Don't look now, but Sean Murphy is beginning to heat up as September approaches. The Braves catcher collected a pair of hits on Friday evening and is 5-for-8 over his last two starts. Murphy's emergence allows Atlanta to shift Drake Baldwin to DH, and as a result, Baldwin has also been hitting the baseball hard again over the past few games.
Manager Walt Weiss revealed on Wednesday afternoon that the plan going forward was to play Murphy in at least half of the remaining regular season games. Playing Murphy more is a sound idea for a number of reasons, but committing to just half of the remaining games isn't bold enough.
Sean Murphy exited Wednesday's first plate apperance with one extra-base hit in 45 at-bats this year. He's gone 4-for-5 with two doubles and a homer since then. pic.twitter.com/o1wYrDuTv8
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) August 29, 2026
Starting Sean Murphy half the time isn't enough, the Braves need him in the lineup nearly everyday
When you analyze Atlanta's bench on a nightly basis, you quickly realize why Murphy playing more makes a ton of sense. If you construct a lineup with Baldwin at catcher and Mauricio Dubon at shortstop, the bench options to fill the DH spot are not very appealing.
Each gameday, Sean Murphy, Dominic Smith, Ha-Seong Kim, Brewer Hicklen, and the weak side of the Yastrzemski/Thomas platoon are available to DH. Looking at each of those options, one thing that is clear is that Murphy has the best trait that can help Atlanta rack up wins: his defense. The easy solution is to slide Drake Baldwin to DH and get Murphy's elite defense behind the dish for nine innings.
Murphy is an elite blocker behind the plate, and his game calling has long been praised as he routinely authors impressive pitching performances. Furthermore, Murphy's bat is not so far behind Dominic Smith's that playing him more often is unreasonable. In fact, Murphy produced exit velocities of 101.7 mph, 103.9 mph, and 107.4 mph in his three batted ball events on Friday night.
Additional playing time should help Murphy get into more of a rhythm in the batter's box. With just 53 plate appearances thus far in 2026, it's no wonder why Murphy's bat has yet to catch fire until these last couple of games.
Murphy compiled a 2.0 fWAR in just 94 games last season despite a 97 wRC+, because of his impressive defense. That production is similar to what Dubon has given the Braves this season, and we all know how often Dubon is penciled into the lineup. It's encouraging to see the Braves admit they weren't playing Murphy enough, but their solution did not go far enough. Given the alternative options, Murphy needs to be in the lineup nearly every night.
Add us as a preferred source on Google