Oakland A’s trade rumors: 3 potential landing spots for Sean Murphy

Tampa Bay Rays

Staying in the American League, the Tampa Bay Rays are another team that would benefit from adding someone of Murphy’s pedigree behind the plate.

Francisco Mejía has been the primary option at catcher this season for the Rays with Mike Zunino out with injury, and has continued to be subpar on offense. In 58 games this year, Mejía has six home runs, 23 RBI and an OPS+ of 96. Shockingly, he has drawn only two walks all season, equaling about 1.1% of his plate appearances. His defense has not been much better but it has not been horrendous (0.2 dWAR).

Backing up Mejía is a player with one of the more interesting big league journeys in the game, Christian Bethancourt. The 30-year old backstop is a well-traveled journeyman at this point in his career and has gone from catcher to outfielder to pitcher to catcher over the years. This year, he has received his first significant look in the big leagues since 2016, splitting his time between the Athletics and the Rays, hitting five home runs with a 96 OPS+.

While the current tandem hasn’t been awful, it hasn’t necessarily been good. Adding Murphy would give the Rays a face behind the plate for multiple years to come, as he is still under team control for three years after the current campaign.

With Zunino a free agent at year’s end and Bethancourt no lock to stick around either, Murphy would pair nicely with either Mejía or a prospect like Ford Proctor or René Pinto in the coming seasons.