5GoldGlovesOF,75

I totally agree. But by not penalizing players, he's inviting problems this year from pitchers -- they're the ones who're really pissed. Be prepared for headhunters, beanball wars, ejections, more suspensions, and maybe some unfortunate injuries (usually not so much from guys hit by pitches, but peace-keepers trying to break up fights). The Astros better be prepared to come to the plate wearing full medieval armor...

I still don't get how a pitcher can intentionally throw a lethal weapon at a batter's head and only get a five-day suspension, but if players steal signs -- which the MLB says is legal, except on video -- the team's management gets at least a year-long suspension and fired. In his attempt to clean up his sport, Manfred's overreactive sentences have unfortunately given baseball too much negative publicity. I find it odd that the three baseball managers he got rid of are still loved and respected by players and peers (and in the Sox' case, owners) -- am I the only one who finds this reaction at least curious? Shouldn't this trio of bad guys be scorned throughout baseball by more than just some professional and amateur writers who apparently have never made mistakes before in their lives? I'm ignoring CC Sabathia, whose own team is also under suspicion. Taking away top draft picks would've been punishment enough to ensure this stuff ended. But now Manfred's entertainment product is without three personalities who were popular within the industry.

There is no rebuild and Bloom didn't even say that about Tek; it was Kennedy. But keep trying, while the MLB considers how they'll explain away or ignore Beltran's role as a Yankee sign-stealing while a player, and then as a special advisor, on both Boone and Girardi's watch, both times hired by Cashman...

Two serious questions: if Beltran -- that despicable lying lowlife scum of the earth who should be banned for infinity (as some believe of all these accomplices) -- was involved with cheating on the Yankees in '15, and then rehired as an advisor in '19, how does Cashman possibly keep his job? Maybe Boone is in the clear, because before managing he was in the broadcast booth (where he became good pals with Cora -- the Joker and the Penguin?). But how long before Girardi and his new Cubbies go mutual??

I'll argue this all day: Boston's offensive peaks and valleys from 2016 to 2017 to 2018 can be directly attributed to two men -- and neither was part of management. The '16 and '18 Red Sox led the AL in Runs, Doubles, Batting Average and OPS -- while in '17 they were middle of the pack in all categories... all because of the DH. In '16 Ortiz had one of the greatest final seasons in history, and in '17 the offense sorely missed that one huge middle-of-the-order threat, which DD signed the following offseason. Then in '18 JD had one of the greatest first seasons in history. The batting order revolved around these linchpins. Martinez also became a de facto player-hitting coach, helping many hitters improve, using vid- dammit!

Quick, someone go on the Yankees forum and start a thread called 2015 Yankees cheating scandal...

("Needless to say, reports of the Yankees’ 2015 participation should also serve as a reminder that the apparent guilt of the Astros and Red Sox may be the tip of the iceberg in this mess, a point that The Athletic has frequently underscored but that appeared to escape Manfred back in November when he said he had “no reason to believe it extends beyond the Astros at this point in time.”) Really? Ya think? Shocking...

According to those who part ways, the feeling was mutual.

Trading Betts before Spring Training would be suicide for Red Sox ownership at this point. Unless the return is a haul of MLB-ready prospects from the Braves or Dodgers, which 99% of media and posters say has a 1% chance of happening. There's more of a chance for the Sox roster as is to contend, especially if a HOFer like Bochy can turn frowns to smiles.

I can see Bochy because he was universally loved by his players, or Baker, with his laidback perspective. But I want nothing to do with sourpuss rags like Scioscia or Showalter. Cora connected with, helped and motivated his players, and getting an opposite type of personality is not what is needed for a clubhouse of young veterans about to enter their primes (I'm still paranoid about someone like Valentine). However, I really don't know how players view Scoisc or Buck, just the public perception of them constantly complaining during and after games for years and years.

Yup, except he mistakenly said "Joey" instead of "Alex" -- which some could say questions the reliability of his words, though others could infer that this crap has been going on since Cora's older brother played...

But only if the world conveniently ignores the words of Logan Morrison, an actual MLB player, who said the Astros have been banging trash cans since 2014 "before Cora even got there"...

This is what I've been trying to say in different ways about the hypocrite MLB: Not only has sign-stealing been part of the game forever, but so has the way teams have policed themselves in-game. If a pitcher or catcher detect they're being detected, they often counter with a fastball aimed at the hitter's head. It may seem insane and I'm not condoning it, but just look at the disparity in consequences... Throwing a missile 100 mph at somebody's head on the street would be considered much more of a criminal offense than peaking at fingers, and yet, it's only punishable in baseball by five-game suspensions. But if you use video, you're gone for a year or more (but only managers and GMs).

It was very convenient for the Astros to throw an ex-employee under the bus, but notice how none of the Red Sox have expressed any outrage or feelings of betrayal for their ex-skipper? On the contrary, there have been outpourings of love from players to owners. All vituperations have come from media or forum posters. Of course, many team members or personnel are also involved, but could it also be because everyone knows the hypocrite MLB has overreacted in its grandstand play in setting examples of two franchises when so many more are obviously guilty? The MLB has its super villain in Cora and now would love to close the case. Manfred has made his stand and I would guess would desperately like to keep New York out of this. With this bad publicity for an industry already in trouble, it's even more imperative that the Yankees get back to the World Series. The MLB has been doing all it can for NY since the schedule-makers let them play Baltimore and Detroit, the two worst teams in the AL, for the first nine games of 2019, while at the same time sending Boston to the West Coast for the first 11. Now they have paved the way to an easier path to the postseason by emasculating two major rivals, while at the same time implying the pair may have robbed the Big Apple (and Hollywood) of deserved hardware... a stance which conveniently shields the "victims" from their own complicity. The pressure is really on the Yankees to win now. If only they could get by the Twins...

I'm not in denial and neither is Cora. He admitted what he did and apologized to the Red Sox. You've voiced your opinions of Cora over and over, as have I about sign-stealing as an element of baseball that is as old as the game, and the hypocrisy of the MLB declaring that sign-stealing is suddenly wrong... but not with human eyes looking at the opposition, only with human eyes looking at the opposition on a screen. Technology advanced sign-stealing to a new level, but there was nothing newly nefarious about its intentions until the commissioner banned tech. Cora was one of many who still used it, and now he is one of the few to be punished. But sign-stealing will always be part of the game of baseball, and anyone who doesn't like that or doesn't want to expose their children to it will always have the option of not watching. Btw, ex-big leaguer and manager Phil Garner used "rat" when referring to Mike Fiers.

Cora is the patsy in all this. He will resurface in a few years, hired by some network as an analyst like ARoid (or maybe by a security company who hires rehabilitated thieves to test out their systems). I think a publisher somewhere could make a lot of money getting Cora's side of the story, as long as he names names -- imagine the Astros and Red Sox players and management that are involved, not to mention all the people who taught Cora the inside game of MLB baseball on the teams he played for, including the Dodgers, Guardians, Mets, Rangers and Nationals. But hopefully AC is a stand-up guy and not a rat.

...and two years after he pitched for the Astros.

I'm going to predict that when all facts come out -- about this era that will come to be known as a time when many teams and players used technology in many ways to get an edge --- the scapegoats will be -- maybe not exonerated -- but regarded as less culpable to some extent. It may not be in a year or two, when/if some are rehired or allowed back in the game, but maybe in a decade or two.

We're moving forward -- replying to this thread started by a Sox fan, and without the ex-manager's name in the title. My choices are either Mike Lowell or Eduardo Perez; both good former MLB players with Boston ties who have stayed in the game as analysts, both respected by the industry, both bilingual. The modern majors doesn't require managers with experience managing, just leaders who value employees. Old school retread disciplinarians need not apply.

Wanna bet he was ordered to by Manfred, and also ordered to never admit he was ordered to? They so want this to go away, but the Genie is hitting the bottle.

Not everybody -- Eovaldi for Cy Young (and when he wins it, he'll finally have all the vowels).

This "scandal" is far from over, and Beltran is the next to go. It doesn't matter that Manfred absolved the players -- and is desperate to keep New York out of the mix, since it is too important for MLB right now that the media capital of the world gets back on top again -- but Beltran is going to have such a hard time managing the Mets answering questions about "cheating" that Wilpon might just join the other superintendents (Henry and Crane) and call it a snowday. And no, it's not a parallel to when the Mets changed their minds at the last minute about Wally Backman, because he was charged with an actual crime -- not engaging in an accepted part of the culture of his sport like trying to decipher secret codes. Yankee fans also just better hope when Beltran crashes he doesn't come clean about his tenure as their "special advisor" -- and the reasons Cora called him their "best free agent acquisition"...

Manfred's single BS theory...

Sorry, double trouble...

Manfred and the MLB would love to blame their culture soley on their chosen scapegoats, but the only way this is going away is if they blackmail all teams and players into silence under threat of blackballing them from the game. If Cora and Hinch are Oswald and Ruby in this conspiracy, who are Luhnow and Dombroski... Castro and LBJ? JBJ? (the Boring Commission will make up something). In the meantime, we need Keith Hernandez to spit...