Sean Murphy named NL Player of the Week

Good afternoon to MLB’s current fWAR leader, Sean Murphy, who also took home NL Player of the Week honors for the first week of May.

To say that Murphy raked is an understatement: he had a 236 wRC+ across 33 PAs and tallied 0.8 fWAR of his MLB-leading 2.1 in the process. Not bad for a guy who started out not even playing every day.

Perhaps more amusingly, Murphy actually underhit his xwOBA over this span (.530 wOBA, .566 xwOBA), as he had a few deep drives, including some barrels, that were caught rather than adding to his already-gaudy batting line.

Plus, Murphy plays the toughest defensive position on the field, and does it well — he has provided above-average value in terms of framing, blocking, and throwing already this year. Murphy actually leads MLB in framing value using the simple Statcast in/out model, and has been top-five on a runs basis in preventing stolen bases as well.

With Travis d’Arnaud back in the fold, it remains to be seen exactly how the Braves will integrate him and Murphy going forward, but no matter what, Murphy has quickly established himself as another must-see Braves core piece.