Mariners catcher shut down from baseball activity due to thumb fracture

Mariners catcher Tom Murphy has been shut down from baseball activity for another 10 days and is not a lock to return to the team this year, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reports. The 32-year-old has been out since Aug. 14, when a foul tip caught him on the thumb and resulted in what was originally diagnosed as a displaced tendon. However, general manager Justin Hollander revealed to the Mariners beat last night that subsequent imaging performed after much of the swelling had subsided revealed a small fracture as well.

Murphy’s hand has been placed in a splint and will be reevaluated on Sept. 22. That’ll be something of a make-or-break point, as Hollander added that there is “no likelihood” of Murphy returning if follow-up testing “doesn’t go well.” Seattle has been using Brian O’Keefe to back up starter Cal Raleigh. Veterans Pedro Severino and Luis Torrens are also on hand in Triple-A Tacoma, though neither is on the 40-man roster.

While some might wave off the importance of a backup catcher to a team’s postseason chances, Murphy is no ordinary backup catcher. He’s taken 159 turns at the dish this season and turned in an outstanding .290/.335/.538 slash with eight home runs and a dozen doubles. Since joining the Mariners in 2019, he’s tallied 807 plate appearances and delivered a .250/.324/.460 batting line. That’s 15% better than league-average production, by measure of wRC+. Considering the standard catcher in that time has been about 10% worse than average at the plate in that time, Murphy’s production relative to his positional peers — particularly backups — is exceptional.

That said, staying on the field has been a challenge for Murphy. After a terrific first season in Seattle (2019), a broken foot cost him the entire 2020 season. He returned in 2021 but logged a lackluster .202/.304/.350 slash in his first year back from that injury. He looked excellent to begin the 2022 season — but left shoulder surgery sidelined him for the season after he’d played in just 14 games. As Murphy mended from that shoulder issue, Raleigh stepped up and solidified himself as one of the top power-hitting catchers in the sport. The 26-year-old switch-hitter has popped 55 homers over the past two seasons, including 28 this year while hitting .237/.315/.473.

Raleigh’s presence assures that the M’s will have an offensive threat behind the dish (and a standout defender as well), but a season-ending injury for Murphy would sting nonetheless. He’s hit well enough during his Mariners tenure that he’s a legitimate option at designated hitter, particularly versus southpaws. In 473 career plate appearances against lefties, Murphy touts a .264/.352/.489 batting line.

If Murphy is indeed done for the year, backup catching duties will continue to fall to the inexperienced O’Keefe, who’s 3-for-22 in his young big league career. The 30-year-old did bat .240/.325/.511 with 22 home runs in Triple-A this season, so there’s likely more in the tank from an offensive standpoint — though he clearly can’t be expected to replace Murphy’s production.

If the Mariners choose to go with one of their veteran options in Triple-A, both Severino and Torrens would be postseason-eligible. Severino has played 41 games in Tacoma this year (plus another 18 games with the Padres’ top affiliate) but carries a tepid .237/.310/.411 slash between those two stops. Torrens went 5-for-20 in a brief big league stint with the Cubs earlier this season and is batting .244/.295/.442 in 95 Triple-A plate appearances on the year. He’s a familiar commodity for the Mariners, having spent parts of three seasons in Seattle, where he logged a .239/.297/.388 line in 609 plate appearances.

The Mariners are currently in a tightly contested American League playoff race, sitting outside of the postseason picture by the narrowest of margins at the moment. They’re trailing Texas by just a half-game for the final wild-card spot, with the Blue Jays only a half-game up on the Rangers. The Mariners were leading the AL West not long ago, but they’re presently two and a half games behind the Astros in that regard. It’s still eminently plausible that the M’s win the AL West, capture a wild-card spot or miss the playoffs entirely, so every win/loss and every injury is magnified.

From a personal standpoint, the injury has implications for Murphy as well. He’s slated to become a free agent for the first time this offseason and will be one of the top-hitting catchers in a thin class at the position. If he’s able to return to the lineup by the season’s end and potentially demonstrate his health in the playoffs, that could strengthen his free-agent case a bit, but the current six-week absence he’s facing won’t do Murphy any favors in that regard.