I assume the A's love Muller far more than BTV does. It was never clear to me whether Cleveland would give up Gavin Williams for Murphy, but Daniel Espino was off-limits. Both of those guys have higher expected ceilings than the two Braves starters. I think a Cleveland equivalent would be more along the lines of Tanner Bibee and Logan Allen. I'm also not sure if the A's wanted Bo Naylor since they already have a top prospect behind the plate (and indeed, they settled for getting a replacement-level backup veteran). I might have been okay with Bibee-Allen-Naylor for Murphy, but that would be around my limit for gambling on the long-term future of a catcher with nothing else included. If they preferred a non-catcher position player, there's really nothing similar to Ruiz in Cleveland's system… Valera & Rocchio are more valuable, so you'd have to dip down to the other middle infielders. That all assumes the Brewers or some other third team still helps facilitate it.
I'm simply catcher-adverse when it comes to giving up prospect capital. Too many things can go wrong. Cleveland saves their chips and we'll see how things play out on Bryan Reynolds… the Pirates might be asking for the moon, but the A's were reportedly doing the same on Murphy for the past year. I expect this to free up other transactions and Cleveland will probably announce their solution at catcher before the end of the week.