 

The Braves who are stockpiling every young player they can find.

 

The Braves who signed both AJ and Tyler Flowers so they didn't have to play the younger Bethencourt.

 

The Braves who have Ryan Lavarnway in AAA as the next man up.

 

Why would the Braves trade him? If the Braves are willing to trade him... It would make me not want him.