H&J 151 - Unexpected Risers

We've got a, a week of baseball to talk about.

We're recording on Thursday night here, June 4th.

Uh, we've got a handful of IL guys to talk about, and most of them are, are fantasy superstars at this point in the season.

I mean, we'll start with Munetaka Murakami.

Uh, 20 home runs and now he's headed to the IL with a hamstring strain.

Um, where do we turn for power if we lose out on Murakami?

Uh, to whatever gods it is you believe in.

So, you know, he's gonna be out, we don't know exactly how long.

They gave us like the most wishy-washy answer they could have.

So usually with hamstring strains it's like some kind of grade injury, right? Grade one, grade two, grade three.

And what do they give us? "Well, it's something between a one and a two." I'm like, yeah, like every hamstring injury [laughs] that a guy might return from is somewhere between a one and a two, right? A three is like you ripped it off the bone, whatever.

So it's like, yeah, that's all of them.

What we know about Murakami is he should be back around the All-Star break, right? He might be back as soon as like the very end of this month, right, and play a couple weeks before the All-Star break.

Or if, you know, things are slow and, and maybe it's on the f- wor- like on the worse end of the injury, they decide that let's just hold him out till the break.

Because that's what's gonna start happening here in just a couple of weeks, right? We s- we saw the same thing happen towards the end of spring training where they're, it's like, "Yeah, he's just gonna be, you know, out.

You know, we're just...

You know, he's just gonna miss opening day," right? Any injury in the last two weeks of spring training, you're like, "Yeah, he's gonna miss opening day." Versus, you know, now it's like, yeah, once they start getting to injuries that are more than three weeks, it's like, well, you know, they might miss all the way out till the All-Star break, and we just don't know.

So ideally he'll be back a little before then.

This shouldn't affect him long-term, 'cause it's not like he really cared about him running anyway.

He more just trots the bases when he runs.

But with Murakami, like where are you gonna go for power? We'll talk about some of those options when we start talking about the list.

I got a couple names for you, but nothing...

You know, it's really hard to replace that level of power.

Well, another name headed to the IL, Elie Dela Cruz, Reds shortstop.

Uh, another hamstring issue.