LA Angels Monday News Crash

Prospect or Not? Luke Murphy.

• As a fire-balling beanpole 4th-rounder out of Vanderbilt, was part of the vaunted, prospect-bejeweled Rocket City pitching staff of 2022, alongside Silseth, Eric Torres, Joyce, Bush, et al.
• 65-grade four-seamer played well at AA that season, generating 52Ks in 44 innings and a 2.62 ERA in short relief.
• Mystifyingly, at least to someone whose impressions are chiefly informed by box scores such as myself, the Halos went against script and made him repeat AA in 2023. He was basically half as effective that season, yielding twice the number of hits in roughly the same amount of innings. I don’t remember reading any injury reports about him or something else that immediately/simply explained the about-face.
• He pinballed through 2024-25, excelling after a demotion to the NWL, then getting rocked in Rocket City, rocked harder in SLC… essentially starting to look like a minor league lifer.
• BUT! Has been nay unhittable thus far in 2026, allowing 11 baserunners in 16 innings with an uber-tits 0.56 ERA.

AI tells us that Murphy tends “to overthrow his curveball”… so maybe he’s doing less of that this season and has a functioning off-speed pitch. He was throwing 99 MPH out of college, so if that’s the still the case, there might still be enough helium to carry him to Anaheim.