jacksonianmarch

My bet is Henry met with Cora to quell the chances that anyone else is implicated. I’m pretty sure Henry already knows the intentions of the commish and he likely has some sort of side deal with Cora to take the blame and stay quiet. If this was condoned beyond DD or anyone in upper management knew of it, the punishment could severely curtail business ops beyond baseball. Henry has owned plenty of companies. He’s clearly had some employees, even higher level, who’ve done some bad stuff. He knows how to handle it and spin it to keep himself smelling like a rose. That’s what happened in Houston. The GM takes the fall as he’s the head of baseball ops, although he “never knew”. That keeps the stink off of him so the Astros can bring him back in a year or another team can bring him back after his suspension. Hinch “didn’t agree” with it and even smashed the monitor a couple times, but he goes for not ending it entirely. He at least gets some dirt on him, but the way it’s spun at least allows him back eventually. But they lambaste two guys who aren’t in the organization anymore. That comes off as fishy. Maybe Cora was the architect and nobody else in baseball ops was involved. Or maybe this was a huge conspiracy that went to the top and the savvy businessmen knew how to come off shiny and they shaped the narrative to crush the ones who are gone? I’m betting the same thing happens in boston

I’m also wondering if the message got to the FO and they shut it down. It’s also entirely possible that the Sox started the year doing it and he shut it down when the pitching collapsed. The Sox cheating didn’t help the pitching at all, so maybe after the disastrous road trip to start the year he just unilaterally decided to close up shop

I can connect the dots, but Cora has no intricate knowledge of the Yankees inner workings and the games were in London. How the heck could the Yanks illegally use a video feed in a park they don’t even own. I get that you all want to implicate your rivals in this. I understand it. The idea that the most recent title is tainted mustn’t sit well. But there’s no smoking gun with the Yanks. There’s no “Deep Throat” outing the Yanks like there is with the Sox. While Beltran is a connection, he was in the FO and not on the field. Cora, meanwhile, was the architect and he was on the field for both clubs. This is clearly just a fan base grasping at straws And I get it. The Sox got a title out of the cheating and the GM burning the farm and salting the earth. The combination of the punishment from the MLB and the recovery from DD’s pillaging will set the Sox back years. The fans aren’t happy.

Ortiz actually failed a fricken drug test

Listen, if the Yanks are dirty, show me proof. That’s fine. We have the Sox system, we have the Astros system. Show me their proof and I’ll expect the same punishment. Don’t post innuendo without anything substantive. All it does is deflect the fact that the Sox cheated their asses off and are paying for it now

Direct from that article. Only an idiot says the yanks are dirty from that article

Bloom clearly wants Tek. We’ll see if he wants the job

Remember who Manfred works for then you can see why this is coming out this way

If a team knows you’re going under a certain number, then it doesn’t take much to figure out how low they need to go. Knowing their limit in terms of how much financial burden they can assume is extremely helpful. That sets the bottom for your offers

Told him that the Yanks are relaying real time info to the hitters before the pitch comes? Yeah, I don’t believe that based on the reaction from CC and Judge. You don’t assume victim status if you’re just as culpable

Also, Manfred had no other option. You’re dealing with a game that’s far too long and is losing younger viewers. So you add in the super ball which makes the homerun so commonplace that it actually decreases viewership even more. Now, he’s got a scandal going on that’s likening the MLB to the WWE. He has to punish this.

You’re not dealing in reality right now. You’re allowed to use media to pick signs. You can have a scout watch the broadcast and pick the signs and the sequence. You can then put it in an SR for the next game. Heck, I can get the sign sequence sitting at home. That’s easy. You cannot relay it to the batter in real time. That’s where the cheating comes in. Also, LoMo was in the Yankee farm, but didn’t make a single appearance in the Bronx. How would he know whether the Yanks were relating it to their hitters? He’s got no idea. There’s a fine line here. But the Sox crossed it. The Astros crossed it. It remains to be seen if others did or now, but the only team pending a massive penalty is Boston

Don’t forget ERod

If you know your opponents intent, you can extract as much talent as you can to allow them to reach that intent

The evidence for Houston is in the replays. You can clearly hear the banging and it’s clear that it continued into the postseason

The Astros’ draft equity lost looks to be less impactful than what the Sox will likely lose. The Astros are planned, currently, to lose pick 30 in the first then the 30th second round pick. They’re also expected to win 97 games in 2021 (based on Vegas) which puts them in line for pick 28 in the 2021 draft should they hit their expectations. The Sox are currently slated for the 17th selection in 2020 and are likely looking at a similar or worse draft position for 2021. The lost draft capital and even bigger draft budget from the lost picks will cripple the first two drafts for Bloom should the organizational penalties be the same

Whomever you bring in, it’s not going to be a long term guy. Listen, as much as some of you want to think this is “prevalent throughout the game”, the reactions of a lot of players throughout the league show you it isn’t. Who is going to be so stupid as to react with shock publicly only to know they’re doing it too? It leaves people open to be publicly labeled a hypocrite. As much as the Sox and Astros fans want to wish this away, it isn’t going away and the titles will be forever tainted. And if the reports are true that the Sox couldn’t do it during the POs, then it was entirely unnecessary! Also, anytime there’s a tainted team and punishments rendered, the fallout is usually a below expected performance. Everyone already knew the Sox were being budget conscious and were subtracting from an 84 win team. Now this. So I doubt the Sox will go out and hire from the outside for 2020. I’d hire Roenicke from within on an interim basis, take your lumps in 2020, then fire him and get someone from the outside to clean the slate. I’d also find out which players were the most culpable and purge them from the roster

It’s now official

Exactly

You can use a scout to look at the feed. You just cannot then pass it along to the players IN GAME!

He’s a project that teams like TB snap up. He’s better depth than BJ or Neck tat

There’s depth then there’s depth. It’s like the Vikings bringing in 41 yr old DBs coach Terence Newman for a workout. He’d alive and breathing, so he counts as depth, but it’s not good depth

You cannot use the “everyone was doing it” excuse here. This is an elaborate, sign stealing operation with on field management involvement using technology. This was bad enough that a journeyman starter who’s been on 4 teams expressly complained about only one of them cheating. That excuse doesn’t fly. I bet you every squad has some sort of evaluation of catchers and their sign signals. I’m sure they’ve got a book on each one of them, but my bet is they aren’t all doing it live. Listen, if a scout is on the feed and figures out a catchers sign sequence from the game before and hands it off to the team for the next game, then that’s fair game. Doing it IN GAME using the replay booth is expressly illegal.

With the Sox and Astros looking for coaches for 2020, my bet is they hire someone from within and use the interim tag. They’ve missed out on all the hot names that signed with other clubs.

Cozart has missed time twice with forearm issues, had a concussion, a neck strain, had surgery to repair the labrum in his shoulder in 2018 then had an exploratory procedure on the same shoulder last year, both surgeries ending his seasons. He’s toast