Sometimes in Major League Baseball, getting traded is a compliment.
The Boston Red Sox were happy with the contributions they got from left-hander Chris Murphy this year, but didn’t foresee a huge role for him going forward. On Nov. 20, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox, who were still a last-place team this year, even if they weren’t the worst team of all time.
Murphy, 27, has been a fringe major leaguer for a couple of seasons now, and Tommy John surgery in 2024 cost him a season and a half of progress. But he had a solid 3.12 ERA in 34 innings for Boston this season, even if most of that work came in semi-garbage time.
If you like our content, choose Sports Illustrated as a preferred source on Google.
Even though the Red Sox are a more desirable destination than the White Sox these days, the harsh reality is that Murphy will get a much better shake in Chicago than he would if he remained in Boston.
On Saturday, Murphy’s first comments since the trade hit the news cycle, and it was clear that the southpaw wasn’t particularly upset about the way events unfolded at the end of his Red Sox tenure.
“I was like, ‘Oh boy. It’s one of two — it’s a DFA (getting designated for assignment) or trade, and I hope it’s not a DFA,’” Murphy said, per Alex Speier of The Boston Globe.
“My first thing was, ‘I wonder how they see me. I wonder if I can start.’ All things considered, I’m hopefully going to get an opportunity that I don’t think I was going to really get next year with the Red Sox.”
The Red Sox’s left-handed bullpen depth chart has quickly cleared out at the end of the season, as Murphy and Brennan Bernardino were both traded on the same day, and Justin Wilson and Steven Matz both hit free agency.
Meanwhile, the White Sox will hope for better results than they got from ex-Red Sox lefty Cam Booser, who arrived in a similar trade last offseason, while Boston will hope catching prospect Ronny Hernandez one day becomes a viable big-leaguer.
