Sean Murphy was apparently playing injured for three years prior to surgery

In a recent interview with 680 The Fan, Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos provided several interesting nuggets on a variety of topics.

He discussed Drake Baldwin and a potential contract extension, the years-long process it took to finally pull off the blockbuster trade for Chris Sale, and even his confidence in Sean Murphy returning to All-Star form, which may have been the most revealing part of the entire conversation.

“The doctor said he’s been playing on a diseased hip for three years,” Anthopoulos said. “Even last year in talking to him (Sean Murphy), it would come and go. He had an incredible July last year where Ozuna went to the bench because he (Murphy) was playing that well. And he told us, the hip would come and go, come and go, and he’d just fight through it.

“He’s been a good offensive player for us. He had a 1.000 OPS in his first year with us before the All-Star break. He was the starting catcher for the All-Star Game, and he told me first about it the offseason we traded for him but it didn’t prevent him from playing. Obviously not, because he had a great year. He had never been on the IL in his career, and he played through it. So, I expect him to be back to the player he was. When that happens, I think maybe there’ll be a little bit of rust, but I think Sean is going to be back to being a great player again.”

Honestly, the hip issue is really the only logical explanation for Murphy’s dramatic decline over the last couple of seasons.

Over the first five years of his career, he was one of the better all-around catchers in baseball, consistently posting an OPS around .800 while pairing it with elite defense behind the plate. Since the start of the 2024 campaign, however, he’s hitting south of the Mendoza Line and has appeared in just 168 games.

Of course, it’s impossible to know exactly how a player will respond to a procedure this significant, especially when it involves a 31-year-old catcher. The position is brutal physically, and historically, catchers don’t tend to age particularly gracefully.

Expecting Murphy to immediately return to the player he was early in his career might be overly optimistic. But if the Braves do eventually get anything close to that version back as the season progresses, there really won’t be many weak spots for opposing pitchers to navigate in this lineup.

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