Ship Murphy for bullpen help? Not a great idea

Thanks to Buster Olney saying that Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy is a “nice fit” for the Dodgers on Friday, we’ve been dealing with some speculation that Murphy could be traded to Los Angeles for bullpen help.

Being that I’m neither a scout nor a baseball official, I’m not going to act like I know what teams would be willing to part with for a package of Murphy, or Murphy straight-up. What I do know, is that I would not be against parting ways with him if it’s going to bring a bullpen arm to the team. Murphy is a man without a position. Although his defense as 2nd base has been serviceable, the Mets have plenty of middle in-field depth, that can replace Murphy in both a starting role and a back-up role, that bring a much better glove and position flexibility.

Even if I didn’t hate selling low on players who still have upside left, I don’t think this would be the best course of action for where the Mets are right now.

It is true that the Mets are surprisingly in contention in a National League that’s even weaker than we used to think. Although Atlanta, Miami and even Philly could end up pulling ahead of the Mets in the second half, there stands a reasonable chance that the Mets could qualify for the playoffs at the end of the season. The argument for a trade comes from that reasonable chance plus the fact that the Mets bullpen has been pretty dreadful so far.

The problem with trading for bullpen help is that relief pitcher performance is so darn volatile. Even the best relievers will only pitch about a third of the innings that a starter pitches over the course of a season. What equates to a couple bad months for a starters is a whole rotten year for a relief pitcher, so unless a trade is made for an elite fireman, it’s tough to really know what the results will be.

Even if the results are good, a trade made at the deadline will only yield about 30 innings of relief help. Is 30 innings of maybe good pitching worth giving up three years of a second baseman with .320/.362/.448 upside? Not to any reasonable baseball executive.

That batting line is from Murphy’s amazing 2011 season. Can he possibly do that for a whole season? Probably not, especially when considering this season’s lukewarm .280/.323/.391 first half, but those 2011 stats are still from 423 plate appearances, which is far from insignificant.

Murphy’s walk percentage is actually slightly up from 2011, but his strikeouts are up as well and before this week he’d been experiencing a power outage. However, it’s important to note that his line drive rate has held pretty steady (21.9% in 2011, 22.7% in 2012), so it’s not as though we’re seeing a completely ruined Murphy. The walk and line drive rates show that there is still a lot of the 2011 Murphy left in 2012.

He might never approach last season’s highs, but make no mistake. Murphy is an asset for the future. In the next two seasons, the Mets front office would probably rather see Jordanny Valdespin or Reese Havens take over the second base job, but with Valdespin’s errors and Haven’s injuries, Murphy remains an asset that’s worth well more than two months of relief pitching.