Austin Murr Stats & Scouting Report

AB	67
AVG	.239
OBP	.381
SLG	.433
HR	2

Full name Austin Michael Murr
Born 01/26/1999 in St. Paul, MN
Profile Ht.: 6'1" / Wt.: 218 / Bats: L / Throws: L
School North Carolina State
Drafted in the 6th round (165th overall) by the Detroit Tigers in 2021 (signed for $200,000).

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Murr isn’t your prototypical college leadoff hitter as a 6-foot-2, 218-pound slugging first baseman. But he’s a proven hitter and he’s gotten on base at close to a 40% rate in his collegiate career, and what more could you want for a leadoff hitter than to get on base? Murr ranked on the back end of the BA 500 in 2020 because of his performance and this spring just kept hitting, and helped the Wolfpack reach Omaha, with a .323/.374/.518 line, with seven home runs and 16 doubles. Murr doesn’t have the sort of power that typically profiles well at first base and he also hit the ball on the ground close to 50% of the time this spring, with a swing that scouts have said is flat and more conducive to liners in the gap than real over-the-fence power. As a defender limited to first base, he might be a swing-change candidate at the next level to try and tap into more power, but his production has been solid enough that he could go off the board as a money-saver somewhere in the fourth-to-10th-round range.

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Draft Prospects

Murr isn’t your prototypical college leadoff hitter as a 6-foot-2, 218-pound slugging first baseman. But he’s a proven hitter and he’s gotten on base at close to a 40% rate in his collegiate career, and what more could you want for a leadoff hitter than to get on base? Murr ranked on the back end of the BA 500 in 2020 because of his performance and this spring just kept hitting, and helped the Wolfpack reach Omaha, with a .323/.374/.518 line, with seven home runs and 16 doubles. Murr doesn’t have the sort of power that typically profiles well at first base and he also hit the ball on the ground close to 50% of the time this spring, with a swing that scouts have said is flat and more conducive to liners in the gap than real over-the-fence power. As a defender limited to first base, he might be a swing-change candidate at the next level to try and tap into more power, but his production has been solid enough that he could go off the board as a money-saver somewhere in the fourth-to-10th-round range.
A transfer from Des Moines (Iowa) Area JC, Murr has an impressive hit tool that he showed off in the juco ranks and in his brief stint with North Carolina State this spring. A career .440 hitter with De Moines, Murr was hitting .306/.470/.629 through 17 games in the shortened 2020 season, with three home runs. He walked 16 times compared to eight strikeouts, and scouts believe he has excellent zone recognition. However, he will be limited to first base, where he’s just a fringe-average defender, and doesn’t have the typical power to profile there. While he has some natural strength in his 6-foot-2, 207-pound frame, Murr has a flat swing that is more conducive to hitting the ball into the gaps than over the fence. Perhaps he could be a swing-change candidate at the next level to try and get more power production, but Murr might have to wait another year given the five-round draft in 2020.