Hello and welcome to episode 1474 of The Sleeper in the Bus. It is Thursday, February 12th. I'm your host, Paul Sporer. Join this afternoon by both Joe Rico and Justin Mason. What up, gents? What's going on, fellas? You've got to be back. Justin, how are you? I'm here. I'm ready. I have not been cut like Nick Castiano. Can I be a little bit of a dick right now? Mm-hmm. This is the shittiest time of year, dude. And for one reason, all these injuries. And it happens every year. And I get duped. You know, I get excited about the season coming. And I always forget. I don't know why. Something over the winter makes me forget that the first couple weeks sucks. Because we get all the news of the guys that didn't say anything in the off season or, you know, or maybe their teams didn't it. Maybe they told the team back in January, hey, I had this little surgery. We'll tell the media in February or whatever. But it's just endless news. Right now, right now, every time Jason Colette messaged me, texts me, I don't want to look at it. I'm scared. It's going to be bad news from him. It feels weird, too, though, because usually it's pitching injuries, right? Guys start to throw, and they've got soreness in the elbow and stuff like that. Those make sense. Right. We have like an epidemic of ham-aid injuries. Remember, and that's been a while since we had that. Remember when it was like the biggest thing ever? This is a long time ago now. And it was just everyone was getting them. It seemed like left and right and they were just plaguing the league. Then they kind of went by the wayside. Not that they never happened, but they weren't as scary. And I think part of that is, and we were learning that, again, if you forgot it, which I did a little bit, we are learning that they don't have as big of an impact as we thought. At least that's what the data says. The study data says that guys are not going to lose their power to the degree

that we are concerned about over time. Now, that's the tricky part is the overtime. Like,

when are they going to get back? I saw a really great video on this by A.J. Prisinski.

Oh, excellent. Isn't a guy I necessarily love to watch necessarily, but he talked about breaking his.

He does know the game though, too.

Yeah.

And so what it comes from, according to him, is the way players hold their bat, right?

It's right up against that hammay bone.

So it's just a matter of time before like the vibrations from the swing, right?

Especially as hard as they swing, right? And apparently it's not a particularly strong bone.

It breaks a bunch.

We got three big ones.

It's easy to fix, but then you're, what he said is like when you come back from it,

because you have to pretty much keep it immobilized for three to four weeks after the surgery,

you just lose power in your wrists. And that takes time to bring it back. And that's why I said over time with getting back to their level. Because I mentioned, and you know, we're going to talk outfield here and we'll get deeper into Carroll. But I mentioned him in my chat that I was scared now. And somebody sent me the study saying, hey, why are you scared it?

It doesn't really affect guys. I said, yes, but in the long term, sure. But I don't want to draft him now in the first round or even the second round or maybe even the third round because you got four to eight weeks, which is a pretty big window, one to two months, just to get everything done. And then like you said, the time when they get back

until they're comfortable to actually give their full power. So I don't know when we're getting

back to 100% with somebody like Carol or Holiday or Francisco Lindor. That's two first rounders

and a relatively early rounder at a dog shit position with Holiday at second base. So that is really stinging the pool, I think. It's a pretty big deal. Again, we'll get deeper into the hamate stuff with Carol. Only bit of news I want to cover today as far as news and notes is the Castiano's cut. He is officially cut from Philly. This isn't a gigantic shock if you've been paying attention to the tea leaves. yeah, I think he kind of knew maybe even after the season, right? Wasn't he pretty much lamenting at the end of the year that he thought things could be like this? So this is a bit of a formality. And before I can even begin to think of where he might go, Justin, you spit out a great idea that I couldn't agree more with. What do you think Castellanos might land? Houston, right? We've been talking. They need to like, oh, trade parades for an outfield. Get an outfielder. It makes a ton of sense. And I know he's an outfielder, but who cares? They'll take anything and he's free now. He is literally league men based on this cut here for Nick Castellanos. I mean, they've been playing

Yoron Alvarez in the outfield.

Right. If they're going to literally league men based on this cut here for Nick Castiano's. I mean, what do you think about that?

They've been playing Yoron Alvarez in the outfield. Right. If they're going to let him do it, let Castiano take a shot. Joe, like I said, I love that when Justin suggested it. How does that hit your ear when you hear Castiano as a possible fit for the Astros to pick him up on the cheap? is it crazy for me to say that he may not 100% get a job?

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