Athletics select RHP Noah Murdock in Rule 5 Draft

Welcome aboard Noah!

Major League Baseball’s annual Rule 5 Draft was this morning and the Athletics, as always, took advantage and used their selection, taking Royals farmhand Noah Murdock with the 4th overall pick:

Murdock joins a long list of Rule 5 picks by the Athletics. While some have worked and some have not, the club often takes a player during this draft as it’s an easy way to add talent to the organization if you aren’t planning to compete for the coming year. Teams are not required to make a selection since any player drafted is required to remain on the active roster all season or be offered back to his original team. That can really affect a club’s roster flexibility during the middle of the season, but then again the reward can be quite high. The Athletics nailed their pick in 2014 when they got Mark Canha (though the club actually traded for his rights from the Colorado Rockies, who took him with the 2nd overall pick from the Miami Marlins) but there’s a longer list of Rule 5 picks that didn’t work out (Nate Freiman, Vimael Machin, Ryan Noda). Murdock will join Mitch Spence on the currently A’s roster as former Rule 5 picks after Spence was himself drafted last season.

Murdock joins the organization as a former 7th-round pick by the Royals back in 2019. The 26-year old right-hander was a starting pitcher in college for the Virginia Cavaliers and for the first two seasons of his professional career but has transitioned into a relief pitcher as he’s risen the minor league ranks. Last season he began the year in Double-A and soon he impressed enough to earn a promotion to Triple-A. In his first 30 games at the minor league’s highest level Murdock posted a 3.76 ERA over 38 ¹⁄₃ innings. He also punched out 46 batters but also walked 26 so there’s a mixed bag there. The Athletics did not make a selection in the second round of the draft and the 40-man roster now currently stands at 38.

While the club did add to the team, they also lost a player during the early picks of the draft. Second baseman Cooper Bowman was selected by the Cincinnati Reds with the 7th overall pick in the Rule 5 draft, thinning Oakland’s upper-level depth at the position. The club originally acquired Bowman as part of the return from the New York Yankees for starting pitcher Frankie Montas back in 2022. While the others received in the Montas trade (lefties Ken Waldichuk and JP Sears, and righty Luis Medina) are still with the club and have made their MLB debuts, Bowman was beginning to look like he figured it out. The former 4th rounder crushed the ball in Double-A and got off to a hot start in Triple-A Las Vegas before cooling down in the final weeks of the season. The soon-to-be 25-year-old now join a young Reds team that has a lot of infield talent on paper, but that depth was tested hard last year due to injuries so the Bowman selection makes sense for them. Regardless, they will have to keep Bowman on the major league roster all year or else offer him back to the Athletics.