11:17am: Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN tweets that Murphy’s contract comes with a $1.15MM base salary in the Majors.
11:08am: Twins director of communications and player relations Dustin Morse has announced the signing, adding that Murphy will be assigned to Triple-A Rochester.
11:01am: The Twins have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran outfielder David Murphy, reports La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (links to Twitter). The 34-year-old Murphy was in camp with the Red Sox on a minor league contract and didn’t make the club. He’s reportedly been waiting for a big league offer and weighing retirement over reporting to the minors, but Neal adds that it sounds like Murphy won’t be in the minors long with the struggling Twins. That means one of Eddie Rosario, Byron Buxton or Miguel Sano is on the hot seat in terms of his starting job, per Neal.
Minnesota entered the season with a promising trio of outfielders, but each of Rosario, Buxton and Sano has struggled tremendously this season. Buxton has struck out in half of his plate appearances, whereas Sano is at 43 percent and Rosario has punched out in 36 percent of his trips to the plate. Buxton would seem the most logical choice to get some time in the minors, as he’s the only one of the three that hasn’t experience big league success yet. Were that to play out, Rosario or young Max Kepler could see some time in center field, though Kepler himself is a highly touted but untested prospect.
Clearly, this outcome wasn’t one that the Twins had envisioned entering the season. Minnesota surprised most pundits with an 83-win season that saw the club still alive in the hunt for the AL’s second Wild Card spot right up until the final series of the regular season. However, the Twins have stunningly yet to win a game in 2016 despite a rotation that ranks 10th in the Majors with a 3.38 ERA. Minnesota has allowed four or fewer runs in all but one game this season, but they’ve also yet to score more than three runs in a single contest. The offense has unquestionably been the team’s downfall, and Murphy will be relied upon to give better at-bats than some of the club’s young talent that has struggled so badly to make contact.
Murphy split the 2015 season between the Indians and Angels, batting a combined .283/.318/.421 in 391 plate appearances. Those numbers are more or less commensurate with Murphy’s career .274/.333/.432 batting line, though it should be noted that he’s best paired with a platoon partner, as Murphy’s lifetime OPS against lefties (.655) is dwarfed by his mark against right-handed pitching (.795).
Nice. Should fit in clubhouse well too.
This was a smart move. He will be a catalyst for a weak offense.
I’m surprised it took this long to sign him. He’s one of the better platoon candidates around and a good bench player, Good luck to him.
I’m also surprised he took this long to sign. At this price I wish the Rangers would have picked him up.
“Clearly, this outcome wasn’t one that the Twins had envisioned entering the season.”
It is April 14th, there is no outcome for the season yet. Not even close. There is plenty of time left in the season for ANYONE to turn around. I’m pretty sure most people didn’t expect the Phillies and the Reds to both be in second place right now either. Calm down Chicken Little, the sky is not falling.
The “outcome” to which I’m referring is feeling the need to add a veteran outfielder when they entered the year with Rosario, Buxton and Sano in the outfield and Kepler waiting in the wings. Outfield was a position of depth in the organization’s eyes, and instead they don’t have a single outfielder they feel confident in at the moment, nor do they have one that has managed to keep his strikeout rate even below 35 percent.
At no point did I say, “They’re doomed, season’s over.” But to say that signing Murphy with the intent of giving him a big league role in short order is an unexpected outcome for the Twins seems more than fair.
I think I heard somewhere that no team has started the season 0-7 and gone to the playoffs. So in that sense you COULD say that they’re doomed and the season is over.
Just because something has never been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Not saying they’re going to make the playoffs, but it’s the middle of April. It’s baseball. Every year, teams & players do things that have never been done before.
It is early and obviously there’s a ton of baseball to play. But… every game counts, and when the Twins were 2-6 at this point last season, that looked awfully big when they were 3 games out of the wildcard.
Funny you are criticizing him but yet we have all seen you make some pretty outlandish post in the past.
Wasn’t all the long ago bigpapi4life was saying Murphy was the best 4th outfielder in the game and hew was going to be HUGE for the Red Sox.. I remember him saying he could very well be there starting LF if Castillo doesn’t progress.. It is a shame he got banned. Would love to see what he had to say now.
Just as a baseball fan, you have to love the Murph-Dawg. He plays right and acts right. A real pro. I wish he was platooning with Ruggiano in LF at Globe Life.
Almost every ” prospect” is over hyped these days, especially if they show even a moderate amount of power. Joey Gallo comes to mind. Give me guys that make consistent contact any day over these swing and miss guys like the Twins have.
The Cubs with Bryant, Russell, Schwarber and Soler would like to highly disagree