What Kyler Murray’s football/baseball saga can teach MLB
Kyler Murray’s decision to declare for the NFL Draft on January 14th all but drove the nail in the coffin for his Major League Baseball prospects. That isn’t to say they are completely dead, but there are many factors that could push him to spurn the Oakland A’s in favor of an NFL career with a QB needy team. A weak quarterback class with Dwayne Haskins as the number 1 QB on the board, a transition to a more offensive reliant NFL, and a virtual cushion around NFL quarterbacks make the prospect of Murray playing his first love, football, that much more attractive.
While Murray declaring for the draft is strictly procedural that way he can leave his options open, him opting to play football illustrates Major League Baseball’s biggest problem: its inability to promote its biggest stars. To be fair, nobody expected him to have a better season than Baker Mayfield, his predecessor, but when he did, the A’s investing a top 10 pick and almost $5 million in bonus money into a raw athlete that only had played 1 full season of college baseball started to look more and more like a sunk cost.
That being said, there was a glimmer of hope for his baseball career. Until he had won the Heisman, he and Scott Boras had repeatedly reiterated that they would honor his baseball committment. That, plus the fact that his height has been measured as low as 5'9" to 5'10", which hypothetically would make him the shortest pro quarterback in history, seemed to spell that his football career would end in college.
The A’s should have seen the writing on the wall when Baker Mayfield ascended to the starting quarterback role and flourished under Freddie Kitchens’s offense. It should have become more clear when Justin Herbert, the presumed best quarterback available opted to return to Oregon, plunging an already weak class into 1996 and 2013 levels of bad. And it really became clear when Kliff Kingsbury, his rival coach at Texas Tech said that he would draft Kyler with the number 1 pick if he were an NFL coach, which has become a reality with Kingsbury taking the Cardinals job.
Despite the A’s best efforts to convince him otherwise, Murray did what was best for him, and nobody can blame him. Major League Baseball may offer better prospects for long term financial security and a better chance at a healthier life post-retirement, but while those two factors are attractive, they cannot compete in other things.
First and foremost, the chances of being a major leaguer. Being a first round pick, let alone a top 10 selection does not guarantee major league success. If that were the case, 2013 first round pick Mark Appel would be a major league pitcher instead of opting to walk away from baseball in 2018. While there is nothing wrong with the minor league system because it helps players adapt to the difficulty curve, the prospect of spending at least one or two years in places like Burlington, Vermont, Beloit, Iowa, Stockton, California, Midland, Texas, and finally Las Vegas before making the major league roster is understandably less attractive. What attracts Murray to football is likely the opportunity to either start right away, or at most sit a year and learn an NFL offense. There’s no minor leagues, fans know his name out the gate, and ultimately, Murray will start. Those chances increase exponentially if he is a first round draft pick.
The second reason was acknowledged in Oakland’s meeting with his camp, when representatives from Major League Baseball’s marketing department came along: Baseball does not promote their stars well. At the beginning of the 2018 season, Rob Manfred drew considerable criticism by throwing Mike Trout under the bus for not promoting himself enough. Trout’s social media presence was compared to Brooklyn Nets role player Kenneth Faried, which speaks waves about baseball’s efforts to promote their players. To be fair, baseball is a collective sport, no player should be bigger than the game, unlike in football and basketball. Players that separate themselves from the team and speak for themselves are considered egotistical, not playing for anyone but themselves. Players like Bryce Harper are viewed as selfish because they are perceived as drawing too much attention to themselves. Matt Harvey, once viewed as a future star for the Mets wore out his welcome with his playboy antics and attitude, and ultimately was exiled to Cincinnati. Even Tim Tebow is controversial despite not being a star because of the attention he draws, with many considering him a novelty or a distraction. The truth is, while Murray would be a marketing boon for baseball, the old school mentality of shutting up and doing your job is not attractive for a young kid who just prove to be the best player in another sport entirely.
The third and final reason is the money. Even though the long term financial prospects for baseball are better than football, as Jeff Samardzjia can attest, it isn’t guaranteed. Even if Murray were to make his major league debut, there is no guarantee he’d be good enough to make it past earning the Major League minimum, then go through 3–4 years of arbitration, then finally, enter free agency and command a nine figure payday. At least in football, Murray gets his money upfront and will be set in the short term, even if he ends up being a bust. Considering the tradeoff is a shorter career in a more physically taxing sport, I can understand why he’d want to get paid now as opposed to later.
I don’t think Murray is selfish, and while I wish he would honor his baseball committment or at least try to make football and baseball work concurrently, we all know it won’t happen. If he were a cornerback or a wide receiver, maybe that would work but quarterback is the most important position in football. It requires complete and undivided attention, and anything can change in short notice. Murray was able to make it work in college because of the simplicity of the Lincoln Riley offense combined with his athletic ability and the Big 12’s air raid proclivity. Even though the NFL has become a passer league, the truth is it’s a more physically and mentally demanding game, and even if Murray has the bandwidth to play two sports, playing professional quarterback is certainly more tasking.
Ultimately, Murray should not serve as a cautionary tale, but rather an opportunity for baseball to learn. They need to learn to promote their athletes better, to sell the idea of years of toil before gratification, and ultimately there needs to be more of an incentive for athletes like Kyler Murray to bypass football for baseball. If more athletes like Murray slip through their fingers, then baseball will die a slow death.
