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Lookl at the bright side, with all those errors in tee ball you probably “pitched” a few no-hitters...

Only in the way they’re scored. But in reality, there are nothing but errors in tee ball...

Yeah someone from the outside. Like Alex Cora...

I don’t like the way politicians handle politics. Why do they think I want them meddling with baseball?

Aka a groundball to shortstop with 3 throwing errors...

You left out legal spitballs Baseball has undergone a ridiculous amount of changes. The number of players on the field is about the only consistency. When the PED scandal broke and the media kept crying about how it was unfair to baseball record holders, AL I could think was “do these people think baseball never changed between Amber Doubleday and Jose Canseco?”

Then don’t complain about cheating. Getting rid of video rooms won’t stop cheating. It’s not like setting up another camera is that difficult and obvious. We live in an age where people secure GoPro camera to the heads of peregrine falcons and upload the video to YouTube. Do you really think getting rid of a single video room is going to do anything here? If you want to stop electronic sign stealing, maybe “electronic” isn’t the word you should be focusing on here...

Agree. Put the DH in the NL. Last I looked, the only two baseball leagues in the world that don’t use the DH are the Pacific Coast League in Japan and the National League. In general, pitchers don’t and won’t ever take hitting seriously. They know what fills their paycheck.

If they weren’t guilty, they had a chance to talk. I thought you were opposed to an omertà defense. I have no idea why you think the media isn’t curious. Google “Astros sign stealing” and you will get millions of hits. I’d rather see the team punished than the individual players. This was a system out in place by coaches and the players accepted it. The naming of names does nothing but satisfy the bloodlust of a witch hunter. That’s been proven already...

I’d be ok with it if they took it seriously, but so few of them do...

Isn’t that how the Sox got into this mess in the first place?

They could just name him interim manager. Being uninstalled is part of the job description...

Pitchers hitting is a bigger tradition than hand signals...

They’re outdated. Leaving your glove on the field for the other team was once “part of the game.” Not always a good enough reason, especially when the tradition you’re clinging to has very outdated origins...

It’s not hard at all ownership didn’t know. The opposing teams who were looking for other teams cheating didn’t say anything. The advance scouts for other teams didn’t say anything despite hearing that banging every game they went to. Why would ownership know? Do you think they knew about the whole plot as if they were in on it? Not likely. Cora couldn’t even get Hinch on board (reportedly). Naming all the players is just a bad, bad idea. Do you also want them wearing scarlet “C”’s for the rest of their careers? Look at how naming players in PED scandals turned out. Did it get rid of them? Did they accomplish the goal of teaching aspiring high schoolers that they don’t need steroids to make the big league? Or did it turn all of MLB into a massive witch hunt that not only re-enforced needing steroids to make the majors, but also taught them the most severe penalty they will ever face is not getting into Cooperstown. At least on the first try. It also didn’t get them out of the game. And naming players won’t stop electronic sign stealing either. Getting rid of hand signs might..

The real loss isn’t so much the draft picks as it is the associated slot money, the loss of which can impact the entire draft...

I agree with this. Especially since you added about Cora "with the Astros." That story has come out and been corroborated. At some point in the future, we might be able to add "and then later with the Red Sox." I'm not there yet, but then I'm not one to assume guilt for everything. I can wait a bit longer to find out what happened...

What if the extremely likely scenario existed where Ownership knew nothing about this? MLB focused on the guilty parties (on the field) and decided Hindu and Cora created an atmosphere of tolerance, effectively saying the guilty players were following orders. That the Astros fired Luhnow anyway shows that this firewall is meaningless and they will hold upper management accountable. Also, they did fine the team $5 million, which is presumably paid by ownership. While this amount is probably trivial to the billionaires running teams, it’s also the maximum allowable fine. And they lessened their product on the field in the future by taking away draft picks. So who do you think MLB is protecting exactly? Upper management? Or players? Or both? That leaves only coaching staff as vulnerable. This is not the same as a PED scandal where players individuals fail a documented drug test attached to their names. Their attitude was a bad culture and they punished those associated with creating or tolerating that culture. They do want the Astros to field a team at some point in 2020. Exactly how should the Astros have been punished by Manfred?

Upon further review, Bauer did not say this so it’s solely attributable to Morrison. Bauer said he gets too focused when he’s pitching to notice those type of things...

This is not always the ideal format for recognizing tongue-in-cheek banter

Maybe I’m confusing the two. Either way, there appears to be the possibility that the Astros were cheating before Cora...

According to Trevor Bauer, the garbage can banging in the Houston dugout goes back to 2014, 2 years before Houston hired Cora...

Except that it doesn’t

How do you know he didn't talk to a Player Rep first? And why are you so positive he is lying? So far, the entire story is: Anonymous source: Red Sox used the replay room to steal signs in 2018!! But not in 2019! And not in the postseason! JD Martinez: Not true at all. JD was there. Maybe he is not wild about someone screaming that the only time he won a World Series title, he was part of some elaborate cheating scandal. Right now, presumption of guilt really does mena giving more credibility to an anonymous source than to someone willing to use their name. We don't really know anything, and that doesn't mean MLB and Manfred are creating some massive elaborate cover-up. It's actually possible that nothing will be found because there is nothing to find. Trevor Bauer has said he heard the Astros banging the trash can as far back as 2014. which is interesting inasmuch as it means they might have been cheating this way 2 years prior to hiring Alex Cora. So assuming Cora started the whole scheme in Houston and then obviously (using the completely presumptive "once a cheat, always a cheat" logic) brought it over to Boston might not be anything more than "ironclad innuendo." That MLB launched an investigation means nothing. They had to after the Fiers bombshell. They also investigated the buzzers based on the tweets of someone claiming to be Carlos Beltran's niece, a claim that operates on two crazy assumptions: 1) Carlos Beltran shares all his nefarious activites with members of his extended family and 2) the Astros kept Beltran in the loop of new cheating techniques after he left the team and went to the Yankees. Both of which are laughable. But... there was an investigation!!! I have no idea how rampant cheating is throughout the league. But the whole notion of "every rumor means guilt" is taking everything a bit too far. There is a chance they are actually not guilty of anything. And we really don't know anythng until this investigation is complete. I will say the notion that the media wants to bury this is beyond preposterous. The media LIVES for these moments. Every story is more clickbait, which turns into more revenue dollars. ESPN doesn't care if the Red Sox or Astros or Yankees or Hiroshima Carp are cheating or not. But they do care if people will tune in or click a link to find out about it. Beyond it becoming a convenient excuse for not finding anything out, what possible reason would the media have for wanting to bury this story? They are in the news business, and saying "there is no news" is very bad for that particular business. And if we learned nothing else from Deflategate, we saw how willing they are to keep a story like that alive...

So much for waiting for the report...