Sean Murphy a star with Braves, who are getting elite offense from former A’s catcher

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the Oakland A’s slog through a dismal season, what must it feel like for them to see the powerful Braves winning most every night during the past month, building the best record in baseball, and getting huge contributions from two players they traded to Atlanta in the past two years, Matt Olson and Sean Murphy?

They’ve had time to accept and move on from trading Olson before the 2021 season, but the pain of trading Murphy in December is fresh, and surely made worse by the fact that their former Gold Glove catcher has taken his previously strong offensive performance to an entirely different level in his first half-season with the Braves. Quite simply, Murphy has surpassed any and all expectations.

He leads MLB catchers in virtually every major offensive category, and after his three-run homer in the fourth inning Saturday night in a 6-1 win at Tampa Bay, he’s just one homer and 11 RBIs shy of the career bests he set last season with Oakland. He has 17 homers and 55 RBIs in 67 games played — 45 percent of his games played a year ago with Oakland when he finished with 18 homers and 66 RBIs.

Oh, and he will start for the National League in Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Seattle, another measure of how resounding Murphy’s first season with his new team has been.

As if there needed to be more, beyond the Braves’ 60-28 record, his cannon-armed defense, and Murphy’s .306 batting average and .999 OPS, which ranks third in the majors — one spot behind teammate Ronald Acuña Jr.’s 1.001 — among hitters with 250 or more plate appearances. Murphy’s 3.7 fWAR was tied for fifth-highest in the majors before Saturday behind four players — Acuña, Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Wander Franco — who each has significantly more games and plate appearances than Murphy in 2023, which is notable since WAR is a cumulative metric.

“He’s a pretty special player — it’s unbelievable, it’s fun to watch,” said Braves pitcher Spencer Strider, who had 11 strikeouts in 6 1/3 scoreless innings while limiting the Rays to four hits and one walk and improving to 11-2, tied for most wins in the majors. “You get to the point where I’m just expecting him to hit the ball hard. And the confidence he gives you with the running game and game-calling — I mean, we’re pretty lucky behind the plate this year between him and Trav (catcher Travis d’Arnaud). And yeah, I mean, the offense from him has been unreal.”

“It is what it is,” Murphy said with typical modesty. “I just try to do the same things every day. I don’t look at results and take too much into account. I’m more worried about winning games. But when I can help on the offensive side, I’ll take it.”

The Braves have won 27 of 31 games and moved to a season-high 32 games over .500 while becoming the 11th team since 2000 to have 60 wins before the break. They also homered for the 25th consecutive game, matching a modern-era franchise record.

The only negative Saturday: Reliever A.J. Minter exited in the eighth inning with tightness in his left pectoral after striking out Yandy Diaz and throwing two pitches to Franco. But Minter said, “I’ll be fine,” to teammates as he left the field, and said afterward he was sure it was nothing significant, just tightness that he knew better than to try to pitch through. He said no tests are scheduled or expected to be needed, and he hoped it would feel fine by Sunday.

The All-Star break that starts Monday comes at a good time for Minter, even if he and some other Braves have said in recent days they wished they didn’t have to stop playing for four days, given the roll they’ve been on.

“We’ve just been playing great,” Strider said. “It feels like every part’s kind of clicking right now. Even throughout the course of a game, when somebody’s struggling or the offense is struggling or we fall behind, it’s good to know that the other half of the team is going to come pick you up and figure it out, and that’s kind of what’s been happening. We’re playing pretty loose, and it feels good.”

When they acquired Murphy as the centerpiece of a three-team December trade that sent catcher William Contreras to Milwaukee and pitching prospects Kyle Muller and Freddy Tarnok to Oakland (among six players Atlanta parted with in the deal), the Braves would’ve been satisfied this season if Murphy performed as he did last season. He hit .250 with a .759 OPS in 148 games in 2022.

But he has far surpassed that performance level in his first season with the Braves, who signed the 28-year-old Murphy to a six-year, $73 million extension within two weeks of the trade. His time behind the plate has been reduced by design, with 2022 All-Star d’Arnaud getting a larger share of the duties than a conventional second catcher.

Murphy’s performance has improved substantially at the plate and remained elite behind it. The Braves think getting more rest than he did a year ago might’ve helped him so far, especially considering the hotter weather he’s catching in this season compared to four seasons with Oakland.

“I think it’s good that we’re not wearing him out,” Snitker said. “He can catch two out of three and that’s great. Keep him strong. I think it’s probably been good for his production here, and like I say, as well as Travis is doing, we’re getting a lot of productivity out of that position, that’s for sure.”

Through the Braves’ first 88 games, Murphy has 58 starts at catcher and four at designated hitter, after starting 130 games at catcher and 30 as a designated hitter a year ago with Oakland. The Braves don’t need him at DH when he’s not catching, at least not with Marcell Ozuna’s marked offensive improvement since May 1.

Murphy’s workload included a stretch from April 9 to May 9 when he started 24 of 29 games at catcher while d’Arnaud was recovering from a concussion. Murphy was the DH in three of the five games that Chadwick Tromp caught in that stretch. Throughout that one-month grind, he showed little, if any, fatigue.

Since d’Arnaud returned, the Braves have had Murphy catch two out of every three games, except for a five-game stretch from June 18-24 when Murphy was sidelined by a strained hamstring and d’Arnaud caught every day.

D’Arnaud, who will catch Sunday’s series finale at Tampa Bay, has hit for a higher average (.276) and OPS (.832) in 35 games than he did a year ago when he hit .261 with a .771 OPS in 63 games before the break and was a first-time All-Star. He finished last season with 18 homers, 60 RBIs, and a .791 OPS in 426 PAs, and has seven homers and 22 RBIs in 142 plate appearances this season despite his month on the injured list.

Asked about how well d’Arnaud has handled his reduced role, Snitker said, “I just think he’s got a chance to keep playing a long time, in my view, doing that. And it’s just so good; we split it up pretty good. We knew coming in Murph was probably going to get the bulk of it, and it’s great having a guy like Travis backing him up — or sharing the duties, I guess — and as we’ve seen when one or the other gets nicked up, then the other guy can carry the torch for an extended period.”

Charlie Morton pitched 6 1/3 innings of four-hit, one-run ball in Friday’s 2-1 win at Tampa Bay, improving to 4-0 with a 2.28 ERA in his past five starts. Murphy supplied all of Atlanta’s offense with a two-run homer in that game and also threw out two would-be base stealers.

“It’s great,” Morton said of Murphy’s work. “And like I said before, too, we have such a luxury to have two (catchers) that are so good and so much fun to work with, and they’re just good people. I look forward to seeing them every day. Going to work with Murph is awesome. And the way he’s swinging the bat, and just everything. Just everything about him. Just a great dude.”

Under catching coach Sal Fasano, the Braves have a game-preparation component with daily meetings involving the starting pitcher, both catchers, Fasano, and coach/former Braves catcher Eddie Perez, along with at least one of the team’s analytics experts. Throughout games, it’s common to see pitchers talking not just with pitching coach Rick Kranitz in the dugout, but with Fasano and one or both catchers, sharing observations and ideas any of them might have during the game.

Murphy said his relationship with d’Arnaud — the veteran catcher was the first Brave to call him after the December trade — and Fasano helped immensely with his transition to a new team and league.

“I can’t say enough good things about those guys,” Murphy said. “They’re the reason I’m having the success that I am, they’re making my life easy as far as figuring out the pitchers and making the game-calling easier, and working with the staff. So those two guys, I’m leaning on them and their experience. So, much credit to those guys.”

(Photo of Matt Olson and Sean Murphy: Nathan Ray Seebeck / USA Today)