I just hope he starts to show them he can swing the stick before he gets Ginterized...

wanted to spend our money on the SS position, I think it would be better to feel out the market for Alexei Ramirez or T. Nioka.  Of course that is dependent on 1) their cost and 2) if they make the cross over.

And if we, for example, signed Ramirez... what would a Crosby or Murphy actually net us.  It would have to be pitching help, as we only have so much money wise.

and I hope the A's keep him as a utilityman, if nothing else. I think he's a far better "keep" than Marco Scutaro in the long haul. I do think he'll eventually be passed on the depth chart by Gregorio Petit, who seems to be learning how to hit as well as field, but obviously there's no guarantee of that happening. And his upside vastly surpasses that of Crosby at this point. Crosby is what he is, and what he is is a psychologically dismal hitter with virtually no prospects for improvement. To quote House, "There's no cure for the yips."

If the Royals didn't have their heads up their collective asses so profoundly, Murphy'd be looking like a guy with significant potential going forward. Instead, they cost him a lot of development time and basically all of his options. I literally can't understand the decision process which led to them burning an option on a 21-year-old kid from Single A. The results were really rather predictable.

They totally fucked up Dee Brown's career too (I think Joe Posnanski actually wrote something about this, if anyone feels like reading more about it). It's almost criminal how poorly the Royals managed their farm system in the early part of this decade.

He absolutely crushes lefties and has a very good slugging as you mentioned.  I would love him as a Kielty of the infield who always plays when a lefty is starting.  Hannahan would be nice off the bench too.  

As for a starting SS, I like Murphy as our internal option and I think he might do reasonably well.  That said I would love someone like Miggy or ARod or even a tier down Ramirez or Nioka (although the transition to the majors from Cuba scares mee).  SS could be a huge improvement for next year's team and Murphy, at least as a backup who starts against LHP, should be an integral part.

.....I'm not sure whether we all like him because Bobby Crosby has been such as bust as the replacement for Miguel Tejada. THe A's went from a shortstop that was the 2002 American League MVP to a player that we were told would eventually be that good and has turned out instead to be injured and ineffective. It worries me that we are just desperate for ANYONE at that position and we are just going to project the same unrealistic expectations onto Murphy that we did Crosby, who BTW, also put up some crazy good numbers as a Sacramento River Cat.

"He has put up some crazy good AAA numbers despite being younger than his competition, and he's still only 24."

Murphy didn't make it to AAA til he was 24, and that's pretty old to make your AAA debut. He's played 45 games in AAA in his career, and his minor league line is .282/.350/.434, most of that in hitters parks in A and AA. I don't think there's anything to suggest he could be even a bad every day player in the majors.