MLB suspends Astros GM and Manager for a year, yuge fine and takes away draft picks.

jpx7 said:
On the one hand, a single team used technology to improperly gain what is essentially an asymmetrical scouting advantage. They did this over a two-year span (though you can be suspicious and say three-year span), and only gained this advantage in home games (coincidentally, they've been one of the best road-hitting teams over that span, but not an especially good home-hitting team).

On the other hand, a large-but-unknowable number of players over a roughly twenty-year span (if not longer) were engaged in a market of underground pharmaceuticals, using a complex regimen to gain improper physical benefits (strength, but even more importantly, stamina and bounce-back from injury); in so doing, they affected not only the results of entire games, seasons, playoffs, and championships—to a precisely-unknowable but nonetheless-certain extent—while also casting a malignant shadow over their entire era, not to mention throwing innumerable asterisks into the record-books.

I was trolling when I said, "I'm pro-cheating," mostly because I think the moralizing responses to all this have been a little much (though, again, the Astros certainly acted improperly in their extension of digital technology into asymmetrical real-time scouting benefits). Nonetheless, anyone who thinks their "sign stealing" shenanigans rise anywhere close to the level of impropriety and malfeasance and unfairness steroids and HGH introduced into the game is either painfully obtuse, painfully suffering from recency bias, or painfully born-yesterday.
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Truth bomb
 
jpx7 said:
I was trolling when I said, "I'm pro-cheating," mostly because I think the moralizing responses to all this have been a little much (though, again, the Astros certainly acted improperly in their extension of digital technology into asymmetrical real-time scouting benefits). Nonetheless, anyone who thinks their "sign stealing" shenanigans rise anywhere close to the level of impropriety and malfeasance and unfairness steroids and HGH introduced into the game is either painfully obtuse, painfully suffering from recency bias, or painfully born-yesterday.
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to be clear i don't think this. i have a big issue with steroids.
however i think what Houston did is really bad, and a whole lot different than normal sign stealing, and they should be harshly punished.
 
Super said:
to be clear i don't think this. i have a big issue with steroids.
however i think what Houston did is really bad, and a whole lot different than normal sign stealing, and they should be harshly punished.
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I agree it's bad and different than normal sign stealing and they deserve punishments, but I don't believe you can expect to do much to the players. They also aren't the first team to use technology to steal signs. The algorithms and computer programs sound sophisticated, though aside from scouting data, I'm not sure how useful it is to sign stealing, unless teams are constantly changing signs. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it still boils down to relaying fastballs and breaking balls in real time.

Post-season bans are stupid, as that only hurts the sport even worse. Taking away their trophy also seems futile. You can't take away the experience and emotions that the fans and players had when they won the WS. Are you gonna take the Red Sox 2018 trophy away as well? They were caught using their replay room to steal signs in 2018 too.
 
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Carp said:
I agree it's bad and different than normal sign stealing and they deserve punishments, but I don't believe you can expect to do much to the players. They also aren't the first team to use technology to steal signs. The algorithms and computer programs sound sophisticated though aside from scouting data, I'm not sure how useful it is to sign stealing, unless teams are constantly changing signs. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it still boils down to relaying fastballs and breaking balls in real time.

Post-season bans are stupid, as that only hurts the sport even worse. Taking away their trophy also seems futile. You can't take away the experience and emotions that the fans and players had when they won the WS. Are you gonna take the Red Sox 2018 trophy away as well? They were caught using their replay room to steal signs in 2018 too.
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i don't really disagree with anything you said here other than the last sentence of the first paragraph. sure, it boils down to that i guess, but the huge difference to me is players figuring it out (usually after getting on base without it) vs. some staffer with a camera figuring it out and relaying it. a lot is fair to me player to player but when you start adding in staffers with cameras and computers you're going too far.
 
Super said:
i don't really disagree with anything you said here other than the last sentence of the first paragraph. sure, it boils down to that i guess, but the huge difference to me is players figuring it out (usually after getting on base without it) vs. some staffer with a camera figuring it out and relaying it. a lot is fair to me player to player but when you start adding in staffers with cameras and computers you're going too far.
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I agree. My only point was that having a staffer to use technology to steal and/or relay signs isn't a new phenomena in the MLB. It's been confirmed that several teams from baseball's history have engaged in such behavior, most famously the 1951 Giants. The Astros' system may have been more elaborate and ultimately more efficient, but the end result is still the same: relaying fastballs and breaking balls.
 
That was, emm, not very well-written, and surprisingly ahistorical for something written by an apparent history professor.
 
The moral of this story to me is find new ways to cheat until MLB sends you a warning. Maybe we should buy the opposing locker room come playoff time. I dont see any current rule against it.
 
Gattis confirmed a report that cited an anonymous source — said to be another member of the 2017 Astros — who characterized longtime former Braves catcher Brian McCann — Gattis’ teammate in Atlanta and again in Houston — as a player who was particularly opposed to the sign-stealing scheme and made his feelings known at least a couple of times during the season.
“I could tell it was eating him up,” Gattis said. “He didn’t like it one bit. … He’s played so long, and he just understands what it takes to get to the big leagues, and he’s got a lot of respect for ballplayers. You could just tell (he was opposed to the cheating).”
McCann, who returned to the Braves for his 15th season in 2019, has declined interview requests since retiring after a National League Division Series loss to St. Louis in October.
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according to MLBTR, regardless of baseball this year or not, the suspensions will expire at the end of what would be the normal season for 2020. The GM and manager could return to MLB in 2021.
 
salmagundy said:
according to MLBTR, regardless of baseball this year or not, the suspensions will expire at the end of what would be the normal season for 2020. The GM and manager could return to MLB in 2021.
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Hmmm. Now China is reporting that the virus originated from a level 4 biohazard lab near minute maid park. Looks like the Astros may have released the virus as a way to avoid a suspension.
 
weso1 said:
Hmmm. Now China is reporting that the virus originated from a level 4 biohazard lab near minute maid park. Looks like the Astros may have released the virus as a way to avoid a suspension.
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So the Spencer Mansion was located in Houston after all. This is huge.
 
weso1 said:
Hmmm. Now China is reporting that the virus originated from a level 4 biohazard lab near minute maid park. Looks like the Astros may have released the virus as a way to avoid a suspension.
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Hmmm. Astros, Astros .... like astronomy, from the Latin aster—meaning "star". Stars .... which have coronae. Like "corona" .... like Coronavirus.

Hot damn, this checks out.
 
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jpx7 said:
Hmmm. Astros, Astros .... like astronomy, from the Latin aster—meaning "star". Stars .... which have coronae. Like "corona" .... like Coronavirus.

Hot damn, this checks out.
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And "Astros" has six letters, "coronavirus" has eleven, COVID19 has six characters plus a "1," and 6+11+6*1 equals...... 23!
 
Judge orders letter MLB sent to Yankees in 2017 about sign stealing released. I would not put it passed MLB to cover up for the Yankees. Absolute disgrace of a sport imo.
 
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