By now, most casual sports fans have seen Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray make ridiculous plays on the football field, but after the season Murray will have to decide whether to become a likely 1st round NFL draft pick or pursue an MLB career with the A’s, who selected him with the 7th overall pick in last year’s draft.
Like most people, we haven’t watched a ton of Murray on the diamond, so we pulled his highlights from last year’s season with the Sooners where he hit .296 with a .396 OBP, 10 homers and 47 RBI and played centerfield. Murray only finished with 10 steals, but his blazing 4.3 speed looks as impressive on the basepaths as it does on the gridiron and you have to assume he could swipe more bags if asked. Obviously, Billy Beane is betting on potential here, but it’s not hard to see why.
Murray definitely has raw skills that would remind some of Rickey Henderson, but the path to the MLB chews up and spits out top prospects like Skoal, and with a fatter NFL contract awaiting him as a likely first rounder, it’s hard to see why he would choose baseball. Maybe he’ll play both.