jung

Where DS is controversial and stretching the edge of the envelop he is often wrong and he often does that more than other sports reporters. Dan is not out there stretching the edge of some envelop here.

In that sense, video review is the same in NFL as MLB. It is perfectly legal to review past game video. The issue is using video in real time during the game in progress. What is valuable from a sign stealing perspective is the past performance of your opponent as to sequencing etc bounced off what your opponent is doing in the game in progress. So for example if you know how often and how they have changed their sign sequencing in the past and you use the real time game in progress video, you can beat the sequencing for that game. This is in part why I think it unlikely that the Sox system was dependent on the runner at 2nd base digesting all of that data and using it effectively. I think we will find that the Sox simply developed a coding system using players and coaches that was just more covert than banging on a trash can. I agree with those that have posed that it makes no sense that Cora would have used a far less effective system in Boston than in Houston. Why? Dirty is dirty. We are kidding ourselves if we think there is some fine hair to be cut in this and i don't think Cora would have thought that either.

Shaugnessy on SportsHub agrees with me. Get all this electronic and video replay crap out of the hands of the teams.

That sounds an awful lot like a distinction without a difference. I would hate to try to make that case in an effort to not get the book thrown at me. The Sox used video and electronics to decipher pitch signals and sequences. i seriously doubt that material could be boiled down effectively for use by a runner on second base who's main responsibility is to get home from scoring position. Hence I have to believe that the Sox used coaches and other players in some system more covert than pounding on a trash can. I can't find a way to believe this ends better for the Sox than it ended for Houston and if anything maybe a tad worse. Once you are top draft picks in two years into penalties, you have already had the book thrown at you. I don't see any possibility of the Sox avoiding that. What Cora gets.......YIKS!!!!!!

Good luck proving a harsher penalty for the Sox springs from that first offense. Cora has not even as yet been penalized for his part in Houston. So Cora is going to end up with Houston plus 2018 Sox. That should be a boatload of grief for him just in that. As for penalties to the team, what are we really talking about here. That Manfred would go to three draft picks lost and $10M because of the 1st offense. Not likely. Most likely, the same team penalties that Houston got. I don't believe the Sox get any mileage or any "credit" for not incorporating the trash can signaling into their system. Seems to me, the case can ne made that Cora just became a smarter criminal.

IMO there is no "dirty by degrees" in using electronics to cheat. Electronics are an overlay on the game. They are not THE GAME though computer stat geeks would make you think they are and infinite granularity in stats via database has literally taken over and IMO corrupted the game. The cheating aspect is just the most despicable aspect of it. Frankly I want this replay crap out of the control of the teams. I don't give a s*** about replay. It is a FAILED implementation in baseball IMO and yet has all these hidden traps buried within in. Get it out. Let the league have total control of the replay process and only replay questionable catches, HR's, plays at the plate. I don't want to see another superslomo of said runner sliding across said base with said fielder holding the tag on hoping said runner losing contact for a single nanosecond yielding an out call. Sorry.....not baseball! And its boring and time consuming. Let the Managers argue calls again. What a breath of fresh air that would be over watching them hold up their hands to tell the field umps that they were still pondering a replay.

I don't think Henry will have any choice but to fire Cora even before the league report on the 2018 Sox is completed. What is Henry going to do, let the Sox start the season with Cora in harness. Sounds absurd to me.

Don't think that argument is going to buy us anything as Cora is identified as the architect in Houston and will probably where that in Boston as well.

I completely agree here. The League hit Championship teams first because they cheated and won the big prize. But IMO this is far from over.

There won't be appeals. Astros have already fired Hinch and Lunhow the equivalent of the Astros surrendering.

See ya Alex nice knowin' ya. Hinch and Lunhow DISMISSED by the Astros and Cora was all over the Astros report from 2017. They cannot give Cora less than Hinch and Henry will likely can Cora. The Astros report essentially calls Cora the brains of the scam with the cooperation of the players and some "low level front office personnel" as in stat geeks from the front office..

Good point. My point is that the entire business of replay in baseball is a cluster. Its an utter failure. At best its a giant buzz kill. Get all that video crap out of the hands of the teams and leave MLB to replay and overrule plays at home where your notion of out and safe exists already (touch the plate before the catcher gets to you and you are safe no matter what happens after that), plus catches that are questionable and HR's. Every other play that they now review would no longer be reviewed. The teams would get to decide NOTHING about replay. But they do get to argue calls again.

i get no thrill out of seeing what I know is a talented ballplayer simply lose contact with the bag for 1 nanosecond and I also get no thrill from watching a talented fielder simply hold his glove on the runner hoping that a superslowmo replay will show that he held the tag for that one nanosecond. I COULDN'T CARE LESS! The play is over. The runner is safe. DONE!

On who? The pitch count rule is on the pitchers and its the hitters strolling around HP sucking up all this time so the team At Bat can get all its ducks in a row is the issue here.

Absaf***INGtively. Replay in baseball has been as poorly implemented as I thought it would be. Its a joke. The way its used on the basepaths is not baseball. Keep the equipment in place and send the video up to MLB on a proprietary video feed. I could care less what the frigging teams think should be reviewed. Lets the Managers go out and argue calls again. In the meantime if headquarters thinks a catch or a HR should be reviewed, FINE. Maybe plays at the plate....FINE. Other then that, it has been a massive failure IMO, just a complete buzz kill. Give me Managers going out on the diamond to tussle with the field umps again. You kids don't know what you are missing.

This is not all that difficult. Its just not baseball and that is what I hate about it. But THIS crap we watch now has not been baseball for a long time now. If I had any sense I would simply give it up. Give them a proprietary coded signaling system for each team. Change the sequencing once an inning as opposed to once a batter. It is going to take some management because pitchers won't much be able to shake off. But this has got to stop. Allowing this crap to continue is not an option. As for pitch clocks and other manipulations with the pitchers and hitters. Good luck with that. We have been trying that for about a decade at least and look where we are. You have to take away the reward for malfeasance and then maybe some of this other crap will matter. As there is a reward for stealing visual signs between battery mates it appears that they will continue to try unless we get rid of the visual signs. Big money and technology in baseball......this was bound to happen.

That is just one aspect of this mess. If I had to bet, I would bet that 7.5 minutes per game is generous. That would suggest clubs operating like well oiled machines. I don't know any clubs that are well oiled machines. I hate that it has to happen. But I just think batteries using visual signs is just going to go away. If that is what it takes so we can go back to focusing on whether the pitcher is glove up, ball in hand ready to go its a fair trade off. I hate it. But there ya' go.

I should say this for the record. I hate the idea of losing visible signs between the battery mates because it is part of the game between the actual ball action. But it would appear that its being abused and if so, I am just going to have to live without it. I don't see how they can keep it.

They are not allowed to use those devices in the dugouts to view live game footage. They can call up tendencies on spread sheets and graphs etc etc But thats it.

So, now you guys know why for at least 3 seasons now, my complaints about pace of play in game threads has not focused on the pitchers but on the horse s*** from the batters box. All of this stepping out of the Box and Sunday strolling around home plate for nothing more than a pitch the hitter didn't even offer at is just nonsense. It seemed on the surface to be excessive but innocent......just stupid. Something that should not have been tolerated. Sounds like it might not be so innocent after all. Certainly would appear to be time consuming if the video room, runners on base paths, baseline coaches and ultimately the hitters themselves are involved. Its the hitters who have to cover all that time adjusting their crotch, adjusting their gloves, their helmets, stroll around a bit and then go through it all over again until everybody is on the same page. Then where the battery is involved in this mess is that batteries are now changing their sequencing every single pitch. So the catcher first has to indicate the sequence, the pitcher has to pick it up and convince himself and the catcher that he has got it or we are going to be decapitating catchers. That now happens on some teams every single pitch. Time to get away from visible signs between pitcher and catcher. This has gone on too long.

The lesson is starting pitching still wins championships Manfred can push power baseball all he wants. He has juiced the ball itself to kingdom come. The yanks can keep hulking up and bulking up all they want. Go on Yanks keep signing those relief arms too. You end up with the booby prize. A division flag. Whoopdie-ding-dong. Nobody can accuse me of calling the division flag nothing when somebody else wins it. Everybody on this forum knows I consider Division flags over a house meaningless whether it is our house or somebody else's house. If you can't at least raise a LCS flag over your house, don't raise anything at all. All a Division Crown flag over your house says is that somebody else in your league was better than you that year. You got beat.

Poor Jacko. We tried to tell him and he surely tried to tell us. Perhaps a little less bluster next time Jacko. Lets see you walk away with one of those big impressive division crowns. Whoopdy-ding-ding

You are forgetting that Henry turned the GM job into what amounts to an administrative posting. Head of Baseball Ops now does what used to be the GM's job. So in reality, its Theo, Cherries and DD. Its the most recent history that is at issue. Cherries got tossed relatively quickly and DD has been tossed quickly as well. I don't think the speed of their departures would stick out above the grass line as much as they do if not for having won recent WS Championships before being ousted.

Yea this is not the format for me to discuss it but I dropped the Globe only because I simply could not justify taking it just for what was still one of the best Sports Sections in the Country. Decided I could take my sports news other ways and cry in my beer about the lost columns. Take the NYT's, WSJ and one statewide local paper that is syndicated in with the nations Conservative writers and that is about what I can stand. Switch off WAPO with NYT's occasionally.

Don't know at this point. But its not looking good for a soft landing. Oh Danny Boy was on the radio this morning. Much as we hate to admit it, he had DD's demise called right. He now says that the Sox will likely stay in house for DD's replacement after all. His logic: 1) Henry is vowing to take a firmer hand in the day to day (that can't blow a new Pres Baseball Ops dress up) 2) the next DD is just being set up to fail anyway. Team strangling on the various Starter contracts that have blown up 3) likely the next DD has to trade Mookie ( won't endear him or her to fans) 4) barren farm 5) NESN took a whopping -23% hit in ratings, 3rd biggest hit in ML baseball and wayyyyy higher than the general league average of -1%. 6) Boston is not the glorified place to be a Pres of Baseball Ops that it used to be or that we the fans still perceive that it is 7) relating to #6, too much turnover in the job, too much and too often