It has been widely established that the collective bargaining agreement at the time would not have permitted such punishment for players, and that as soon as MLB handed any out they would have lost each and every grievance filed by the players. The players were *never* going to get punished for this; MLB had to get creative, which they did. (Of course, their creativity must have been exhausted after the Astros investigation, as they can't seem to get it up for any other organization, but I digress...)
Then 29 and 30 fan bases is stupid. Biggest organizational fine in MLB history (and the largest number allowed by whatever agreed-upon regulations are in place). FOUR draft picks. Arguably the best manager and GM in the game, suspended for a year (and likely fired due to behind-the-scenes manipulation). That's not just a punishment--that's the biggest freaking punishment in MLB history except the Black Sox thing. Any argument that the Astros "got away with it" or "got off easy" is uneducated fan drivel, probably uttered through the same mouths they breathe from.
Pine tar on the back of the hat. The broadcast noted it and nothing was ever said. Dodgers are pure like they act. I wish no one cheated but until mlb puts in a hard cap and truly goes after ALL cheaters and umps that have no business calling games, I'll wear my championship gear till I die.
(8:15) In light of Erik Kratz’s recent allegations that the 2018 Rockies were using a monitor and massage gun to relay stolen signs and his insinuation that the Dodgers were up to something as well, would you expect MLB to look into these claims or may there be a sentiment within the league to move on from these types of scandals out of fear of casting doubt on league wide integrity. — Brendan in Massachusetts Ken Rosenthal: I would expect that MLB would at least reach out to Kratz and ask if he is willing to expand and provide specifics. Now is there a desire for the league to move on? I’m sure there is a desire for the league to move on but for example, if someone reported specifics to them tomorrow or if a publication reported specifics like what we reported a couple years ago regarding the Astros and then the Red Sox, the league would be obligated to investigate. It’s not as if their heads are in the sand. They need something to go on. I want to address this at greater length. We frequently get questions, at least I do on twitter, ”What about this team? What about that team? Why did you pick on the Astros? Why did you pick on the Red Sox?” If you go back to the original Astros story that Evan Drellich and I wrote, the first sentence of that story and Evan wrote it to be perfectly honest was “There’s a broad story about this era of baseball that has yet to be told.” The third sentence of that story was “But inside the game, there is a belief that is treated by players and staff as fact: That illegal sign stealing, particularly through advanced technology, is everywhere.” Then we also wrote “Electronic sign stealing is not a single-team issue.” This was all in the Astros story. We wrote about the Astros specifically in that story and Red Sox in later stories because had information along those lines. We had the success in reporting out those details. Does that mean that other teams were not engaging in similar activities? Well I’m not sure anyone engaged in activity quite to the length of the Astros. In fact, if that happened, I’d expect we’d know that by now. There were other teams I shall not name we looked into and are still looking into that we simply did not have enough evidence or documentation to go on, to publish. This is not twitter where we can simply throw out random allegations. If we’re gonna write something, we better have it. We had it with the Astros. We had it with the Red Sox. We have not had it with other clubs. That does not mean other teams were completely innocent. Kratz pointed to two we did not report about. I don’t know that the issue has been put to bed by MLB or even by us or anyone else but you have to have some specifics, some actual evidence to go forward.
Lol this is exactly what he said. But to be fair nobody should call him a reporter. There’s also this sentiment in the media to jump to the “they probably didn’t cheat to the length the Astros did” argument which makes absolutely no ****ing sense at all. Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in.
I appreciate you bringing this up, because I've seen quite a few people say this and I have no idea what they mean. Kratz described the Rockies using the exact same system as the Astros, but even he's like "they took it farther." Like...how??? Unless the Astros were incepting signs into catchers' brains, I don't get it. I've tried asking a few times on Twitter to no avail. At this point, I just assume it's a CYA phrase used so folks can distance themselves from the Astros aka the only cheaters anyone cares about.
Catcher giving signs is so 19th century. Technology could easily solve this problem. If we solve the problem of balls and strikes with technology ...
And now MLB is admitting that pitchers have been rampantly gunking up the balls, with the biggest culprit team likely the... Dodgers. https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/06/04/sticky-stuff-is-the-new-steroids-daily-cover Imagine how terrified they must be of the stern warnings and wrist slaps to come.
Rosenthal is just showing you who he really is in that diatribe. A hater. The Rockies were doing the EXACT SAME THING. Relaying signs via cameras and noises. Same as the Astros.
