Jays prospect Murray credits college coach for success
Right-hander Joey Murray is one of the many pitching prospects hoping to crack the Toronto Blue Jays roster in the future. He is expected to begin this season with the class-A Short-Season Vancouver Canadians. Photo: Gord Brown
By Gord Brown
DUNEDIN, Fla. — For Joey Murray, a compelling influence for his young professional baseball career is easily found.
It comes from his college coach, Mike Birkbeck.
Murray, a 22-year-old Toronto Blue Jays pitching prospect from Dublin, Ohio, is entering his first spring training as a member of Canada’s only Major League team.
The right-hander owes his success to his alma mater, Kent State University, and is a product of lessons taught by Birkbeck, the school’s head baseball coach and former MLB pitcher.
“His big saying was, ‘Be who you are and do what you do; just do it really good.’ And he’d say that before you’d go out and pitch in a game,” Murray said on the cold and windy field at Englebert Complex, the Blue Jays spring training facility.
“He was always telling us that we got there for a reason and there’s no reason for you to try to be something that you’re not.”
For the eighth-round, 236th overall pick in 2018, it became a matter of finding his true pitching identity.
Murray doesn’t have a rocket for an arm. Rather, he relies on a four-pitch repertoire to outwit his opponents: a fastball, curveball, changeup, and slider. His fastball clocks in at 87-90 miles per hour according to Baseball America.
“Everyone’s different and everyone pitches differently,” Murray said. “You’ve got to do what you do best in order to be successful. (He told) everyone that they’re good enough as long as they pitch the way that they’re supposed to be pitching.”
It’s part of the motto he adopted from his former coach.
He was the 2017 and 2018 Mid-American Conference Pitcher of the Year and posted the lowest hits per nine innings (4.47) nationwide in 2018.
Thanks to Birkbeck’s teachings, Murray is poised to hone each of his four pitches as he progresses through the Blue Jays system.
He is one of many pitching hopefuls looking to crack the Toronto Blue Jays roster in the coming years and is expected to continue featuring his talents with the class-A Short-Season Vancouver Canadians this upcoming season. Murray went 1-1 with a 1.75 earned run average in limited action last year.