It was a tale of two halves for Atlanta Braves catcher Sean Murphy in 2023. Which version should we expect in 2024?
When a player joins a new team it's understandable to see some struggles as they adjust -- just look at Trea Turner's first half in Philadelphia in 2023, or Matt Olson's doubles power instead of home run power in his first season (2022) in Atlanta.
That was not the case for Sean Murphy, as he lit the world on fire to start his Braves tenure and was the consensus best catcher in the game.
Before the All-Star break, he played in 66 games and slashed .306/.400/.599 with 17 doubles and 17 home runs. Not only was it looking like he was becoming the best catcher in the game, many had him on a short-list for NL MVP candidates.
But he fell off a cliff hard in the second half, slashing .159/.310/.275 with just 4 home runs in 40 games.
One thing you'll notice is he played far fewer games in the second half. After playing 60 of 89 games before the All-Star break, he played just 40 of 73 after.
Brian Snitker decided to make the catching position more of an even split in the second half between Murphy and Travis d'Arnaud. That decision didn't seem to help either player, as they both struggled mightily down the stretch.
TDA slashed .275/.349/.496 before the All-Star break and .176/.226/.301 after.
Whether the playing time had something to do with both slumping is hard to tell, but on the surface, it didn't seem to help.
Looking at the batted ball data, there is a severe drop-off in the type of contact Murphy made in the second half -- particularly in August and September.
Murphy's Tale of Two Halves
| Stats | First Half | Second Half |
|---|---|---|
Avg Exit Velo |
92.8% |
89.3% |
Hard-hit% |
45.9% |
28.2% |
HR/FB% |
25.4% |
10.5% |
Barrel% |
18.4% |
12.9% |
GB% |
37.6% |
46.6% |
The odd thing is that Murphy's swing and miss rate went way down in the second half -- from hovering around 27 percent to more around 20 percent. His in-zone swing percent dropped as well (meaning he made more contact on pitches in the zone).
He was making more contact in the second half, but the quality of contact took a hit.
Murphy's swing percentage dropped, so he was swinging less, making more contact, but weaker contact.
Looking at the type of pitches, he hit .347 against fastballs in the first three months of the season and just .194 in the second half. Perhaps pitchers adjusted to him in the second half and started throwing fewer fastballs -- particularly 4-seam fastballs, in which he hit .318 against in 2023.
Comparing that with the swing decisions, and maybe that's why he swung less... because he was hunting fastballs early, wasn't getting them, and then had to swing at a pitcher's pitch when behind in the count.
At the beginning of the year, he was seeing a 4-seam fastball around 27 percent of the time.
In the final two months, he saw them just 22 percent of the time. Instead, he saw a lot more sinkers at the end of the season, from around 20 percent of the time in the first half to around 26 percent of the time in the second half.
Looking at Baseball Savant's Run Value per pitch for Murphy in 2023, he had a -8 run value against sinkers -- by far the worst number against any pitch.
That could also be why we saw a lot more groundballs in the second half.
There might be an adjustment that needs to be made there for Murphy, but it's not time to panic on a guy who had max exit velocities of 114.7, a .272 xBA, and .532 xSLG.
September was dreadful, and the only memory of him in the postseason was a costly error. But even looking at his down months of July and August he still managed to slug .450 with a .350 OPB.
Ideally, had Marcell Ozuna not caught fire, the Braves' plan was probably to get Murphy more at-bats in the DH spot to keep his bat fresh.
Maybe that is something they'll look to do more in 2024.
Murphy is still a very good catcher who gets on base and hits the ball hard, not even mentioning what he does defensively.
But the end of 2023 will certainly leave some doubt going into 2024 about the 29-year-old catcher.
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