I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Who the hell are these clowns? What intel do they have? From where did they get it?
So Altuve did wear a buzzer of some sort I guess.
MLB is now as bad as the NBA, worse, really, since the corruption / protectionism in on full, public display.
Maybe the best possible outcome is for everyone to start suing everyone, make a giant mess for all the owners, run Manfred off and see where that leaves us. For me the genie’s already out of the bottle as far as major league baseball’s being something that I can follow or watch, but who knows, maybe some of its integrity is salvageable.
Unless Boston is hammered at some point, I wonder if Houston will simply be the focus for the entire spectrum of malfeasance, and create pressure to take away the thing of value; namely the 2017 WS. Today, another WSJ article focuses on the discrepancy between Manfred’s report, and Jared Diamond’s WSJ article from Saturday. The Manfred report makes no reference to the Codebreaker’s origin in Houston’s front office, which makes me wonder if MLB wanted the case off the news reports, or if they did an incomplete job. The exec who created the Excel spreadsheet, Derek Vigoa, is still employed by Houston. It was purported to have an application restricted to postgame analysis, but someone immediately saw the utility of in-game use of the technology. Many of the 2017 principals, including non-position players quoted on the subject, plead ignorance on the particulars.
It seems a likely supposition to me that the report side-stepped Codebreaker because in and of itself it isn’t illegal, and likely similar programs are in effect all across MLB. The infraction happened when they started communicating real time data between the replay room and the dugout, and they were ostensibly doing that prior to the advent of the banging scheme.
Luhnow comes across as either obtuse or culpable. It isn’t impossible to find him unaware that the system was being utilized illegally, but it requires a pretty muscular suspension of disbelief.
I’ve not read the new WSJ article, but it largely seems like the first one essentially squared with the Commissioner’s Report, so I don’t understand what exactly there is more to say.
It seems to me much of the ongoingness of the ado is owed to the shifting nature of the rules in question. That Manfred felt the need to clarify the rules following the smart watch incident indicates the technological terrain had changed. Is it clear that the way they were utilizing Codebreaker was illegal at the time that they first started using it that way?
Am I the only one who feels a little like the congressional investigation isn’t such a bad idea?
ETA: I only say that because it would be nice to have this over and done with and behind us and MLB doesn’t seem capable of handling it to anyone’s satisfaction. It’s probably a uniquely horrible idea.
I don’t know who Radu Bondar is, but the guy behind Astros County comprises half of Lima Time Time. Seems reasonable that he might have some sources, but I don’t know how credible.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but my recollection of the congressional investigation into steroids is that a few reps/senators were there to ask serious questions, most of them were just there to grandstand and/or be fanboys, Sammy Sosa forgot how to speak English, and almost no new information came to light. Plus, it didn’t even go away then or soon after, since the Mitchell report came out two years after the hearings.
Manfred also grew up a Yankee fan. Although, I’m sure he is able to maintain his objectivity about that. Right?
I cannot imagine anything good coming from a Congressional investigation. Ever.
Because nothing wraps up controversy as timely, efficiently, cost-effectively, and to everyone’s satisfaction quite like a Congressional investigation.
Seriously? In that case what’s the fuss? They tracked signals on a spreadsheet?
ding ding ding ding
That isn’t accurate that the WSJ piece said nothing about Codebreaker being used during games. It says the opposite: that it was used during games almost immediately; that “intermediaries” delivered the broken code sequences to the dugout from the replay room, ostensibly to be passed back to batters from baserunners on 2nd, i.e., exactly what Cora apparently brought back to the Red Sox.
“We need to be investigated by someone who wants to kill us just to watch us die. We need someone perceived by the American people to be irresponsible, untrustworthy, partisan, ambitious, and thirsty for the limelight. Am I crazy, or is this not a job for the U.S. House of Representatives?”
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It just baffles me that pitchers, catchers, and coaches, haven’t been able to create a sequence of alternating set and random patterns and fake tells with backward switches to fool hitters even with real time information. Also if they were more like Greinke and took care of business in a timely manner instead of dicking around for 30 seconds between pitches maybe the batter wouldn’t have time to get and info and process it.
I think they have, though. It is extraordinarily significant that the Astros stopped using the system in 2018, and that the overall effect was a wash, and that the new precautions MLB took in 2018 and 2019 seem to have worked.
It is a singularly annoying aspect of this whole thing that it is about infractions that occurred three years ago.
The measures that should have been in place from the get-go. And certainly after Manfred’s cut it out or else ultimatum.
Who would have thought that people cheat at baseball?
I called in to the MLB Network on 2 occasions last week because they all keep saying “It will be interesting to see how well (or not) the Astros players perform (insert implied message that they will no longer be cheating in the 2020 season) this season.”
My question in both cases: Ok guys, but the report said that MLB found no evidence of cheating in 2019 and the team played well, both individually and as a team, to the tune of making it to game 7 of the WS. They have already showed they can perform without cheating…right?
Answer on first call: Well, (stumbling and fumbling for an answer) once a cheater, probably always a cheater is my take.
Answer on second call: No, the report never said that…then I was cutoff and the show continued on…well, we see here the report did say that but we don’t believe it. There was no reason for the players to stop cheating until caught and MLB probably didn’t want them to be found guilty of cheating in 2019 so they probably didn’t push that hard on that portion of the investigation.
Anyhow, it is us against the world IMO.
Stoking NE corridor outrage is a ratings winner.
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Anyone who has ever watched Altuve would know he was cheating simply by his approach at the plate. If not to throw the hounds off their track, why else would he swing at pitches a foot off the plate? Also the way he denied using a buzzer is exactly how a lying cheater would.