Astros/Red Sox Cheating Scandal

[superjohn]

Some of these idiotic posts are going to make me start defending the Red Sox.

 

[Caronimo]

Anyone see the tweet by nails? This dude is something else.

 

[Husky25]

I don't particularly like Valentine, but we are in agreement here. Sign stealing is a part of the game, but by doing virtually nothing, MLB gave their tacit approval to use whatever means necessary, including "banned" technology.

Bobby Valentine On WFAN: We've Had 70 Years To 'Figure Out' How To Control Sign-Stealing

..."It led Roberts to question what Valentine would've done if he were in Hinch's situation.

'I would not have stopped it,' Valentine said. 'No. I would say shame on them for allowing us to steal their signs. It's similar to what I told Ralph Branca for the 40 years that I lived with him while he was alive and he complained about the Giants stealing it. I said, 'shame on the National League for allowing them to steal it.' ... I knew when people were stealing signs and they used technology in the 80s to steal signs. It wasn't always with a guy on second base.'"

The bold dovetails nicely with a relevant portion of the ESPN article @ShakyTheMohel posted yesterday. Dark times afoot certainly for the Astros and Red Sox, but fans of any other team are kidding themselves if they think that folks wearing their favorite laundry wouldn't consider the same schemes long and hard, if they thought there was little chance of getting caught.

 

[8893]

I’m not sure Beltran will survive this. Although, the Mets are odd team.

It's a really odd situation, especially if it comes out that Beltran was doing some of this stuff during his stint with the Yankees. It already looks like he lied in when he disavowed any knowledge of the center field camera and transmitting the information to hitters in real time when he was with the Astros, and looking back now on Cora's comments reported here makes you wonder what he was doing with the Yanks.

Interesting that the Mets have stayed mum so far. I wasn't wild about the hire to begin with so I wouldn't be heartbroken if they part ways over this, which I think would be the best outcome because it will be embarrassing and an unnecessary distraction at a minimum imo. But in typical Mets fashion, they will probably keep him, he will be stained over this, and somehow the team will be plagued by it even though it appears that the Mets didn't participate in a similar scheme (and Steve Phillips claims he prevented Bobby Valentine from doing it more than 20 years ago).

The bottom line for me is that if Beltran misrepresented his involvement to the Mets, that doesn't bode well for a good, trusting working relationship between them, and I'd nip it in the bud right now before it festers.

 

[Deepster]

It's a really odd situation, especially if it comes out that Beltran was doing some of this stuff during his stint with the Yankees. It already looks like he lied in when he disavowed any knowledge of the center field camera and transmitting the information to hitters in real time when he was with the Astros, and looking back now on Cora's comments reported here makes you wonder what he was doing with the Yanks.

Interesting that the Mets have stayed mum so far. I wasn't wild about the hire to begin with so I wouldn't be heartbroken if they part ways over this, which I think would be the best outcome because it will be embarrassing and an unnecessary distraction at a minimum imo. But in typical Mets fashion, they will probably keep him, he will be stained over this, and somehow the team will be plagued by it even though it appears that the Mets didn't participate in a similar scheme (and Steve Phillips claims he prevented Bobby Valentine from doing it more than 20 years ago).

The bottom line for me is that if Beltran misrepresented his involvement to the Mets, that doesn't bode well for a good, trusting working relationship between them, and I'd nip it in the bud right now before it festers.

Agreed. Hard to be overly concerned when you don't know what kind of manager he'll be. The fact that they waited and waited and interviewed him, I believe 3 times, makes me think he wasn't a slam dunk. I can live with either result here.

 

[Fairfield_1st]

But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine it from what I know of you. Are you the sort of man who would expect a fastball or a breaking ball on a 1-2 count? Now, a clever man would expect a slider because he would know that only a great fool would throw a fastball. I am not a great fool so I can clearly not throw a fastball...But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not throw a breaking ball. On and on...endlessly.

Love that scene from Princess Bride. Never get involved in a land war in Asia and never have a battle of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line. Great stuff.

 

[the Q]

Love that scene from Princess Bride. Never get involved in a land war in Asia and never have a battle of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line. Great stuff.

fantastic scene from a fantastic movie.

move watched that movie many times. This and the epic sword fight are my two favorite scenes

 

[HuskyHawk]

Love that scene from Princess Bride. Never get involved in a land war in Asia and never have a battle of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line. Great stuff.

It's what goes through my mind when I watch the endless shake-offs and staring contest between catcher and pitcher. I'd love to see some kind of ERA/WHIP metrics tied to pace. I'd be surprised if pitchers who work quickly aren't more effective.

 

[jibsey]

Oh shut up already dude and get off your high horse. Prior to the Apple Watch thing, the Red Sox have no prior history of cheating, other than some steroid implications, which every team had. The Patriots have a long history of shady behavior but prior to this, the Red Sox don’t.

Till now maybe.

 

[Chin Diesel]

This whole "scandal" was as dumb as the NFL, which up until a few years ago, allowed photographs of formations to be taken and the photos could be zip lined down to the bench, but didn't allow for electronic pictures to be sent electronically. Then, the NFL, figured out how to monetize Microsoft Surface computers and every team uses them to transmit info from the box to the bench.
Baseball is perfectly okay using a player on base or a coach in the 1st or 3rd base coaches box to look for, decipher and pass on the signals. Baseball is fine using game film from previous games and making up binders for players to use but seems to have an issue with using video imagery and transmitting it. It's a distinction without a difference.
As I said earlier the only reason teams and people should be getting hammered is MLB officials said not to do and some did it anyways.
I'm also reasonably confident every team is (was) doing this at some level.

 

[GemParty]

Interesting look back at London post game. Will Alex go scorched earth mode now?

 

[navery12]

Lol at the Mets firing Beltran. Maybe they should cut JD Davis and Jake Marisnick too

 

[8893]

Lol at the Mets firing Beltran. Maybe they should cut JD Davis and Jake Marisnick too

Why?

 

[Husky25]

Lol at the Mets firing Beltran. Maybe they should cut JD Davis and Jake Marisnick too

Depends on your POV.

Davis and Marisnick are still protected by the Union. Beltran was in 2017. He no longer is.

 

[the Q]

Lol at the Mets firing Beltran. Maybe they should cut JD Davis and Jake Marisnick too

it’s a bad look. But BVW strikes me as someone who’s willing to tell the media to get bent.

and if he does cave, I’d bet it all on an interim gm for the Mets and AJ Hinch leading the Mets dugout in 2021.

 

[navery12]

Why?

They were also players for the Astros while they cheated

 

[navery12]

it’s a bad look. But BVW strikes me as someone who’s willing to tell the media to get bent.

and if he does cave, I’d bet it all on an interim gm for the Mets and AJ Hinch leading the Mets dugout in 2021.

This is the only way I'd be OK with moving on from Beltran is if I 100% knew Hinch was coming next year. Although that would be awfully tough to justify after you fire Beltran

 

[the Q]

This is the only way I'd be OK with moving on from Beltran is if I 100% knew Hinch was coming next year. Although that would be awfully tough to justify after you fire Beltran

it would. But BVW and Hinch were like college roommates or something right?

 

[navery12]

it would. But BVW and Hinch were like college roommates or something right?

Yup, roommates in college. And we've all seen how his relationships have played out so far

 

[8893]

They were also players for the Astros while they cheated

But Beltran was alleged to be one of the ones who orchestrated the scheme and he is now a manager and it looks like he lied about his involvement.

Davis didn’t even play in the playoffs that year; he was just up from the minors.

 

[navery12]

But Beltran was alleged to be one of the ones who orchestrated the scheme and he is now a manager and it looks like he lied about his involvement.

Davis didn’t even play in the playoffs that year; he was just up from the minors.

Yeah I just don't really care about this whole thing and think it's way overblown, so the talk of Beltran being fired is insane to me. If there's one thing I hope Beltran learned from this is how to hide it better than Cora did

 

[the Q]

Yup, roommates in college. And we've all seen how his relationships have played out so far

I can’t rip too hard on a guy who takes care of his own. Although there are obviously limits.

 

[superjohn]

For the people who don't care about this do you also not care about the players taking steroids?

 

[8893]

Yeah I just don't really care about this whole thing and think it's way overblown, so the talk of Beltran being fired is insane to me. If there's one thing I hope Beltran learned from this is how to hide it better than Cora did

I don’t know enough to care, but if he lied it’s going to come back to bite him. And if there’s one thing I know as a Mets fan it is that the Mets will suffer someway as a result, even though they had no involvement.

 

[Chin Diesel]

For the people who don't care about this do you also not care about the players taking steroids?

I would use the analogy of it's okay to take steroids as a cream but not as an injection. MLB doesn't care that teams can steal each others signs. They're on a method vice outcome crusade.