Harold Reynolds just lost all credibility outside of Houston unfortunately. I love the tweet saying “Have a back bone Reynolds!” That’s exactly what he did... he decided not to just jump on the popular narrative, and instead chose to look at it as he would. He chose not to just throw wild accusations that Altuve was definitely wearing a buzzer. That takes more of a “backbone” than just jumping on a bandwagon.
This is insanity, the guy's job is to analyze the game, so he provides an objective analysis, but because it's unpopular he is getting destroyed. This is madness, just like when Jessica Mendoza said she didn't like how Fiers ratted his teammates out. You cant share an opinion unless its the popular one now.
And the response to what Harold Reynolds said, including calling his video a “conspiracy theory” is exactly why nobody in the game of baseball can do anything other than placate the media and the vocal minority. Even if you’re on another team and you’ve cheated in anyway yourself you have to call the Astros out or be at risk of being the next victim of the firing squad. This thing is beyond ridiculous now.
Here is the problem with what the commissioner said. He said that any pitcher that throws at the astros will receive a suspension. Some opposing pitchers, such as relievers, will gladly take the suspension and miss a few games. Now you have 30 other teams that will all use some reliever to plunk an Astro and do the same. The problem is now when the Astros try to retaliate they'll also receive a suspension. They won't be able to keep getting the same players suspended, and I imagine the the suspensions will last longer the more times it happens. There may be a constant cycle of bringing up pitchers from the farm to fill in for suspended Astros.
Wouldn’t be so quick that all teams have relievers just itching to lose game checks. the players union likely also doesn’t support the sacrificial action of making some random relief pitcher throw at an opponent resulting in automatic suspensions. if a player wants to throw at an Astro, let it be somebody who really is ready to lose money for it.
Lol wtf are you talking about here?? That's not even remotely true. You think pitchers just want to do that for fun and lose a lot of money?
Consider me a fan of JD Martinez too. He had a really intelligent response to the whole thing. I’m glad somebody FINALLY talked about how the players would have never talked without immunity. I can understand getting angry at Manfred for not stripping the title, but getting mad at him for granting immunity is just stupid. If they wanted to real details of it, immunity was needed.
Those mad about immunity literally have *no* idea how actual investigations work (read: not to be confused with baseless and rogue Twitter speculation, which most fans think = investigation). Manfred spearheaded the issue quite well, actually. One of the few things he did right in this whole mess. The MLBPA would have had a field day in court if players were actually suspended. Any player suspensions would’ve been thrown out for lack on notice for what they were being suspended for. There was no rule in place outlawing technology, so MLB really had no option but to give players immunity. Also...unrelated, but this really speaks to my soul:
au contrare Manfred's reference to the World Series trophy, aka the Commissioner's trophy, as just a piece of metal shows how out-of-touch the commissioner is w the MLB landscape
Do people actually believe this buzzer bullshit or is it just a minority of idiots on Twitter? It’s mind blowing to me that a conspiracy started by a troll twitter account has gone this far. Also I love the people who say Harold Baines is ignoring Manfred’s report, which states EXPLICITLY that the 2019 rumors were unfounded. Of course it doesn’t help that Manfred kept hope alive for these idiots by saying he couldn’t prove 100% the buzzer stuff isn’t true. Finally, the backlash Harold Baines is getting is a big reason why the national media guys will continue to beat this drum beyond their East/West coast bias. Anybody who refuses to go along will be blasted by these trolls. This whole thing is ridiculous.
Don’t approach this with logic in mind. That’s long gone. I’m not sure how many people actually believe it vs just wanting to push it forward. Bellinger says he believes it but he’s a bitter ******* so I’m not sure if he’s a moron or he just wants to keep the notion of the Astros cheating in the air for as long as possible. Hard to tell what’s real and what’s just virtue signaling.
I wish there was some way to look back at twitter right at that time Altuve hit that pitch... Just to rewind to that date and look at the site, it was trending, and you know people were all making fun of Chapman for offering up that pitch to Altuve. Even Yankee fans were mad at him. Everyone at the time said it was a terrible pitch...