Tom Murphy might be the first guy who can get a rookie outlook post, a sleeper post and an overrated post. Allow me to explain. Got it? Sorry, after I said “Allow me to explain,” I muttered the reasons to myself and forgot to write them down. As they say in Latin America, mea culpa. Allow me to explain while writing. He has under 130 ABs in the majors, so he qualifies for a rookie post. Easy peasy on that. A lot of people who play in leagues where their leaguemates only read Yahoo or ESPN are going to see huge sleeper value on Tom Murphy. I bet he’s not drafted at all in some friends & family leagues or just drafted super late. ESPN and Yahoo will drop the ball on Tom Murphy. It’s guaranteed. He’s not the kind of guy they highlight. Could me saying this move the needle? Maybe in Yahoo, but no way in ESPN. Yahoo is a bit more seat-of-the-pantsy; I’m currently recalling Dee Gordon’s rookie year when he was ranked in the top 50 overall at Yahoo even though he didn’t have a starting job. ESPN, on the other hand, they’re conservative to the point of boring. Carlos Beltran will be ranked ahead of Murphy. I will bet you major fake dollars on that. Now, why is Tom Murphy also going to be overrated in some leagues? Because Murphy’s the type of player that fantasy baseballers (<– my mom’s term!) love to hype up so much they become overrated by the time some drafts come around. I.e., he’ll start around 220 overall in drafts, inch up to 175, then to 150, then to 125, finally, in some leagues people will be drafting him around 75-100 by the end of March. This is obviously goofy, but there might be some value in him still at 150 overall, depending on how this next paragraph goes. (What a segue!) Anyway, what can we expect from Tom Murphy for 2017 fantasy baseball?
First off, playing time is everything. Walt Worse is gone, which means Tony Wolters will either be the starter or Tom Murphy will be. You thinking, “Wouldn’t that also be a possibility if Worse was still there?” Yes, technically, but I’d put the chances of Wolters being the starter at 75% with Worse, while now I’d say we’re at about 60/40 with Murphy as the lead. If the Rockies simply look at righty vs. lefty, Murphy is screwed, but Murphy had 4 HRs and hit .323 vs. righties last year in 31 ABs, and .321 in 212 ABs in Triple-A. The power was there vs. righties too, with 13 HRs. Yeah, I can’t for the life of me understand exactly why Worse would’ve ever sat Murphy vs. righties, but he wasn’t the Worse because he was the best. Murphy has hit 8 HRs in 32 major league games. This might confuse you if you know he hit five homers in only 21 games this year. That’s right, he hit three homers in only 11 games in 2015, and he still was sent to Triple-A where he hit 19 in 80 games. I’m not exactly sure why the Rockies have been yanking his chain. Worse is one answer, but I get the sense the Rockies are just an oddly run franchise. My thoughts on this date all the way back to Todd Helton being their first baseman about seven years longer than he should’ve been. Anyway, that’s a lot of time spent on whether or not he’ll play, and that’s my biggest concern for him, his playing time. Second biggest concern is his strikeouts. This is slightly less of a problem in Coors. If Mario Mendoza would’ve been a Rockie, the Mendoza Line would’ve been .250. You can’t hit under .230 on the Rockies. I don’t mean the Royal You. I mean, you. Literally the person reading this. You would hit .250 in Coors. Jeromy Burnitz hit .215 on the Mets in 2002, .239 the next year, then hit .283 in Colorado, then .258 in Chicago, .230 in Pittsburgh and out of baseball. This is standard for all Rockies players. Six years ago, Clint Barmes was the last Rockies regular that hit sub-.240. That’s Barmes who was a 2-homer guy in any other stadium, but hit 23 homers in Coors one year. So, Murphy could strikeout 30% of the time in Colorado, but I can’t project him to hit lower than .240. Since playing time is such a guessing game here, I’m going to project Murphy for 43/17/61/.251/1 in 375 ABs, but there’s upside and downside from there. Could see anywhere from 10 HRs to 30+ HRs for Murphy.
