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Oakland A’s seem confident Kyler Murray will eventually pick baseball

By Sayre Bedinger

NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 02: Quarterback Kyler Murray #1 of the Oklahoma Sooners looks to throw against the UTEP Miners at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 2, 2017 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated UTEP 56-7. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 02: Quarterback Kyler Murray #1 of the Oklahoma Sooners looks to throw against the UTEP Miners at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 2, 2017 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated UTEP 56-7. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /
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The Oakland A’s seem fairly confident that Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Kyler Murray will eventually pick baseball after selecting him 9th overall…

It’s pretty rare to have a crossover in the MLB and NFL universe, but during the 2018 Major League Baseball Draft on Monday night, Oklahoma Sooners quarterback and heir apparent to Baker Mayfield Kyler Murray was drafted by the Oakland A’s.

Now, the MLB Draft is 40 rounds long and it feels like thousands of players are selected, but this was not a typical ‘flier’ by an MLB team looking to tempt a talented athlete into potentially giving baseball a try.

This was a bold move by the A’s as a franchise to go and get a player in the top 10 of the draft that they feel can be a major piece of their future.

Murray has reportedly informed the Athletics of his intentions to play football this Fall, but after the football season is over, he will apparently go right back to playing baseball and he will receive a hefty signing bonus being the 9th overall pick in baseball’s draft.

At 5-foot-11, 195 pounds, no one is going to sit behind a computer and determine what Murray is or isn’t capable of for the future, but that type of size and his skillset as a baseball player seems to indicate his future as a professional athlete will include 162 games a season instead of just 16.

That said, there’s no reason that Murray has to give up on the chance to play major college football now that he’s finally got a golden opportunity to do so.

After starting his college career at Texas A&M following the Johnny Manziel era, Murray transferred to Oklahoma after Kevin Sumlin and his staff were fired by A&M.

His transfer to Oklahoma has given the Sooners hope for a smooth transition between the Mayfield era and 2018, where they are among the top 10 teams in the country favored to compete for a National Title.

Murray’s athleticism is outstanding, and he proved in a small sample size last season that he is capable of making good decisions with the football as a passer in Lincoln Riley’s offense as well as providing a dynamic threat in the running game.

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The Sooners will likely have an adjustment period with Mayfield now onto the NFL and the Cleveland Browns, but expectations are high for Murray.

While he’s still likely to play football this Fall, the implications of his draft status in Major League Baseball mean this could be a one-and-done for him with the Sooners.

The Athletics were obviously very high on Murray as a prospect, picking him 9th overall, but they also didn’t make that selection thinking he would turn down the opportunity to play professional baseball with a draft slot value projected at over $4 million.

It’s likely Murray will dabble in professional baseball, and if it doesn’t work out, he’s young enough that he could always come back to football later on.

Though, from how naturally he seems to be able to dominate on a baseball field and Harold Reynolds saying in that clip above that he was his number one overall prospect, it’s unlikely we’d see Murray fail in the Big Leagues.

Players like Brandon Weeden and Hayden Hurst are examples of athletes who played professional baseball and wound up coming back to the college ranks to finish their football careers and were drafted in the first round of their respective drafts.

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