H&J 152 - The Mighty Fall

Uh, let's jump into some news and notes, uh, for the week.

Um, recording on Thursday, June 11th, uh, we've had a couple of, I won't call them major injuries, but significant injuries to, uh, major fantasy contributors.

Um, Ronald Acuña is back on the IL with a hamstring injury, and the, the streaky hot O'Neal Cruz, uh, heads to the IL, uh, with a metacarpal issue.

Uh, learned that that means fingers.

Uh, he's got some finger fractures.

Uh, non-displaced finger fractures though, so.

Uh, those two guys are to the IL.

Scott, if you're missing one or more outfielders, where are you looking?

Yeah.

So hopefully with Ronald Acuña, you've sort of just held on to somebody all the time 'cause he's, you know, he's sort of knocking on the door of not quite making it to 100 games, right? So if you're looking for an outfielder, I think the number one guy, a- and we'll talk about him a little more later, but i- if, if you're in a shallower league and people haven't noticed what, uh, Jung-hoo Lee is doing, uh, that'd be a big one.

If you're looking for power, uh, to replace O'Neal Cruz's home runs, I think, uh, you know, a guy who's heating up is Jack Cag Leone.

He's, you know, he's kind of doing some stuff that- that's interesting.

If no one has scooped up Bryce Elder yet, that would be an obvious one.

Uh, he's not in the outfield, but Matt Chapman's been really hot.

I don't know how long that's gonna last.

Uh, I mean, it's too bad you can't just go get every guy that's gonna play in Las Vegas, uh, because that was just a, a ridiculous showing.

And the only reason I bring it up pretty much off the cuff is 'cause I do wanna remind people that that is the way it goes in the minor league Las Vegas park that is outdoors, that has a humidor, but maybe not doing the same level of humidifying that a Major League ballpark will do.

That new park they're building in Vegas is indoors with climate control, right? So they're actually gonna battle for that, like, that dryness.

In fact, if you'll remember, uh, while Coors has always been known because it's incredibly dry and the high altitude, Chase Field used to be easily the number two hitters park, and it's 'cause of the dryness.

And what it actually does is take moist- like, the ball has less moisture in it, and moisture is heavy.

So the balls were literally lighter.

That made them move a little less when they got pitched and made them fly further when you hit them, right? So you're dealing with a lot of that outdoors in Vegas, right? They can keep it in the humidor all they want.

Once it starts getting out in the air, like, yeah, it's, it's a problem.

So it's not gonna be like that in future years.

So if you were kind of, you know, looking at Dynasty being like, "Oh man, these Oakland guys are gonna be ripping it," I mean, that park will likely play hitter friendly just 'cause the dimensions aren't very big, but it's not gonna be like what you saw in the outdoor park in, uh, for the Vegas.