Walt Weiss Delivers Brutal Injury Update on Sean Murphy

It’s a devastating break for a player that hasn’t seemed to catch one in several years.

Last week, Alex Anthopoulos revealed in an interview that Sean Murphy had been dealing with his hip injury for years before finally undergoing surgery. It was clearly impacting his performance, but Murphy continued trying to gut it out and play through it.

Now, Murphy is staring at another lengthy recovery process, with his return to the majors likely not coming until sometime around early August. Between the hip surgery and now the fractured finger, he’ll have essentially missed an entire year.

It’s brutal news for the Atlanta Braves as well, especially considering they just moved on from Jonah Heim to clear a roster spot for Murphy. Heim is now with the Athletics, forcing Atlanta to turn to veteran catcher Sandy León.

León is at least competent defensively behind the plate, but offensively, there’s almost nothing there at this stage of his career. He’s appeared in just 26 major-league games since the start of the 2024 season, hitting .132 with an OPS south of .400.

Catcher now becomes a significant need for the Braves ahead of the trade deadline and feels like something Anthopoulos will attempt to address as quickly as possible.