Starting up a new thread since regular MLB news is being posted in the 2019 playoffs thread.

Twins sign Josh Donaldson.

The sign stealing issue does not seem to be over. 

Beltran looks like he may be the next to be struck.

I think the punishments have been very strong and a great deterrent. 

Reds caravan is coming up as well, maybe some signing announcement will come out?

Beltran's was fired by the Mets today.

posted by thavoice

I think the punishments have been very strong and a great deterrent. 

Which players participating in this cheating have been punished?

posted by thavoice

The sign stealing issue does not seem to be over. 

Beltran looks like he may be the next to be struck.

I think the punishments have been very strong and a great deterrent. 

 

 

Reds caravan is coming up as well, maybe some signing announcement will come out?

The Punishments were a joke. Worse, the League is culpable in trying to cover up the cheating that was occurring over at least three seasons and was widely known by the teams and players throughout the league. 
The Cleveland Indians issued a formal complaint during the 2018 ALDS and the league basically told them to shut up and ‘cleared’ the Astros. It was only when Fiers came forward and they couldn’t deny it any longer that they issued “harsh” punishments.

This is analogous to the Black Sox scandal coincidentally 100 years ago.... gross “compromise of the integrity of the game” and should be dealt with by lifetime bans and suspensions of all players on those teams that benefited no matter what teams they are on now. 
While the Black Sox involved one World Series, this affected multiple seasons, multiple series, and corrupted statistics and legacies of players some of whom benefited and many of whom were victimized. It is impossible to gauge the monetary implications of this, but suffice it to say the $5 million fine on the Astros was chump change compared to the revenue they reaped with three long post season runs and a WS championship.

Yawn

Didn’t Trevor Bauer get flack a few years ago by accusing the Astros of foul play by their pitchers?

Is that related to this?

edit: Just watched the news and Trevor was mentioned as calling this out AND they showed a clip of Altuve allegedly hiding some kind of sensor inside his jersey as he crossed home plate after a walk off and pleading his teammates to not rip off his jersey. <—— sorry about the long sentence......I had a Heretic moment. 😁

Bauer and Clevinger have been very vocal on this. Bauer’s main claim is that the Astros pitchers use a substance (possibly melted coke) that gives them better spin rates.

Terry Francona weighs in ...https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/cleveland-indians-manager-terry-francona-says-sign-stealing-scandal-shouldn-e2-80-99t-taint-all-30-teams/ar-BBZ216X

posted by iclfan2

Bauer and Clevinger have been very vocal on this. Bauer’s main claim is that the Astros pitchers use a substance (possibly melted coke) that gives them better spin rates.

Here’s the thing... everybody is looking for an edge, but it makes a huge difference whether you are within the rules or not. If a team or a player doesn’t respect the rules then they won’t care whether they broke them once or multiple times or ways... just as long as they don’t get caught.

A team with so blatant disregard for the rules as to  concoct a scheme for stealing signs electronically, they aren’t going to care if their pitchers are doctoring the ball.

Baseball has always been one of the worst sports when it comes to cheating. Essentially it's in the league's DNA.

posted by BR1986FB

Baseball has always been one of the worst sports when it comes to cheating. Essentially it's in the league's DNA.

You could say that about almost all sports. Cheating is in human DNA.

posted by HitsRus

You could say that about almost all sports. Cheating is in human DNA.

Just seems more prevalent in the MLB. Rarely do I see it in the NBA. The NFL has had it's share with steroids (Steelers perfected that) and the BS with the Patriots but it has a long, long history in MLB.

It’s whatever. I cannot care much. Top baseball players make 6 outs every 10 plate appearances. Hitting is hard and every team has a dugout full of players watching pitchers for tendencies and every runner on 2nd is coding what pitch is coming.

Changing signals every inning would eliminate most of it as long as pitcher isn’t tipping himself.

Football is constant trying to watch OC’s to figure out the play.

I just don’t care much, ridiculous to cheat and lazy to allow it to happen to you.

Fun Fact about Carlos Beltran:  He managed the Mets in two different decades, yet never won a game.

Wait, I92...you don’t have a problem with what the Astros did? Are you kidding?

They didn’t just use a man on 2nd. Or batter peaking down. Or anything that is the fault of the opposing team for letting it happen. They had someone watching a video feed and then relaying it to the batter before the pitch was made. The punishment should be at least what a steroid user is getting now, so, like — 80 games?

Using technology, especially after you’ve been ”warned” (fuck MLB for telling Tribe to pound sand when they caught on early in 2018). I cannot fathom how the Astros players aren’t thinking back and wishing they hadn’t done this. For the rest of their lives this run will be REALLY tainted. And they probably could’ve done it naturally, but we won’t know. Altuve crushing Chapman isn’t as miraculous when he knows what to look for. Kluber getting rocked makes a lot more sense when his pitches had great movement and velocity. 

Maybe you can argue changing the signs between innings, but it would have to be incredibly complex with multiple indicators to go more than 2 batters before they figured it out. Even with no one on base you’re getting signs stolen, and even with indicators. Tribe did it, Astros cracked it. It’s not hard when you have video of each pitch coming in.

posted by Laley23

Wait, I92...you don’t have a problem with what the Astros did? Are you kidding?

They didn’t just use a man on 2nd. Or batter peaking down. Or anything that is the fault of the opposing team for letting it happen. They had someone watching a video feed and then relaying it to the batter before the pitch was made. The punishment should be at least what a steroid user is getting now, so, like — 80 games?

Using technology, especially after you’ve been ”warned” (fuck MLB for telling Tribe to pound sand when they caught on early in 2018). I cannot fathom how the Astros players aren’t thinking back and wishing they hadn’t done this. For the rest of their lives this run will be REALLY tainted. And they probably could’ve done it naturally, but we won’t know. Altuve crushing Chapman isn’t as miraculous when he knows what to look for. Kluber getting rocked makes a lot more sense when his pitches had great movement and velocity. 

Maybe you can argue changing the signs between innings, but it would have to be incredibly complex with multiple indicators to go more than 2 batters before they figured it out. Even with no one on base you’re getting signs stolen, and even with indicators. Tribe did it, Astros cracked it. It’s not hard when you have video of each pitch coming in.

I truly care very little. I don’t condone any of it.

Signals are given and the know little broadcasting the game tells you what pitch is coming. There is no damn reason the signals couldn’t be coded and changed each inning. The Astros cheated, others are doing it too. Tony LaRussa getting called out now from 35 years ago. I get they went above and beyond the cheating ethics....but I just don’t care much.

Ready for opening day

posted by Ironman92

I truly care very little. I don’t condone any of it.

Signals are given and the know little broadcasting the game tells you what pitch is coming. There is no damn reason the signals couldn’t be coded and changed each inning. The Astros cheated, others are doing it too. Tony LaRussa getting called out now from 35 years ago. I get they went above and beyond the cheating ethics....but I just don’t care much.

Ready for opening day

Don’t know your thoughts on steroids, but I hope you don’t care at all about them.

I think it’s telling that so many MLB players are coming out and saying the Astros basically aren’t respected anymore within the game. That’s pretty bad when all your peers think what you did was bullshit and can’t stand you for it.

If you love the game, I don’t see how you can’t care.... and if you don’t care, I don’t see how you're not condoning it.
Rules are there to keep competition fair, and if some are following the rules and some are cheating then the competition isn’t fair. If you don’t care if someone is cheating, then you are condoning it. Why should anyone follow the rules if by doing so, puts you at a disadvantage?

posted by Laley23

Don’t know your thoughts on steroids, but I hope you don’t care at all about them.

I think it’s telling that so many MLB players are coming out and saying the Astros basically aren’t respected anymore within the game. That’s pretty bad when all your peers think what you did was bullshit and can’t stand you for it.

I’m not sitting here in my Jose Altuve jersey

posted by HitsRus

If you love the game, I don’t see how you can’t care.... and if you don’t care, I don’t see how you're not condoning it.
Rules are there to keep competition fair, and if some are following the rules and some are cheating then the competition isn’t fair. If you don’t care if someone is cheating, then you are condoning it. Why should anyone follow the rules if by doing so, puts you at a disadvantage?

Ok fine I’m fucking pissed off and it’s all fucking bullshit! I’m not watching a single pitch until everything is fixed and honest.

Sorry I’m not enraged like 80% of Twitter, guess I’m too old with enough of my own issues to sit around and be pissed off about it.

I'm not as vocally pissed about the Astros as some on here, mainly because my team wasn't one that can credibly say they got fucked over by them, but do feel the Astros are trash for this shit. One thing to be stealing signs and stuff (gamesmanship forever!), but to go to this level is pretty insane. But, overall, I'd say I'm more annoyed by Manfred's lame response more than anything, which basically resulted in a few managers/execs suspended and then fired for either their roles or simply not doing anything to stop the players from pulling this off, while the only player who got any punishment is the player who moved on to managing (Beltran) and the team got to keep its championship and accolades. And then, to make it even more pathetic, dude tried to impose what is essentially a gag order on all the other franchises to not voice opinions on the matter.

Talking about a very, very high $$$ business here. Things like roids and now this are pretty good indicators that a lot of players are willing to gamble that they can sneak outside the rules, at least long enough to get their share of that money AND with a case like this, to get rings in a scenario that would have been executed flawlessly if a former pitcher didn't snitch. And let's be real, if you're a player and you see that your whole clubhouse can get in on a high-tech cheating  plan, possible ride it to a title and while league-mandated consequences might be faced by someone, it's not going to be you, well, there's a lot more money in being a dishonest winner than a honest loser.

I will admit to being really interested in what happens when a team decides to take "discipline" into their own hands, which I think is pretty obvious will happen at some point due to how they all got a free pass from the league. Everyone is really digging into that clip of Altuve telling his teammates to not rip at his jersey under the assumption he didn't want it ripped due to it concealing some sort of communication set-up. So, what happens when he inevitably gets blasted by an "errant" fastball?

It’s just getting started, this is FAR from over I’ll bet....and instead of getting to watch my favorite sport by the greatest in the world....this will dominate the talk....and that I do hate and care about. I wanna watch 2020 and not talk about 2017 and 2019 but it will likely be impossible.

Go Reds