Jump to content

MLB Post/Off-season: Houston, We Have a Problem


Myshkin

Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Couldn't the hitter potentially hear the catcher calling pitches, which is pretty much the basis for signs in the first place?

In my scenario the coach in dug out or where ever is calling pitches not the catcher. He calls it and both catcher and pitcher have the speaker to hear it. I know a lot of catchers call the game but doing that is what leaves this open to happening. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’m not sure ear pieces will make much of a difference. In fact, it seems to me they have the potential to make things worse. Now I’m no expert but I have to imagine that there are ways to intercept transmissions between the dugout and battery, and then instead of some guy watching a monitor from an illegally placed HD camera, deciphering the signs, and then using some sort of secret system to convey the information to whoever needs it (all in a matter of a few seconds), you’ve got potentially the opposing manager immediately hearing what’s coming next via his own perfectly legal ear piece. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Astros punishment has been announced.  Luhnow and Hinch suspended a year. Forfeit first and second round picks for 2020 and 21. Fine of $5 million, the max allowed by MLB.

Nothing for any involved players. Alex Cora is next, and will apparently get something "harsh."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28476780/houston-astros-jeff-luhnow-aj-hinch-suspended-1-season

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heck of a punishment. Wow. After feeling the sting of the Cards losing two picks and a wad of cash after that POS Correa' s hacking incident, I feel the pain Stros fans must, and this is much harsher.

With Cora apparently being the ringleader there, and his involvement in the Red Sox thing later, I would not be surprised if we never see him in a dugout again. Manfred going hard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Astros punishment has been announced.  Luhnow and Hinch suspended a year. Nothing for any involved players. Alex Cora is next, and will apparently get something "harsh."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28476780/houston-astros-jeff-luhnow-aj-hinch-suspended-1-season

On top of that, the Astros will lose their top 2 draft picks for the next two years (plus a $5mm fine, which is basically nothing). These penalties are pretty harsh, though I wish they’d have been harsher. I’d have liked to have seen them lose more draft picks, and lose their international bonus pool money for a few years. And in a perfect world Luhnow would be banned fro life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Damn, way to put the hammer down!  And double wow to the Stros immediately firing them.  So I wonder how that works with the suspensions?  Obviously no one is going to want to hire them for next year, but does it count if they're unemployed?  Hinch and Luhnow may be done...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, DMC said:

Damn, way to put the hammer down!  And double wow to the Stros immediately firing them.  So I wonder how that works with the suspensions?  Obviously no one is going to want to hire them for next year, but does it count if they're unemployed?  Hinch and Luhnow may be done...

I take it as now that they're unemployed that means they can't seek employment until after the 2020 World Series. But they're damaged goods now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

Wow. It seemed like this dragged on forever and then everything happened at once. Except for whatever is going to happen to Cora.

Kinda feels like the Luhnow and Hinch firings don’t bode well for Cora’s job security. Really sounds like Cora was more actively involved than Hinch in the Astros cheating, and now he’s also involved in the Sawks cheating. It’s a shame since he’s a great manager, and he’ll always be a Dodger to me, but fuck does he ever like to cheat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

Kinda feels like the Luhnow and Hinch firings don’t bode well for Cora’s job security. Really sounds like Cora was more actively involved than Hinch in the Astros cheating, and now he’s also involved in the Sawks cheating. It’s a shame since he’s a great manager, and he’ll always be a Dodger to me, but fuck does he ever like to cheat.

I'm preparing to never see Cora in the dugout again. I think the Sox will have to fire him, especially since he doubled up in 2018.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cora is for sure gone, as he should be. What is hilarious and typically Manfred is how he immediately, immediately and strongly stated how the Astros a standalone incident, etc...  It's so clearly not. 

 

He's the worst commissioner in US sports, worse than Goodell and hates his sport more than Bettman somehow. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hinch’s statement:

 

“I appreciate Commissioner Manfred’s unwavering commitment to upholding the best interests of baseball. I regret being connected to these events, am disappointed in our club’s actions within this timeline, and I accept the Commissioner’s decision.

As a leader and Major League Manager, it is my responsibility to lead players and staff with integrity that represents the game in the best possible way. While the evidence consistently showed I didn’t endorse or participate in the sign stealing practices, I failed to stop them and I am deeply sorry.

I apologize to Mr. Crane for all negative reflections this may have had on him and the Astros organization. To the fans, thank you for your continued support through this challenging time – and for this team. I apologize to all of you for our mistakes but I’m confident we will learn from it – and I personally commit to work tirelessly to ensure I do.

My time in Houston has provided some of the greatest moments in my career and those memories will always be near and dear to me and my family. I regret that my time with the Astros has ended, but will always be a supporter of the club, players, and staff I’ve had the privilege of working alongside. I wish them the best in the future of the game I love.”

 

So apparently AJ Hinch, you know the manager, was completely powerless to stop the people he was supposed to be managing from doing things he didn’t like. I can buy that he maybe had some moral qualms about cheating, but if he really wanted them to stop he’d have fucking told them to stop. No, I’m not buying this “powerless to stop it” bullshit; conflicted or not, he liked the results and so let the cheating continue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Luhnow’s statement:

 

“I accept responsibility for rules violations that occurred on my watch as President of Baseball Operations and General Manager of the Astros. I apologize to the Astros organization, Astros fans and the Houston community for the shame and embarrassment this has caused. I am deeply grateful to Jim Crane for the opportunity to lead baseball operations.

I am not a cheater. Anybody who has worked closely with me during my 32-year career inside and outside baseball can attest to my integrity. I did not know rules were being broken. As the Commissioner set out in his statement, I did not personally direct, oversee or engage in any misconduct: The sign-stealing initiative was not planned or directed by baseball management; the trash-can banging was driven and executed by players, and the video decoding of signs originated and was executed by lower-level employees working with the bench coach. I am deeply upset that I wasn’t informed of any misconduct because I would have stopped it.

I agree with Mr. Crane that our baseball operations team has achieved far more positives beyond this significant negative. Many very good people have worked, and continue to work, for the Astros organization. I am extremely proud of the many executives throughout the industry who were trained and promoted in our department.”

 

What a dickhead. Fuck off with your I didn’t know nothing bullshit. Of course this asshole knew all about it. Moreover, he created the win-at-all-costs culture that let everyone in the organization know that nothing was forbidden as long as it produced results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Yeah, was he conflicted about the dirty WS ring he got? 

Right? And all those times he laughed at questions about his team cheating, all those times he called the allegations ridiculous?  How does that line up with his “I didn’t like it, but what could I do,” bullshit?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Triskele said:

It is remarkable to ponder all of this from a Dodgers standpoint that of all teams getting investigated it's these two.  

I suspect that all teams try to steal signs the old-fashioned way, and how knows what will come out down the road, but at the moment it seems plausible that Houston and Boston specifically had more sophisticated cheating systems than anyone else.  Maybe Dave Roberts isn't such a bad manager after all.  Your decisions about when to pull pitchers will probably look worse if the other team knows what pitch your new reliever is about to throw.  

The Sawks kicked our asses in ‘18, and I suspect they’d have been able to do so without cheating. The ‘Stros in ‘17 though? No doubt in my mind they only won that Series because they were cheating. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It appears that the other teams are universally unhappy with the punishments handed down to the Astros, but have been told in no uncertain terms to keep their mouths shut about it. The Dodgers have additionally been told to keep their mouth shut about the validity of the 2017 WS. 

Firstly it’s being pointed out that the 2 draft picks the Astros will lose this year will be from the back ends of their respective rounds, and unless the ‘Stros completely fall apart, so will the 2 picks they’ll lose from next year’s draft. Losing your top 2 picks for 2 years ain’t nothing, but it’s unlikely that the Astros will be missing out on the next Carlos Correa or Alex Bregman*. And since they get to keep all their international bonus pool money they won’t be missing out on the next Jose Altuve either. For the Astros talent pipeline this is more of a speed bump than a roadblock.

The other owners are also unhappy with how the commissioner not only went out of his way to clear Jim Crane’s name, but also seems to have coordinated with Crane to orchestrate his Good Guy turn. Here we get a report that unequivocally states that Crane had zero knowledge of what his team was doing, and not an hour later Crane himself is on live TV meting out justice to the bad, bad men who tarnished our sacred game. No doubt about it, this was all pre-planned for the benefit of a guy whose team stole a WS.

*Let’s all take a moment to remember how exactly the Astros got Bergman; by completely screwing over 2 picks from the previous draft.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

It appears that the other teams are universally unhappy with the punishments handed down to the Astros, but have been told in no uncertain terms to keep their mouths shut about it. The Dodgers have additionally been told to keep their mouth shut about the validity of the 2017 WS. 

Yeah, I haven't trafficked around Yankee blogs since the season ended and my go-to - RAB - closed (RIP), but I took a look at the reaction last night and damn!  There are some majorly pissed off Yankee fans about 2017.  I thought the penalty was sufficiently harsh, and a lot of the suggestions I read for further punishment seem a little (to a lot) much.  Granted, I think all the players claiming "it didn't have an effect" in the report is grade a bullshit.  If it wasn't working you'd have stopped doing it.  But I also question how much impact it really had on the outcome of games.  I always tend to think things like taking away their WS or Altuve's MVP are pretty ridiculous.  But then I also think they should put Pete Rose (and Bonds et al.) in the Hall already.

I think taking away their international money, or maybe limiting them to seem very low bonus per player (say 50k) woulda been a good idea.  I also think players should be punished for this as well, ideally, but it's not clear from the report how many players they solidly identified other than Beltran, so I don't want to jump to conclusions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The old “it didn’t have an effect” line is the same one Bobby Thomson used to justify his “shot-heard-round-the-world”. It’s full on horseshit. In the 2017 WS the Astros were clobbering first-pitch HRs off of some the best pitchers in baseball. It’s very obvious now that they were cheating, and they still barely won one of the tightest WS in recent memory. I have absolutely no doubt that the Dodgers would have beat the Astros if the Astros hadn’t been cheating. What I do doubt is whether or not the Dodgers would have even been playing the Astros in that WS if the Astros hadn’t been cheating. But I don’t think their championship should be voided; though an asterisk would be nice.

As for player punishment, I can understand why Manfred wouldn’t (or maybe couldn’t) punish players in this instance. This would be a union issue. But I do think the next CBA should outline punishments for players who participate in illegal sign stealing schemes. It’s not just about the integrity of the game; it’s about money. And I’m not talking owners losing money, though that’s part of it. How many players lost out on playoff bonuses because the Astros cheated their way past them? How many players lost money on their FA contracts because the Astros clobbered them in big games? Astros players monetarily benefited from their cheating, and opposing players monetarily suffered because of it, and all players should be made aware that such will not be the case in future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...