Taubman certainly didn’t help, but I think there was enough smoldering anti-Luhnow sentiment that we were probably screwed even without Taubman.
The Astros disrupted the status quo. Many ‘sources’ spread rumors about the FO culture being toxic even before the WS title.
The 2019 foot-shooting began in 18 with the Osuna acquisition raising skeptical eyebrows, then there was the JV grudge match with the DFP beat writer (expressly forbidden, created/strengthened resentment in the press), then the Taubma fiasco.
Remember it wasn’t just the dumbass’s comments, there was also the club’s idiotic response damming the reporter’s account.
They pissed off the media, and the media fought back.
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100 percent this.
The arrogance/stupidity of the Front Office through the initial stages of SignStealGate insured that nobody was going to give shit one about the Astros side of things.
Jim Crane is a fucking moron of the highest regard, and his inability to understand how important PR people are in times of crisis has done lasting damage to this org at least 3 times in the last year.
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The Astros repeatedly knocking out the Yankees and beating LA in the World Series plays a part too, If they were beating the Twins every year to make the WS and beat the Rockies to win the WS, this also isn’t as big a deal. Furthermore the yanks and dodgers being in such long championship droughts fires up their fans even more.
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Joe Kelly climbs on the ESPN soapbox and levels fire at the players and no one else
Well, he’s right about that. The players were totally gutless and threw Hinch under the bus. The Red Sox and Yankees said “fuck you, Manfred, we’re not talking to you”. The Astros rolled over and showed their bellies, beginning with their coward owner.
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I do not think it is that simple. First, the “courageous” RS and Yankees had the advantage of seeing what happened to the Astros when they were honest. Next, the Astros had the disadvantage of going first with a teammate making damning accusations, and they no doubt trusted Manfred and their owner too much. Finally, I fail to see how the players’honesty about their actions is an indictment of the manager. That was a matter between Hinch and Manfred, and Hinch apparently was honest too. Refusal to answer the employer’s questions in a job-related investigation is grounds for termination in a normal workplace.
But this isn’t a normal workplace. A lot of things players do would get you terminated in a normal workplace. I didn’t like the way the players, the GM or the league treated Hinch in this deal. It rubs me the wrong way. I didn’t like the way Crane acted and continues to act. I get that they may have been misled, and I get that the Yankees and Red Sox had certain advantages, but I feel the players have not stood up for themselves in this whole deal, and that too rubs me the wrong way.
A big problem for the Astros was that their relatively primitive cheating scheme left obvious traces. You could decode the whole thing, down to who participated or not, just by watching game film. There was no way to brazen it out when challenged. It’s still not clear exactly how the Red Sox and Yankees schemes worked. Their signalling was apparently by visual cues and not sounds. The only way to fully decode them would be with the help of the participants. If everybody keeps their mouth shut, they’re safe. If Fiers had played for one of those teams and then decided to go public, everyone else could have denied their way out of the problem, because the whistleblower would not have had obvious evidence to support his claims.
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MLB didn’t learn anything in the investigation that they didn’t already know in 2017.
They held revoking the WS title over Crane’s head and he capitulated.
Fire the manager and GM but not the remainder of the staff, every single one of whom at least tacitly participated in the system? Backroom politics all the way.
Other teams were smart enough not to let their pitchers know. And probably not their short termers either.
The blue bloods had it in for the Astros, who gladly accepted the rope that was being fed to them.
I’m gonna go adjust my foil hat now and see if I can get HBO.
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Unless the statements of the players have become public, and I missed it, how can any of us know what they did or said? I have not read Manfred’s report and do not trust it to be accurate unless the players’ statements were attached.
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As Carlos said, “if you don’t know the facts shut the fuck up.”
I do think MLB was out for Astros blood, and it was because they were routinely starting to beat up on the big boys. That’s my opinion.
The pitchers knew. They had to know. If the batters in the box could hear the banging, the guys in the dugout certainly could too.
Given that the bangs were clearly audible in some of the 2017 games, an intrepid TV viewer could have heard it and assembled a case. I now listen for it, lol
You mean opposing teams pitchers?
Yes. There was a reason catchers were running out to the mound every other pitch.
The amount of pearl clutching since the report is comical. I hope no one tells the mob about illegal recruiting in college sports. Or PEDs in the Olympics.
As simple and obvious as the Astros’ banging signals were, it’s a pretty safe bet that other teams were stealing back their own stolen signs, listening in and then switching their sequences when they heard too many correct guesses… or waiting for an important situation and then suddenly switching. That would explain why other teams didn’t act out when they heard the banging by complaining, threatening, throwing at people, etc. Better to play along and try to turn the Astros trick against them rather than confront them and force them to change to a less detectable scheme.
No, I mean the Astros’ pitchers and short termers. They had to know what was going on, whether the hitters let them in on it or not.
Andrew, that is nonsense. There is not time to do all that.
They couldn’t wait a couple of innings, hear too many accurate guesses and decide to change signs? Or in a clutch situation, knowing that the Astros have been successfully reading their signs for a while, the catcher or somebody in the dugout couldn’t signal to the pitcher that they’re going to switch to new signs?
I agree that they didn’t have time to react pitch by pitch, but they could have made changes between innings, in mound conferences, etc.
Don’t you think they already did that? That is why games took so long and why there were so many conferences. They changed signs all the time.