Former Oklahoma quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner, and Oakland Athletics 2018 first-round draft pick Kyler Murray finally chose a sport on Monday. The two-sport star announced his decision to commit to the NFL on Twitter.
While this wasn't entirely surprising given Murray's ascent on the gridiron since the A's chose him with the ninth overall pick in June, it did seem to catch Oakland a bit off guard. First, they had already prepared a locker for him at spring training -- no doubt on the hope that he'd be showing up there. Second, it appears Murray didn't let the A's know of his decision before his made his announcement on social media.
Of Murray's newsworthy tweet, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes:
That was the first the A's learned of it.
Just minutes before, Oakland manager Bob Melvin had said that the A's remained "cautiously optimistic" that Murray would pick baseball and would report with the team's position players Saturday.
More:
Heisman winner Kyler Murray picks the NFL over A's; Oakland not informed before his announcement. David Forst: "We’ll focus on what we need to do to make sure that if he comes back to baseball at some point, he comes back with the A’s." https://t.co/HIwEELdA4c
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) February 11, 2019
As for that latter concern, it's not much of one, as the A's will retain Murray's draft rights. It's of course entirely possible that at some point in the indeterminate future Murray will decide to give baseball a go. The bad news for Oakland is that they won't get a redo on that No. 9 pick since they did in fact sign Murray.
Maybe Murray didn't handle this particularly well -- the A's probably merited a phone call in advance of his announcement -- but for the A's to be surprised by his decision seems a bit of a stretch.
