To say Daniel Murphy is a schmohawk transcends fantasy baseball. Murphy said he disagrees with the gay lifestyle, but loves all people because he’s a Christian. “What exactly is the gay lifestyle?” would’ve been the best followup question ever. Daniel Murphy thinks for a moment, then thoughtfully says, “Dressing up in frilly crap, watching Queer as Folk reruns and eating D.” Then, after a moment, “But I love all people!” Or if a gay reporter said, “I’m gay and my lifestyle is watching sports, getting mustard on my old, brown tie, and I don’t even have Showtime. Does my lifestyle bother you?” Murphy pauses, then replies, “Yes, you eat D and I prefer ketchup on my hot dogs. But I still love you.” Every sport needs a bad guy, and that’s why baseball has everyone on the Yankees. Daniel Murphy isn’t a bad guy, he’s just a douche, but, not that long ago, John Smoltz compared gay marriage to a person marrying an animal, so Murphy will probably be working Fox broadcasts in the near future, along with Pete Rose and A-Rod. Fox: We Hire Everyone MLB Asks Us Not To Hire. Any hoo! None of that matters for our purposes, or porpoises if dolphins are reading. This is about what a schmohawk Murphy is for fantasy, that does matter for us. Schmohawk lives matter! Anyway, why is Daniel Murphy overrated for 2017 fantasy baseball?
Last year, Murphy went 88/25/104/.347/5 at the age of 31, having easily one of the best seasons of not only his career but in the majors. The runs and RBIs might repeat since the Nats are solid and Murphy should be hitting in the middle of the lineup. Though, I think there’s just as much chance Murphy slips so badly (not on a banana peel, because Murphy says bananas are gay) that Harper and Rendon move up and Murphy moves to the Jayson Werth portion of the Nats’ lineup, which would hurt Murphy’s value, because runs and RBIs are more or less his entire stable of tricks. He has a career 7.4% HR/FB, if he would’ve repeated that last year, he would’ve hit 14 homers. Last year, he also hit more fly balls than he ever had in his career. If he were to revert to his career fly ball percentage and HR/FB%, then we’re talking about Murphy having around 11 homers this year. Lowercase yay! Last year, he averaged 396 feet per home run. Out of 111 guys, that was 89th on the list. He makes Eugenio Suarez look like a guy that has great power. Murphy’s hard contact percentage was 38.2% last year, which was solid. His career mark, however, 29.5%, which would be one of the worst in the majors. Finally, his .347 average last year was with the 18th best BABIP. A BABIP that was almost thirty points above his career mark that was contingent on his new profile of hitting balls hard. He’s way more of a .295 hitter than a .340 one — that’s three-forty not three-forty-one if Siri is reading this to you. Why keep going back to his career marks? He’s not 26 years old. He’s 31, and I don’t buy he’s suddenly a new player. He’s a 15-homer, .295 guy with five-steal speed. I’ve seen him going in the 2nd round of some drafts. To use an example of another homophobe, this is Yunel Escobar hitting third on a good team, in the 2nd round. Enjoy your ‘drafting Daniel Murphy’ lifestyle, because I do not agree with it.
