https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-red-sox-got-slapped-on-the-wrist-for-their-illegal-sign-stealing/ "The baseball world waited 3 1/2 months for this? A previously unknown backroom employee has taken the fall for an entire organization while those above him escaped without punishment — it doesn’t get much more anticlimactic than that, nor does it make a whole lot of sense, given the need for intermediaries between the video room and the dugout. And it certainly isn’t a severe enough punishment to act as a deterrent. There isn’t a team among the 30 who wouldn’t trade a second-round draft pick and a single baseball operations employee for a world championship." "We’re left to believe that Cora, who was immersed in multiple modes of sign-stealing in Houston (first the “Codebreaker” algorithm and then the banging scheme) was unaware of what was going on under his nose, and that in the pregame hitters’ meetings in which Watkins was involved, when he “described opposing pitchers’ tendencies, including any decoded sign sequences from past games,” there was no discussion as to how updated signs would be relayed in-game? Come on." "Granted, the league’s plans to prevent similar occurrences from happening in the future have yet to be finalized due to the delayed season, but one can’t help but get the feeling that MLB is less focused upon solving the problem than simply wanting to turn the page on an ugly chapter, and hope that amid the bigger problems facing the country right now, all is forgiven and forgotten. It shouldn’t be that easy."
Astros players told the truth because they were given “immunity” but that immunity was only from being suspended sox players saw the Astros get destroyed by the national media and fans and collectively said F that keep our mouths closed or we will be ruined that’s the story here, that and the fact that MLB wasn’t going to let one of their national money makers get ripped like we did
Conflicting accounts... so 11 players may have a conscience... isn't the job of an investigation to find out the truth if there are conflicting accounts?
Baseball doesn't want the Red Sox to get hammered... instead the entire sport and industry is being looked at as even more of a joke now than what they were after the Astros news was released. Strange logic by those decision makers. Makes me less optimistic that they can formulate/execute a viable plan to play games in the midst of a pandemic. That and releasing this story to get buried by the NFL draft has basically shown that the commissioners office is as incompetent and cowardly as any commissioners office in all of pro sports.
If the truth is what they really want, yes In this case I think they referenced a famous line from a few good men
Ill agree with the cowardly part, but from a PR perspective doing this when the NFL draft will at least partially cover it up is far from incompetent Their ruling is BS, but the timing is the release will help keep the reaction down which is exactly what they want
And even the most amateur news-follower sees right thru that strategy... which makes it a dumb ploy enacted by decision-makers.... and adds more scrutiny to their competence.
Story is already off the front page of ESPN. I guess Buster Olney and Passan are too busy covering the NFL draft to come out with fake sanctimony stories??
This. I said the Red Sox 'investigation' was taking so long because MLB was making sure there were no snitches who would publicly contradict its lenient findings.
Lol, you give people way too much credit many don’t even know the Red Sox punishment was handed out if none of this was going on it would be plastered on the news and likely be more about the Astros being worse. People in general don’t see through stuff like this just look around and see how many people are believing everything the media is putting out about covid in general, Americans are dumb people
Sure... but considering we're on a sports-specific message board, clearly we're in the midst of a different population vs. the still majority of people who don't frequent twitter, the internet, or social media to get their news. Amongst the twitter/message-board population, the vast majority saw right thru this as a ploy. These are the same people who escalated the Astros scandal right up there with killing jesus or bombing pearl harbor. There's not a lot of confidence that the leaders of baseball actually know what they're doing... or that their intention is really to be righters of wrongs. The majority of sports-following/internet-following people realize they're more trying to make this go away quickly vs. actually try to prevent it from happening again. Alas, baseball has done this time and time again throughout its history... but even the steroids/Mitchell report was consistent amongst all the players that were implicated, and actually led to more strict policies of testing and set penalties for future violations. The precedence now is that baseball teams will blame low-level staffers for any future incident... and MLB will be ok with it. I also don't think MLB thought the media would run away with the Astros story as much as they did. Even though they're not a darling franchise, their actions clearly resonate throughout the industry and ended up putting the commissioner in a position to be ridiculed and mocked endelessly. They're basically going to have revamp how they handle future scandals... whether its better handling of the media or better in-house management.
****ing heyman and passan can both eat dicks. Passan is already on to newer and inconsequential things on his twitter when he spent every waking hour to bash us for 6 months straight.
How anyone can objectively look at the facts in BOTH investigations, read Manfreds statements and then make that comment I have no idea other then you are a blinded fan boy moron otherwise he makes no logical sense.
Just here to say that I am in no way, shape or form surprised the Sox got off with little to no penalty.
MLB finally reigned in the media... but only after they had their verbal vomiting/diarrhea/mental masturbation spree against the Astros. Regardless, tweets like this are getting universally ripped. These guys were encouraging the mob mentality when it was about the Astros... now they’ve taken the alternative stance and its being rejected. Only a matter of time before one writer decides to go back with the mob mentality...unless baseball has somehow got to him not to.
What gets me more is that Yankees fans still think they're so innocent conveniently pretending the Don, Beltran, wasn't there from 2014-2016,
