"What did you expect?" "Cheater" "Fake" "Making it up" "Trying to play the victim card now" "Looking for sympathy" "Don't cheat, you won't have a problem"
Wondering this myself. Has anyone posted this article out of Boston? I am sure it won't get much pub. https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/re...ht-punishment-could-be-disastrous-red-sox?int He is pretty on point with these comments below. Ridiculous that this would cross the commissioner's mind but I am sure it will. "If I had to guess, I don't believe it's in baseball's best interests to leave the Red Sox at such a competitive disadvantage (ie., lost draft picks) that it hamstrings one of the game's marquee franchises as it tries to rebuild. If that doesn't sound like justice to you, welcome to the real world."
If I had to guess, I don't believe it's in baseball's best interests to leave the Red Sox at such a competitive disadvantage (ie., lost draft picks) that it hamstrings one of the game's marquee franchises as it tries to rebuild. If that doesn't sound like justice to you, welcome to the real world. The Red Sox have already paid a steep price by losing their manager... God forbid we damage our marquis cheating franchise!! Now Houston: drop the bomb on them. And ppl wonder why Astros fans are so salty. Screw that. Screw all that and the high horse they rode in on
Spoiler WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — In the summer of 1970, Brent Strom read Ball Four. Jim Bouton’s acclaimed memoir had been on bookshelves for merely days at that point, and Strom, then 21, was fresh out of USC and finding his way in Single A. Fifty years later, the Astros pitching coach harkens back to the final line of that classic book to explain the forces that have kept him in baseball into his 70s: “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball,” Bouton wrote, “and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” The same sport Strom fell in love with as a boy in San Diego still fascinates him, and he never ceases to marvel at the athletes that play it. Still, Strom believes it will soon be time for him to leave the game to all of the younger, analytically inclined pitching coaches that have permeated the game the last few years. The avid Boston Celtics fan opts for a basketball analogy to describe this stage of his career, saying he’s “in the fourth quarter.” He’s non-committal about how much longer he wants to coach, but it sounds possible that the clock could hit 0:00 at the end of this season. “I initially thought I was going to do a couple years,” Strom said. “This is going to be a very trying year. I’ll see how I feel at the end of this year. I fully expect an onslaught from opposing teams, opposing fans and everything. And so I’ll see how I feel physically at the end of this year and see what direction this organization wants to go in. Whether I want to continue to do it, I don’t know yet.” Strom, who at 71 is the oldest pitching coach in the majors, is on his third manager in his second stint coaching with Houston. When GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were fired on Jan. 13 in the fallout of the sign stealing scandal, the future of the Astros’ coaches beyond 2020 became unclear. It remains that way now, as their new manager, Dusty Baker, signed a contract that guarantees him only this season. Usually, a new GM picks his manager. New Astros GM James Click did not. Since the 2014 season, Strom has overseen an incredible run of Astros pitching. He shepherded the rise of Dallas Keuchel into a Cy Young Award winner, helped Justin Verlander improve in his mid-30s, worked with Gerrit Cole to reach his ace potential and turned waiver claims like Collin McHugh and Will Harris into key cogs in a staff. Strom will also forever be associated with the 2017 Astros, whose hitters cheated via their now-infamous trash can-banging system and severely damaged the integrity of the game. As the pitching coach, he stood right by Hinch in the dugout throughout that World Series championship season. Said Strom: “It was a very difficult winter for me. I find myself very sorry for what happened.” He was a bystander to the wrongdoing, just like so many others who didn’t speak up before Mike Fiers did in November. “I knew it was wrong, but I kind of wrapped myself into the idea that I’m on the pitching side of the thing,” Strom said. “I think I did that to myself to kind of alleviate some of the guilt that was in my mind about this stuff going on. I kind of stayed in my lane. I was as complicit as anybody.” Strom said he “very much” regrets his inaction and he wishes he would’ve “come out stronger” against the scheme, though he’s not sure how exactly he would’ve done it. Citing the fact the 2017 Astros won the AL West by 21 games, he also pointed out what many others have: that “it probably wasn’t necessary.” But amid the feelings of guilt, Strom has also found himself wanting to lash back in the wake of some of the commentary from the rest of the sport. “When I think back, particularly to the 2017 ALCS with the Yankees, I realize that our pitching was pretty stellar and helped us win that thing. It had nothing to do with trash cans. Three runs in 36 innings (at Minute Maid Park) against a very potent offense, I think, spoke volumes about our pitching,” he said. “I thought our pitching in 2018 was exceptional. And then I think what I’m bothered by most is the accusations about 2019 when I know nothing was going on and we won 107 games.” Strom acknowledges the fact that his pitchers benefitted from the scheme in 2017, as the greater the run support by the Astros hitters the less stress inflicted on the Astros pitchers. But he also maintains that he doesn’t look at his World Series ring any differently. “I’ll probably get lambasted for that,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to genuflect and kowtow to everything I hear or read about this thing.” He added he doesn’t know what’s required to appease the masses. He said at this point he’s not so sure even self-immolation on the back fields of the Astros’ spring training complex would suffice. “I’m not going to dismiss what that team did that year and completely throw it away,” Strom said. “Maybe it’s easier for me because I’m in the fourth quarter of my career and it’s easier for me to possibly say that than other people can. Were we wrong? Yes, we were wrong. But I’ll put it this way: I don’t wear my World Series ring, but when I do put it on I have pride in wearing that ring. I still feel that that team accomplished a great deal.” Strom has deep connections to the two organization leaders who lost their jobs for failing to stop the scheme, Luhnow and Hinch. Luhnow was the one to give him a chance when he was out of baseball, his ideas about throwing elevated four-seam fastballs and the like having been deemed too radical earlier in his coaching career. Hinch he grew very close with in their five seasons together in Houston. The managerial transition from Hinch to Baker is still in its infancy. Strom and Baker’s careers intersected previously – they competed against each other in both the minors and the majors in the 1970s – but this is their first time working together. “He has great respect, and I think he has the respect of this team,” Strom said of Baker. “When I heard he was the manager, I said that’s the right guy at this given time. I am not going to lie: I miss A.J. I miss dealing with him, knowing how much he loves this game. I feel for A.J. right now and I just hope that he comes out on the other side and gets another opportunity because he’s well respected in this game.” The 70-year-old Baker, who was hired on only Jan. 29, is still learning all of the players he recently inherited. He has empowered bench coach Joe Espada to set the day-to-day schedule of spring training and Strom to lead all things related to the pitching staff. Strom has been hesitant so far to give his new manager his opinions of each specific pitcher because he wants Baker to form his own without any preconceived notions. When the time is right, they’ll compare notes. “I’ve been knowing Strommy a long time,” Baker said. “We faced each other in Triple A a long, long time ago. He’s passionate, he’s not afraid of change and he loves his pitchers. He’s firm but fair. I think that they respect that. He doesn’t lie to them. He’s straight up with them. And he’s emotional. Sometimes as you get older you lose some of that emotion, but he still has plenty of it left in him.”
Baker seems cool but I'm assuming this is only a one year thing. God I hope the firing was to save face and we can get Hinch back next year. Luhnow definitely isn't going to be back with the presence of Click.....
It’s also awesome that two of the guys are former NFL players and a NBA player also backing Papi. I mean think about how cheating and stuff you don’t want coming public goes on behind the scenes. Truthfully, I stand by my statement Fiers has been bitter about being left off all the playoffs rosters and then non tendered. That’s the reason he “snitched”. There’s an article about him telling everyone on the Tigers right after he got picked up by them before the As.
“Strom will also forever be associated with the 2017 Astros, whose hitters cheated via theirnow-infamous trash can-banging system and severely damaged the integrity of the game.“ I like how they throw these little digs in whenever they can. The idea that the Astros single handedly damaged the integrity of the game is about the dumbest ****ing nonsense that has come out of this ****. We’ve decided now that ****ing baseball, we’re talking about baseball here, is this sanctimonious game whose virgin pure soul had never seen a blemish. What the **** world are we in?
A world run by media bias that is out of control thanks to social media. I'm not entirely sure what it is about Houston that people seem to hate.
I don People at its finest. Don't care if it's Fiers, the Astros, or whoever....just don't do that crap.
All these other players need to get off their high horses. If they were on this club in 2017, then they fall right in line with the rest of them. They want to act like they would never do it or stand by while it went on but that’s a load of crap at the end of the day. They would have been caught up in it like the rest of the team. We’re supposed to believe it was just our guys but many of those guys came from other teams. The fact is one wouldn’t stand against the many. Some may not have participated like Altuve but they wouldn’t rat out their teammates, either. So, get off the f-ing high horse like you’re some special exception.
It's not even a random thing although you may have come to it by your own logic. And that's because it's logical. A lot of people talked about this exact thing before MLB issued its report and punishments and threw the Astros to the wolves. NFL has radios to the helmets of the QBs and has for years. Earpiece to the catcher from the coach. No one's going to hear anything. Clicker from the catcher to the pitcher. Solved. But this is Major League Baseball we're talking about. They'll take 3 more years to implement this and then still do it wrong. Meanwhile some random tinkerer on Instructables could probably have a viable, robust system built in a day from garbage around his house. This is such an obvious fix that, of course, MLB needs a scapegoat to distract from how dumb it is for not having already done it.
This is a good analogy. However, I'd say it's not even just the players being the bullies. This is like the smartest kid in the class having too nice a calculator, and the parents of the dumb kids finding out and going apeshit. He still showed his work on the tests, unlike their stupid kids, but he might have technically had an illegal calculator. Oh, and so did some of their kids, but, oh, uh, nothing to see here. Even though there's no way to prove the smart kid's nice calculator in any way helped him on the tests, the parents all want him expelled and his life ruined instead of having to actually address why their kids are crap at math. And the school's all for it because it distracts from the fact that it would have been very easy for them to prevent illegal calculator use if they'd tried. And the other kids pile on since it distracts from their own illegal calculators and/or general sucktitude.
I hope the players that were so “angry” and were out there calling for physical punishment to our players are happy with themselves now. Yea, these people are idiots and might’ve done this anyway but it was uncalled for and unnecessary. It didn’t help a damn thing. I hope Manfred is happy now also, he’s been a pillar of absolute b*llshit from the start of this farce.
yea it’s just so over the top sanctimonious right now. “How dare they”! Come on, this crap has been going on FOREVER in baseball. There’s a reason why Big Papi called Fiers a snitch....he knows you game the system and if they find a way to beat you then you tip your hat and come back with something that will equal the field but you NEVER rat anyone out. It’s between the clubs, always has been. It’s not the “right thing to do” but cheating IS one of baseballs UNWRITTEN rules and they have a TON of them. So yes, GTFO with that “integrity” crap
