Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy was our third-round draft pick back in 2013, which seems like a long time ago. He had some injury issues when he was younger, but had been fairly healthy over the past few years.

2019 was a very unusual year for Patrick. His delivery, which had a little toe tap, was ruled to be illegal. Totally changing your delivery, in the middle of a season, isn’t as easy as it sounds. Coming back from the change, he had some shoulder troubles. 2019 was pretty much a lost season. It really was too bad, because he would have spent some time on the major league team if he had a normal season.

Last year he was number 11 on our top prospects list. Matt wrote:

Admittedly, I’m the most bullish on Murphy. I see two plus pitches in his fastball and curve, and while the change-up is nothing special it’s better and I think enough to play overall as a starter. Barring that, if he did end up in the pen, the stuff is there for a high leverage closer type. However, between his injury history and now reworking his delivery and potential issues stemming from that, there’s significant risk too. This will be his last year on the list regardless, but in hindsight it’s possible the risks will not have been properly damaged. It would be a real shame if his career was derailed by a pretty ticky tacky (even parsimonious) interpretation of the rules.

Last year we did get to see him in the majors. He only threw 6 innings, but we saw the fastball that averages 96.8 MPH and a very pretty curve.

I had high hopes that we would see a lot of him this year. But now he’s on the 60-day IL with an ‘AC joint injury’. The team has been annoyingly stingy with news about him. I think we can assume we won’t see him until June at least.

Murphy turns 26 in June. I’ve been hoping he would get a good chance to prove what he can do. Ross Atkins, this summer, said that Murphy would remain a reliever going forward. I’ve long thought he could be a good starting pitcher, but now I’d be happy with whatever gets him on the team quickest.

With the handful of injuries, we’ve had on the pitching staff, if he was healthy, he’d almost be assured of a spot on the roster.

Before the injury:

• ZiPS figured him to pitch in 20 games, starting 17, with a 4.91 ERA.
• PECOTA had him making 22 relief appearances, with a 4.19 ERA.

Unfortunately, there is only one question worth asking at the moment.