There have been many contentious Braves in the last few decades of Braves fandom, but the guy bearing the mantle right now is almost certainly Sean Murphy. Acquired in an out-of-nowhere deal ahead of the 2023
season when the Braves were seemingly set at catcher, Murphy’s signature style of swing-out-of-his-shoes slugging and stellar saves defensively made for an awesome debut season in Atlanta, but also led to some sour grapes-esque feelings given that William Contreras had a defensive turnaround-and-breakout in Milwaukee in 2023, hit a new gear offensively in 2024, and has been hyper-productive since the trade overall.
Meanwhile, Murphy ran into an injury-plagued and xwOBA underperformance-doomed 2024, before starting 2025 on the Injured List once more. In the end, he had another mediocre offensive year before succumbing to a hip injury that he had apparently attempted to play through in his entire Atlanta tenure, including his fantastic 2023.
How acquired
The trade that sent Murphy to Atlanta was a wild one. The Braves sent prospect pitchers Kyle Muller, Royber Salnias, and Freddy Tarnok, and backup catcher type Manny Pina, to Oakland. Meanwhile, Milwaukee added speedster prospect Esteury Ruiz, whom the Athletics considered to prize of their haul for Murphy (for whatever reason). For sending Ruiz west, the Brewers got Contreras and not-really-a-prospect Justin Yeager from the Braves.
About two weeks after the deal, and before he had appeared in any kind of contest in his new team’s uniform, the Braves and Murphy connected on an extension that guaranteed $73 million over six years, and included a 2029 club option with no buyout. The extension paid Murphy $4 million in 2023, $9 million in 2024, and $15 million annually thereafter, including in the option year. The deal secured three of Murphy’s pending would-be free agency years (four if the option were picked up).
What were the expectations?
Murphy is the Contentious Brave de l’année (that’s “of the year,” in lieu of “of the day” for those of you unwilling to punch that into Google Translate), and the expectations are one of the three big reasons why. (The other two are the fact that William Contreras was traded away, and the fact that Drake Baldwin now exists on the same team, at the same position, and won Rookie of the Year in 2025.)
Let’s put it this way: when the Braves traded for Murphy, he was insanely good: he was coming off a 5.2 fWAR season, had provided close to two wins of value defensively in each of the prior two seasons, and had a career .342 xwOBA that he was substantially underhitting. At the time the Braves got him, Murphy had 10.5 career fWAR, and an even 5.0 fWAR per 600 PAs. So, when Murphy hit another gear as the Braves encouraged him to lead into his swinging tendencies and put up another 5.0 fWAR season, this time in just 438 PAs, while also underhitting a massively improved .395 xwOBA, it was basically party in the streets time…
…and then 2024 happened. Murphy didn’t even make it through Opening Day as a result of hurting his oblique; he eventually returned in late May but showed diminished bat speed and defensive production. He also massively underhit an okayish .310 xwOBA (.281 wOBA), such that he garnered just 0.8 fWAR in 264 PAs.
As a result, trying to prognosticate Murphy for 2025 was kind of annoying. On the one hand, he was amazingly awesome when healthy, and one injury-saddled season shouldn’t have eaten into things that much. On the other hand, I probably discussed Murphy more than any other player with various industry acquaintances ahead of the 2025 season, and the pseudo-consensus I got back was that Murphy looked like a defensive wizard backup catcher more than a guy you’d want to bat every day. During these discussions, I’d always bring up his xwOBA, and get the equivalent of a “Yeah, but still…” sort of thing, which seemed odd to me, but there it is.
In any case, even factoring in his various 2024 issues, Murphy still looked like an above-average, 3-4 WAR producer. ZiPS had his point estimate at 3.2 WAR in 417 PAs (that’s 4.6 per 600 PAs) ahead of the 2025 season.
2025 Results
Sigh. This time, Murphy didn’t even wait for Opening Day to get injured, suffering a rib fracture in Spring Training. His absence paved the way for Drake Baldwin to become the team’s primary catcher from the get-go, and stick with the team all season en route to Rookie of the Year honors.
Murphy returned in early April and played on and off as part of a catcher timeshare. He DHed very infrequently — once in April, and then not again until the Braves were basically out of it in July. The way his season unfolded offensively was pretty bizarre:
While Murphy was never really on fire like he was in multiple months in 2023, he was doing pretty well, even including a rough June, until falling apart in August. Interestingly, his bat speed, which was diminished from 2023 levels for pretty much all of 2024, dipped heavily in June but also stayed low in July before jumping back up to 2024ish levels as he cratered down the stretch. There’s something to unpack there, but it’s unclear how it all Tetrises together.
The stunning part of Murphy calling it quits for the season in early September wasn’t that it happened: it’s that, apparently, he had been dealing with hip issues his entire Atlanta tenure, and had more or less obscured it from the team up until there was essentially no reason not to shut it down with less than a month of games to go and no playoff berth in sight. Furthermore, there were reports from this offseason that Murphy engaged the coaching staff and Front Office and lobbied for a more traditional, full-time catcher role, which seems especially wild given the hip pain. Sure, he somehow did it in 2023, but his bat speed dropoff in 2024 was potentially a sign that maybe there were health-related things to address first. Who knows.
All in all, Murphy finished with 2.0 fWAR in 337 PAs. His xwOBA (.313) was average-y, as was his wRC+ (97). Where he racked up a ton of value was defense, once again putting up over a win of value with the tools of ignorance in basically half a season of playing time.
What went right?
First and foremost, the defense. Murphy has been a standout blocker from 2021-forward, was consistently one of the league’s best throwing catchers aside from a 2024 hiccup that may have been related to his oblique issues, and has been an above-average framer for years no, again, 2024 hiccup aside. He returned to that level of defensive dominance in 2025, racking up gobs of defensive value. It’s kind of amazing he did it considering his hip was apparently as bad and painful as it was.
Beyond that, Murphy’s contact quality rebounded from where it was 2024 (from an elite .461 xwOBACON in 2023 to a league-average .365 in 2024 to a .401 mark in 2025). His hard-hit rate bounced back, his walk rate stayed good, and he continued to obliterate offspeed pitches, which is something he’s done his whole Braves tenure (and frankly makes sense given his swing). He pulled a bunch of balls in the air, considerably more on a rate basis than either 2023 or 2024. He also continued to be fairly aggressive, unlike many of his teammates, though this also may have been his undoing as, whether for health-related reasons or otherwise, his contact eventually collapsed, without any commensurate bat speed issues.
Despite his meh season offensively, Murphy had a couple of huge games for the team. His biggest was probably July 12, and honestly, it wasn’t a big “game.” It was just a big swing. Namely, Murphy had gone 0-for-3 in a close game, until he came up with one out, as the go-ahead run, in the eighth inning in St. Louis, and blam — three-run homer that turned the game around. (The Cardinals then tied the game on a wild pitch, but the Braves re-took the lead and won in the ninth.)
His other huge game came much earlier, back when it still seemed like his return might help the team recover from their torpor, as he had a two-homer game on April 12 against the Rays. The first homer put the Braves on the board and within one; the second tied the game in the eighth, and the Braves went on to win in the ninth.
What went wrong?
The biggest thing is whatever team culture, personal headspace, etc. etc. etc. led to Murphy playing through a hip injury for three years. Come on, man, your health is pretty important, too. I know all the pro players, even the relatively soft-spoken, background-esque personalities like Murphy’s, want to be the GUY, but still. Just brutal. Hopefully he comes back healthy and re-energized in 2026.
Whether for health/pain-related reasons, or something else, Murphy ended up with some weird issues in 2025 — the biggest was that he basically lost the ability to fight off pitches. His chase contact rate was 38 percent — not quite half of league average (58 percent), but getting there. In and of itself, o-contact doesn’t mean much: Aaron Judge routinely runs awful o-contact rates, and all sorts of big boppers like Nick Kurtz, Eugenio Suarez, and James Wood arguably benefit from whiffs at stuff they weren’t gonna crush because those swings don’t become weak contact. That said, that sort of structure has never really been Murphy’s gameplan, and in particular, Murphy’s altered bat speed and potentially his physical limitations post-2023 have made it really hard for him to fight off sliders and changeups that he chases, to an egregious extent.
Murphy’s worst game is easy, because it was just woof. In a one-run loss to the Phillies on August 30, Murphy hit into a double play, then hit into a double play again, then struck out looking. All this while facing a southpaw in Cristopher Sanchez. He was then pinch-hit for by Jake Fraley in a tie game in the ninth with two outs, which seems sort of bizarre because maybe Murphy could’ve run into one against Jhoan Duran, but Fraley likely wasn’t going to.
He also had another miserable time against the Phillies on April 9 — he actually reached base in each of his first three PAs, but in the tenth, with the Braves down a run and runners at the corners against Jose Alvarado, he badly missed a 2-2 cutter running in on him to end the game.
2026 Outlook
Well, here we are again, trying to prognosticate Sean Murphy. The injury situation makes this all somewhat strange, but Murphy is now also subject to a thing where two of his three most recent seasons involved either a huge xwOBA underperformance (2023, 2024) or playing under the influence of injury in some noticeable fashion (2024, 2025).
Steamer still has Murphy as an above-average-ish contributor, but only on a rate basis: 1.3 WAR in 315 PAs — basically replicating his 2025 batting-wise but with worse defense (because Steamer always heavily regresses defensive standouts or laggards). ZiPS is more sanguine on both fronts, with a 2.6 WAR in 367 PAs point estimate. Either would be helpful, the latter would go a long way towards adding some chill back to the pitch with which Murphy’s talent and/or roster spot is discussed.
There’s the outside hope, too, that with the move to a more flexible roster, Murphy can get off his feet a bit and not wear down. But, to be honest, he hasn’t really been on his feet all that heavily as a Brave anyway, so a bigger concern is whether he’s able to rebound from his hip pain and turn back the clock to 2023 or earlier.
