Daniel Murphy has been a loyal Met every since draft day in June, 2006.
He only recently found a home at second base – he has journeyed around the diamond playing left field, third base, first base, doing everything the Mets asked him to do, often looking bad in the process.
He has developed into one of the better top-of-the-order hitters in the league through his first seven years in the big leagues despite not having a home on the field until 2012.
But in year eight, Murphy finds himself somewhat as a lame duck with the Mets. He will be a free agent after the year, and it’s been fairly clear what direction the Mets are going in at the position, or with the entire roster in general.
That is why, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post wrote today, this is very likely to be Murphy’s final season – or four months – with the Mets.
“Murphy is the Mets’ “but” player. Good, but not great,” Sherman explains. “He does enough that the Mets keep coming back for more, but not enough for them to fall in love long term.”
I love Murphy – he represents everything the Mets stand for in terms of his grit and blue collar approach. But Sherman sums up the problem with Murphy with this statement. He is a quality singles and doubles hitter who probably should get on base more, doesn’t hit for much power and is a below average defensive player. It’s painful for me to say that, but he is who he is as a player.
Therefore, its hard to envision the club giving a 30-year-old Murphy a multi-year deal and a raise on top of that considering the kind of player he is, even if their payroll was in the top percentiles in the industry. In fact, it’s hard for me to see a lot of teams giving him what would be considered fair market value for his services.
“The Mets have shown no inclination to try to keep him,” Sherman writes. Earlier in camp, Murphy told reporters while he would be open to signing an extension with the Mets, they had not yet approached his agent about that possibility.
“He’s been a very good player and is a very good player,” Assistant GM John Ricco told Sherman. “The question comes down to managing assets, and we have young players we are high on that play that position.”
Regarding the Mets in particular, it is what Ricco says as to why they are very unlikely to retain Murphy beyond 2015. Dating back a couple of years, there hasn’t been anyone I’ve talked to within the organization who mentioned Murphy’s name in discussions about the future of second base. The fact of the matter is they have players they feel can be more complete for a longer period of time right now – such as Dilson Herrera and now maybe Matt Reynolds – and they may be right, as much as it hurts me to say it.
As Ricco suggests, this is all about value. If the Mets have $100-110 million payroll in 2016, Murphy is earning $10 million as an example and nobody gets traded, the Mets would be paying their players under contract next year $67.55 million, or 61.4 percent of their payroll on the high end. They’d still have to assign raises to players such as Matt Harvey, Juan Lagares, perhaps John Mayberry plus others through the arbitration process. Their payroll right now is arguably too top heavy – adding a raise for Murphy plus long-term retention would only weigh the top down more. And, it would only get more stressed in 2017 with more raises, plus Jacob deGrom‘s arbitration eligibility looming.
The Mets could be putting the cart before the horse with their younger prospects in this case. There’s no way to know, so time will tell. But it’s all but crystal clear what the direction is at second base, and like it or not, for a number of reasons, that direction is unlikely to include Murphy.
Just Mets 