jung

I agree with you. It was not a JBJ hot streak. I had said as much earlier. That is my point. JBJ had no business getting around on those FB's. When JBJ's multiple swing maladies one by one "cure" leaving him with the classic JBJ hot streak, he hits everything for some period of time. Breaking balls go to the opposite field, FB's are pulled to RF. He hits everything. Also, IMO, JBJ has nothing to do with his hot streaks and nothing to do with his cold streaks. He is simply in a constant state of flux from all of his swing maladies on full display to some of his swing maladies on display to none of them on display and he seems to have little control over maintaining any of that for any significant period. That by the way is the classic description of a hitter of his calibre unlike Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of all time and David Ortiz, possibly the greatest middle of the order bat of all time. JBJ got around on FB's in the WS he had no business getting around on. Normally, IMO, throw JBJ 100 ML FB's of that quality in those locations without benefit of knowing he is getting a FB and if lucky he fouls off 30 of them, misses another 50 outright and maybe hits 20 of them somewhere. If you told me he closed his eyes I would believe that as much as anything else. The only way for a JBJ to hit those WS pitches like that is to sell out on pitch type completely, something no hitter does, not completely unless he is supremely confident of what is coming.

Well there is part of your premise that makes no sense at all. Alex knew that Beltran was his Astros cohort in that cheating scam. That is what Alex knew about Beltran. So how does it makes sense that Alex decides to use the platform of the media to call Beltran the most significant mid-season acquisition of the year based on anything other than Alex knowing Beltran was his cheating cohort in Houston and could bring to the Yankees what he was in Houston? Beltran was not even getting AB's by then. This just can't go on and unless MLB smartens up, it will go on. Get the video crap out of the dugout and get replay completely out of the hands of the teams and absolutely positively get rid of visual signs between the battery mates. I don't believe mics and earpieces will work. Go to some coded, non-audible, non-visual system. Put a cattle prod up the pitchers ass for all I care. But get audible and visual signaling between battery mates entirely out of the game and do it yesterday. They can talk to each other even yell at each other but not communicate the pitch signs in any way that is either audible or visual. The things that are irresistible and that are mutations are the attacks on the dynamics of an enterprise that lie right at the core of that enterprise. You can build great teams in baseball all you want to, build great farm systems all you want to, attempt to buy championships in season all you want to, have the most rabid fans you can conceive of and it all simply becomes background noise if you can find a way to change the dynamics of the pitcher/hitter matchup in baseball. Even stat masters are mere appendages comparatively. None of that other stuff that you can spend mountains of cash to accomplish will make a hill of beans of difference if you can completely change the dynamics of the pitcher/hitter matchup in baseball. Its the nuclear advantage in baseball and an utter and complete mutation of the game.

A hot streak? That looked like a JBJ hot streak? I have seen every one of JBJ's hot streaks. He works up to them. Some of his chronic swing maladies correct themselves, a few more correct themselves and eventually he is on fire. Then all of those swing maladies creep back one at a time and by the end of a 162 game season, his numbers reflect what he in fact is, a hitter of modest means AT BEST. That is not what happened either leading up to or in the 2018 ALCS. He just went off and he was ahead of FB's he had no business being ahead of. He was ahead on FB's that normally beat him like a drum because he can't get around on them. JBJ isn't good enough to get around on FB's like that, not even in the middle of a classic JBJ hot streak he can't.

I can't.....but their going off like that just because makes less sense than they had an advantage of some sort. NOTHING in their careers suggested they should have gone off like that....NOTHING!

Want proof that MLB just keeps on keepin' with its blinders on and expects all of us sheep to just follow along? The Yankees bring in broken down old man Beltran in 2019 and Alex calls it the most significant mid-season acquisition of the year. Based on what Alex? What were you trying to tell us? What was the point? Were you trying to rationalize this nonsense so you and Beltran and those like you could integrate this BS as an integral part of baseball. Are you that f***ed in the head Alex? The Mets utterly oblivious, hire Beltran to manage the Mets for the 2020 season.

What do we know? That the Astros Offensive numbers went through the roof in 2017 and they won a championship. We know that the Sox offensive numbers went through the roof in 2018 and they won a championship. The connective thread to these two phenomenon, Alex Cora. They managed to replace without missing a beat the greatest middle of the order bat likely of all time, David Ortiz. I know we want to believe that JD came onto the team and all its hitters genuflected to JD and that was that. Really....Did JD look like a God of hitting in 2019? How do you explain JBJ going off in the 2018 ALCS. I have watched probably more ML AB's by that stiff than anybody on this forum. His swing sucks...it has always sucked and it will always suck. Pearce....Pearce goes off in the WS. Based on what? We got to see the real Pearce when he turned into a pumpkin at midnight and the fat f*** showed up for 2019. We also know, not guess but know that if you give professional hitters a system using in game, real time video and electronics that allows them to understand with high confidence that either a FB or an offspeed/breaking pitch is coming, you have basically given the hitters an advantage that literally corrupts the game at its core. Though its my opinion, you literally should just stop playing the games if you are going to do that. Just stop playing or call it something else because it is no longer baseball. I cannot imagine a greater advantage for one group of players over another in any professional team sport, ANY PROFESSIONAL TEAM SPORT. Football and Spygate can't touch it with a ten foot pole. A corrupted NBA official officiating games can't even touch it. A Manager betting on games can't even touch it.

If you wish to know what I would have preferred, I would have preferred no press conference at all. The only reason for that press conference is because the Sox brass wanted to set the stage for the coming Boston Report which I do think will be less exercised than the Houston report and I think they have been tipped to that by the League. All that "we ask our fans to reserve judgement" BS was just that, BS. The rest of that mess of a press conference made them look like idiots (the standard operational condition of all MLB franchises). What I would have preferred is less of the Fenway two-step. No press conference at all. Just an announcement that they have parted company with Alex. They are a private business enterprise. The terms of any separation agreement are their business, not ours. We can speculate on it all we want as that is our right as fans. But its none of our business. And now you know why Fenway Park is a media carnival. Its a media carnival because the Sox make it a media carnival.

1. So you are OK with the Sox brass and Ownership essentially saying that at the point of still having Cora in the fold they were uncurious about whether or not he brought his cheating scandal here to Boston? They are literally saying that at the point of "parting company" they did not query Cora about the state of affairs in the 2018 Red Sox dugout. You are OK with that? I guess if I had my head perennially stuck in the sand I would be OK with that. This IS the problem with MLB and particularly with its royal franchises of which we are one. For example one of the bigger financial opportunities the franchises and the league is looking at is partnership with legal gambling interests. Do you really think they are going to pull that off in this environment? 2. I have never found a year in 60 years of watching this team that it was not a media fiasco and carnival show 3. It is contrary in the extreme for the Sox to claim that Cora probably deserves a chance to manage an MLB team again and also essentially posture that they were uncurious about the actual state of their clubhouse and dugout in 2018. IT STINKS. Their position that they do not have the resources to conduct an Investigation into 2018 are a joke, a dodge. You could not ask your Manager, your employee about the state of your clubhouse and dugout in 2018? Don't make me laugh. The three of them were a perfect example of three monkeys up there. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. As a consequence now we have likely lost the Manager that we had actually brought in to Manage based on the profile of the team we were building, full of young Latin stars mixed with traditional American players and we are stuck with a likely complete mismatch not just for this year but subsequent years. Given THAT they were still uncurious with regard to Alex and the 2018 Sox???? Of course I can't ignore the possibility that Henry and Warner were uncurious because THEY ALREADY KNEW what was going on in the Sox dugout in 2018 and Bloom for his part is a catatonic outsider just happy to be there.

1. NO. But then you have to conclude that Alex was cheating here as well as Houston. So that sort of screws the "things going well for the Boston Report" thinking. Parsing the degrees of guilt once you are using electronics and video to cheat is simply flawed. If Cora was using video and electronics here we are going to get tagged and hard regardless of how and how often the data was communicated to the hitters. 2. Boston Red Sox baseball is a media side show by definition. 3. OK....do you really think we are going to get a manager we want long term in January of 2020? People are seriously talking about Buck Showalter. You want Bucky?????

If true then Henry and company are idiots. They have been claiming that they parted company with Alex entirely because of the Houston Report. How does that actually make any sense. So John, you want me to believe that you did not ask Alex if he brought any of this nonsense over from Houston? You just avoided that question completely and then went on to "part company" because of the Houston Report? That makes no sense. Alternately, you are asking me to believe that you did broach the topic of electronic/video sign stealing here in Boston. Alex told you our team was not doing that AND YOU FIRED HIM ANYWAY! That does not make sense either.

I still want the replay crap out of the hands of the teams for a multitude of reasons. earpieces and mics sound like the easiest solution but that solution does not seem to have much momentum behind it for some reason. There must be something to that. Maybe crowd noise. Have not thought about it enough myself. But somebody must have.

They absolutely need to investigate further. Even if over 60% of teams are doing it, they league needs to protect the 40% of teams that are not and protect the game itself. You give hitters in game, real time forewarning to the FB v offspeed/breaking pitch and you have corrupted the game at its core, right at the pitcher/hitter match up. It represents IMO, the single greatest mutation and advantage for the hitters and thus any group of players vs another group of players in professional team sports. Not sure I can think of anything that would come close including the Pats and Spygate.

Beltran gone from the Mets. Fired today. Makes sense. Ownership around the league is going to close ranks around Manfred's assertion that this is a case of a few bad apples in a league full of pure as the driven snow franchises, franchises that have never really proven on balance to be pure as the driven snow.

That said, if you give a professional hitter data real time in game data he believes is accurate that forewarns him to FB v offspeed/breaking pitch, you have turned the core of the game, the pitcher/hitter match up into something incomprehensibly warped. If you can provide that for hitters, its the greatest single manipulation and advantage in all of professional team sports. There is virtually nothing I can think of that approaches it in professional team sports. There is literally no sense in even playing the games at that point and I mean that in all seriousness.

The Astros offense from 2014-2016 is pretty mundane and then it explodes in 2017 just as the Sox offense explodes in 2018.

We are missing the point in this particular argument. Could the Astros have been Organically stealing signs from the bench and signaling by beating on a trash can as early as 2014? Sure they could. Organically stealing signs IS NOT EVEN CHEATING. The entire issue as has been pointed out several times is the use of real time, in game video and electronics as part of a sign stealing scheme. THAT is what makes it cheating.

So there is no upper management in Houston between the GM and Ownership? Lets see, as far as I know they have a President and and Exec VP. Connecting a dot between the GM and Ownership would call into question whether this goes all the way to Ownership and Manfred is not going to let that happen. He won't let it happen in Boston either. All of these "investigations" will fall at least one dot on the Org chart short of Ownership so Manfred can maintain a wall and isolate his precious owners whether they are culpable or not.

A neat question that. So who in Houston was Cora working for if he was not working for Hinch or the GM? Who was covering for Cora in Houston? Again, IMO there is no way to get around this actually going past Hinch and the GM. But MLB is not going to allow Ownership to be considered as being culpable in this mess.

Who do you mean by "followers", Hinch and the GM? Well for one thing Hinch is the Manager. So it appears that Hinch had no control over his bench coach or only made a token effort to control him. They nailed Hinch and the GM as a means to support their white wash of Ownership and upper management above the GM and Ownership promptly responded by firing Hinch and the GM, a neat little pick and roll play by Manfred and Houston Ownership.

I would agree that there is a 99.9% likelihood that other teams did it. But I also think there is far less than even a 10% chance that all teams were using video and electronics to cheat using real time in game video and electronic material. The biggest hypocrisy in MLB has always been the willingness of MLB to protect the cheaters and its inner circle of royal franchises, its complete inability to acknowledge its those playing it straight that are hurt by it. MLB needed big stars and big HR hitters in the 90's and it didn't matter to them how they got them or who got run over in the process. For every extra $ those guys made, there was another guy playing it straight that was relatively hurt by it. But MLB got to save its miserable ass in the process as it was in big big trouble after the strike year. Here again, I have said this before in this thread but watch how MLB in its reports insulates ownership and itself from any of the blame and attempts to limit the damage to a few guys they can throw the book at completely absolving itself and Ownership in the process. MLB wants its big bad teams especially in Boston and NY and to some extent Chicago and really does not care who gets run over in the process. You other stains should just be happy we let you into the club even as second class citizens. Even LA cuts no mustard with the MLB hierarchy and the true royal franchises in Baseball. LA fielded some of the best pitching in baseball two years running and it got run over by road graders particularly in 2017. Anybody that looks back at the 2017 post season and WS and takes any pride in it needs to get a brain realignment. To some extent the same is true for us in Boston regarding 2018. Might have been difficult to use the system Cora used here in the post season but that was a completely unreal to the point of unrealistic 2018 regular season for us. I remain unconvinced at this point that Cora could not use his system post season. JBJ as ALCS MVP and Pearce, PEARCE for God sake as WS MVP. Give me a break. Both of those guys going off makes no sense AT ALL.

Entirely possible that Cora decided to go dark for 2019. They won it all in 2018 and he had to know that he was at the center of an investigation into Houston's 2017 Championship and likely had some issues to confront going from Houston to Boston, seeing Boston's 2018 offensive numbers go through the roof and winning it all in 2018. Would not surprise me in the least if Alex decided to go dark for 2019.

It is very very difficult for me to hold even Alex up as evil incarnate in this mess. Hard for me to hold the players up as evil incarnate as well. Just watch the way this plays out and how deftly the league insulates Ownership from any responsibility whatsoever when in fact no matter who was doing what, Ownership is ultimately responsible for the actions of their employees.

I would also not be surprised to see a complete white wash in Boston. The Sox are one of the premier franchises in baseball and we are really hurting in very particular ways. We have no farm. Our young promising manager is gone and losing 4 or more top draft picks would be a devastating blow. We might even say screw it and just spend to try to win it again in the short run because we are going to lose star players. If we lose draft picks to the level of what Houston got, we could well be screwed for a decade. I await the league Boston Report with anticipation. Next managerial pick, very important. it will have to be a guy willing to accept where the franchise is today.....meaning even with the sludge we call MLB today, winning might be an issue for awhile. Truth is, the Sox don't have to win more than a championship every four or five years to be in the pink financially. They have proven that. So it will be interesting to see how ownership plays this.

No doubt pinstripes are going to catch some of this flak. The interesting common thread IMO will be the degree to which MLB declares Ownership clean in each case. Already happened in Houston, IMO about to happen in Boston and will likely happen in each and every case. Fall guys up to a layer of organizational management that connects the dots to Ownership and suddenly.....CRICKETS. At least that is my guess.

When you read the report it is painfully obvious that Manfred is trying to completely insulate Houston ownership. You simply cannot miss that. Then Crane reciprocates by immediately firing Hinch and the GM as if doubling down on the Report's "opinion" regarding Houston Ownership. I want to see the Sox Report when it comes out and put it side by side with the Houston Report. I very much now suspect after today's fiasco of a press conference that the Boston Report will also completely absolve Boston Ownership and bury Cora when in fact at the least the Sox had to know what they were getting into when the hired Alex. In fact, I would not be surprised to see a complete white wash of 2018 in spite of the Sox putting up phenomenal almost unbelievable offensive numbers in 2018. What is alarming though not surprising is the degree to which MLB maintains this facade. When you are using real time in game video to steal signs giving hitters the benefit of knowing what is coming, FB or offspeed/breaking pitch, you have gutted the very core of the game. It is batting practice for professional hitters at that point. There is literally no sense in even playing the games. Like I said before, the anchor chain has slipped on the good ship MLB and the anchor is about to crash through the keel and MLB from administration through ownership is putting on sunscreen so they don't get a sunburn.