[ESPN] MLB suspends spring training, delays Opening Day at least two weeks

Winning heals all wounds. It would be so awesome to see the Astros dominate and stick it to MLB and bring home another ring. I bet we’re gunna have a team full of highly motivated players

 

I'm all of that, too...and I'm disappointed in the Astros. Not missing it like I am the EPL or NBA playoffs right now.

 

8 outs away.... I was just thinking about it last night. What if they left in Greinke? What if Kendrick rolled over on that cutter and grounded out to third? What if Correa's hit makes it to the corner instead of kicking back into play, does Alvarez score?

 

Odd. I was thinking baseball would cure my heart that was ripped out in Game 7. Also, no games means that people's hatred for Astros is still festering....I'd rather rip it off than have it linger for another offseason (granted, all of it won't go away).

 

I feel the exact same way, couldn't have said it any better.

 

What if they win and then when the athletic story breaks, they lump the 2019 title as being tainted as well?

 

The media (and opposing fans) have already done that to the team with respect to the Rays and Yankees series.

 

Don't care. Asterisks are for whiners. Roger Maris (schedule, not "cheating"), Barry Bonds, McGwire and Sosa, etc. Blah, blah, blah. Everyone in the league had access to, and in large part took advantage of, the same "cheats", and none of them did as much as those on whom the dreaded asterisk was appended.

BS.

They can hold on to their asterisks and b**** and moan; I'll keep looking at that beautiful trophy and gloat.

WS2017 champs forever. Read it and weep, whiners. (And maybe learn to hit a damn curve ball.)

 

Of curveball, bat is afraid.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...eball-season-no-agreement-players/5331170002/

 

Astros would have 2 Championships, 27 replica ring giveaway nights, parties across Houston pre-Covid, cats and dogs living together.

 

To me, it still would further the sting of having to remove a manager/GM from a reigning WS team.

If they go on to win another title, in a non-shortened season, it will feel very vindicated... even though they likely earned every bit of last year's record-setting season without the help of whatever they did in 2017.

 

I am a completely different person. While I enjoy the off the field stuff more than most, the joys and pains of off the field stuff are inconsequential to the joys and pains of the game.

 

No longer having Hinch/Luhnow isn't merely just "off field stuff"... and would hurt a helluva lot more if they were forced out right after winning a title. Not to ever say not winning it all is a "good" thing, obviously not. But just look at how the Nationals championship has been simply overlooked/forgotten after all of this.

2019 getting lumped into 2017 is a pretty huge travesty... mitigated only by the fact that they came up just short in 2019.

And after that, losing game 7, having the scandal, being forced to get rid of their elite GM/manager... all helps to create a certain FU mentality that just would not be the same otherwise. Granted, pandemics have a tendency to mitigate everything...

 

Managers and GMs don't impact the field as much as what actually happens on the field..in this case winning a World Series. Winning a World Series may cause you more pain if this scenario came to be, but I would be decorating my home office with 2019 Championship merchandise. It sucks that Hinch got fired in this scenario or even as things are today, but I would buy him a beer if I ever met him.

 

So season is off then? Interesting.

 

I would be flaunting it as well.

The point is I'd rather have a completely unmitigated/untarnished/unasterisked' championship. That would not exist had they won game 7, despite the report that there was no wrong-doing in 2019.

While managers are largely interchangeable, I'd say elite GM's (specifically Luhnow) have impacted what actually happens on the field. Granted, the 2019-2021 Astros core is largely a finished product, and one of his specific elite skillsets (rebuilding/maintaining an elite farm system) was going to be less relied upon... then again, whoever makes the call on acquiring the Ryan Pressly's of the world are pretty important to maintaining contention.

 

This implies that if they wait long enough, they'll just approve the 48-50 game season with full-prorated salaries, and the players will basically have to accept or risk going unpaid.

They still need to work out expanded vs. regular playoffs. If no counter-agreement is approved before the above option, I expect the players will reject expanded playoffs unless they're guaranteed an increased % of that revenue.