He's got a tiny little buzzer near his eye that allows him to see extra good!!! Cheater!!!!!aTm2004 said:
Fixed?
He's got a tiny little buzzer near his eye that allows him to see extra good!!! Cheater!!!!!aTm2004 said:
Fixed?
Here's why I think there is at least an outside chance that baseball will and in fact, may even be compelled to investigate all alleged cases of "cheating." When the states started legalizing sports gambling a couple years ago following the Supreme Court ruling, the pro leagues came up with a very novel idea to assure they got a piece of the action. State by state, they went before the gambling governing body and told them they they wanted an 'integrity fee' in the range of 4% of all money placed on their league in a legal gambling entity within that state. The premise was (and is) that the league will insure there are no ways that the game can be manipulated by players, teams, managers, coaches, league or team employees, etc. And the states with legal sports betting bought the pitch. Now baseball is compelled to make sure there is no cheating or other manipulation of their game or they stand to lose the integrity fee. Manfred, in my opinion will have to turn over every legitimate stone if there is real evidence.Wabs said:As much as I (and probably everyone on this thread) would love to see every team suspected of cheating investigated, I really don't see it happening. Manfred's #1 job is to put fans in seats. The last thing he wants is an ongoing scandal with investigation after investigation. He wants the focus on actual baseball.MaxPower said:
The problem is he laid a stiff penalty on the Astros. If he covers up other teams with viable leads it will be an epic scandal. Worst in sports history. If it's true that roughly a quarter of the league does this stuff then it means 3/4 will be pissed off if he's covering up other teams that could be competitively impaired through penalties to their benefit.
It sucks donkey dick, but the Astros (and Red Sox to a much lesser degree) are going to take it on the chin for MLB. Be prepared for that.
Fan bases around the league are ok with the Astros taking all the blame. One, they don't want their team investigated. Two, they have the Astros to blame for them not winning a title (LA & NY).
That is an interesting angle. I know one of the sports radio shows I listen to mentioned briefly that bettors from 2017 are probably a little ticked but theres not much you can do retroactively.Quote:
Here's why I think there is at least an outside chance that baseball will and in fact, may even be compelled to investigate all alleged cases of "cheating." When the states started legalizing sports gambling a couple years ago following the Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to do so, the pro leagues came up with a very novel idea to assure they got a piece of the action. State by state, they went before the gambling governing body and told them they they wanted an 'integrity fee' in the range of 4% of all money placed on their league in a legal gambling entity within that state. The premise was (and is) that the league will insure there are no ways that the game can be manipulated by players, teams, managers, coaches, league or team employees, etc. And the states with legal sports betting bought the pitch. Now baseball is compelled to make sure there is no cheating or other manipulation of their game or they lose the integrity fee. Manfred, in my opinion will have to turn over ever legitimate stone if there is real evidence.
Very good point, and something I hadn't thought of. I hope you're right. But there are ways to sweep things under the rug and still give the appearance of maintaining "integrity". They can certainly not aggressively pursue leads. The whole Astros thing started with an allegation by a player. That opened the can. Recently, Logan Morrison (a current active player) said that he knows of several teams that have done similar. Shouldn't that be enough for the league to interview him at the very minimum (and give him immunity)? Isn't this similar to Fiers' accusation? I haven't seen anything that would indicate that MLB is going to pursue this.iamtheglove said:Here's why I think there is at least an outside chance that baseball will and in fact, may even be compelled to investigate all alleged cases of "cheating." When the states started legalizing sports gambling a couple years ago following the Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to do so, the pro leagues came up with a very novel idea to assure they got a piece of the action. State by state, they went before the gambling governing body and told them they they wanted an 'integrity fee' in the range of 4% of all money placed on their league in a legal gambling entity within that state. The premise was (and is) that the league will insure there are no ways that the game can be manipulated by players, teams, managers, coaches, league or team employees, etc. And the states with legal sports betting bought the pitch. Now baseball is compelled to make sure there is no cheating or other manipulation of their game or they lose the integrity fee. Manfred, in my opinion will have to turn over ever legitimate stone if there is real evidence.Wabs said:As much as I (and probably everyone on this thread) would love to see every team suspected of cheating investigated, I really don't see it happening. Manfred's #1 job is to put fans in seats. The last thing he wants is an ongoing scandal with investigation after investigation. He wants the focus on actual baseball.MaxPower said:
The problem is he laid a stiff penalty on the Astros. If he covers up other teams with viable leads it will be an epic scandal. Worst in sports history. If it's true that roughly a quarter of the league does this stuff then it means 3/4 will be pissed off if he's covering up other teams that could be competitively impaired through penalties to their benefit.
It sucks donkey dick, but the Astros (and Red Sox to a much lesser degree) are going to take it on the chin for MLB. Be prepared for that.
Fan bases around the league are ok with the Astros taking all the blame. One, they don't want their team investigated. Two, they have the Astros to blame for them not winning a title (LA & NY).
I think Mazag's preferential heir was CFTXAG10. I'm in no position to dispute that.n_touch said:
Have we decided who is starting the reg season thread?
Another good point. Manfred tries to sweep everything else under the rug, but runs the risk of a guy like Logan Morrison or other whistleblowers to come out and expose him. "Hey I told the commissioner about this and he wouldn't investigate so here is what I know for sure"Quote:
Very good point, and something I hadn't thought of. I hope you're right. But there are ways to sweep things under the rug and still give the appearance of maintaining "integrity". They can certainly not aggressively pursue leads. The whole Astros thing started with an allegation by a player. That opened the can. Recently, Logan Morrison (a current active player) said that he knows of several teams that have done similar. Shouldn't that be enough for the league to interview him at the very minimum (and give him immunity)? Isn't this similar to Fiers' accusation? I haven't seen anything that would indicate that MLB is going to pursue this.
I just wish there was one ****ing reporter out there that would ask about Morrison's comments and what MLB plans to do with it (if anything). I think most reporters are more interested in getting little snippets of quotes from players against the Astros and posting them on social media (Hey! Look at what he said!!).CFTXAG10 said:Another good point. Manfred tries to sweep everything else under the rug, but runs the risk of a guy like Logan Morrison or other whistleblowers to come out and expose him. "Hey I told the commissioner about this and he wouldn't investigate so here is what I know for sure"Quote:
Very good point, and something I hadn't thought of. I hope you're right. But there are ways to sweep things under the rug and still give the appearance of maintaining "integrity". They can certainly not aggressively pursue leads. The whole Astros thing started with an allegation by a player. That opened the can. Recently, Logan Morrison (a current active player) said that he knows of several teams that have done similar. Shouldn't that be enough for the league to interview him at the very minimum (and give him immunity)? Isn't this similar to Fiers' accusation? I haven't seen anything that would indicate that MLB is going to pursue this.
It is similar to how this whole thing got started. Apparently a lot of clubs over the last several years were filing grievances with Manfred over illegal sign-stealing and he just kept saying play on. You never heard about any of those because it wasn't public record. It was just Manfred, his office, and his word. Enter Mike Fiers with the help of The Athletic. All public and a first hand account = cannot ignore. If Manfred doesn't fully investigate everything he is risking a lot more of this going public without an opportunity to be out ahead of it....
The only theory that gives me hope right now is that Crane knows more information is coming out and more investigations being dialed up. Verlander has hinted that may be the case. Manfred was asked about it directly and didn't rule it out. I guess we'll find out soon enough if that's the case.Wabs said:
I just wish there was one ****ing reporter out there that would ask about Morrison's comments and what MLB plans to do with it (if anything). I think most reporters are more interested in getting little snippets of quotes from players against the Astros and posting them on social media (Hey! Look at what he said!!).
And where are "unbiased" journalists like Olney and Rosenthal?? Why aren't they asking these questions?
If I'm Crane, I start making public comments about stuff like this if MLB doesn't start investigating. He's rich enough to handle any fines, and his team is being drug through the mud every day.
Yep, and if Crane was somehow assured by MLB that other teams will be investigated and then Manfred pusses out and doesn't do it, then Crane needs to go public and burn the whole mother ****ing thing down.Deluxe said:The only theory that gives me hope right now is that Crane knows more information is coming out and more investigations being dialed up. Verlander has hinted that may be the case. Manfred was asked about it directly and didn't rule it out. I guess we'll find out soon enough if that's the case.Wabs said:
I just wish there was one ****ing reporter out there that would ask about Morrison's comments and what MLB plans to do with it (if anything). I think most reporters are more interested in getting little snippets of quotes from players against the Astros and posting them on social media (Hey! Look at what he said!!).
And where are "unbiased" journalists like Olney and Rosenthal?? Why aren't they asking these questions?
If I'm Crane, I start making public comments about stuff like this if MLB doesn't start investigating. He's rich enough to handle any fines, and his team is being drug through the mud every day.
Some great points here. MLB has a history of making scapegoats out of its own incompetence to police the game. Widespread problems get boiled down to easily targetable "bad guys", who take the fall. With steroids, Bud Selig coasts into the Hall of Fame while Bonds and Clemens gets shamed. Guys who also took steroids but were less successful on the field generally just skate by. Could end up being the same with this.CoachRTM said:
I think the MLB wanted the Astros to be the SMU of the paying players scandal. Not a perfect comparison, but overall I think it works - It was a rampant problem, punish one team hard and pretend everything is good now. The problem is that this isn't the 1980s and social media means you can't really "bury" something.
I also think Crane holds the nuclear option in his back pocket. It's a pretty open secret in the MLB about all the cheating was going on back in 2017. If MLB decides to strip the title, or do something ridiculous like that, we could drop all that information and basically make it a free-for-all against the league office.
Judge was getting tips in 2017 (see all the statistics already posted here) and I had actually heard that his 2017 season was one of the catalysts for the league wide memo sent out.
Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Indians, Cubs + at least 3 more that I don't know have been talked about in the same way behind the scenes the Astros were talked about. I'm sure we know many of the details on how they cheated as well. We did research on what other teams were doing so that we had the best system. (Which is debatable because we were fairly awful at home that year, and our statistics show we had less effective at bats when we hit the trash can)
Deluxe said:Some great points here. MLB has a history of making scapegoats out of its own incompetence to police the game. Widespread problems get boiled down to easily targetable "bad guys", who take the fall. With steroids, Bud Selig coasts into the Hall of Fame while Bonds and Clemens gets shamed. Guys who also took steroids but were less successful on the field generally just skate by. Could end up being the same with this.CoachRTM said:
I think the MLB wanted the Astros to be the SMU of the paying players scandal. Not a perfect comparison, but overall I think it works - It was a rampant problem, punish one team hard and pretend everything is good now. The problem is that this isn't the 1980s and social media means you can't really "bury" something.
I also think Crane holds the nuclear option in his back pocket. It's a pretty open secret in the MLB about all the cheating was going on back in 2017. If MLB decides to strip the title, or do something ridiculous like that, we could drop all that information and basically make it a free-for-all against the league office.
Judge was getting tips in 2017 (see all the statistics already posted here) and I had actually heard that his 2017 season was one of the catalysts for the league wide memo sent out.
Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Indians, Cubs + at least 3 more that I don't know have been talked about in the same way behind the scenes the Astros were talked about. I'm sure we know many of the details on how they cheated as well. We did research on what other teams were doing so that we had the best system. (Which is debatable because we were fairly awful at home that year, and our statistics show we had less effective at bats when we hit the trash can)
Totally agree about the futility in Manfred's "sweep everything else under the rug" strategy (if indeed that is his strategy here). That may have worked in 1992 when there was an inner circle of baseball reporters who could be manipulated in exchange for access. Not possible in the Twitter era though.
And agree that Crane does hold a nuclear card in his back pocket. Hopefully he has the balls to use it if Manfred doesn't have the balls to chase down every lead.
expresswrittenconsent said:
I dont think crane has enough credibility to have a nuclear option.
IF (and a big IF) MLB during their investigation assured Crane that others would be investigated, and then they don't, Crane should not give 2 ****s about whether he has credibility. He needs to go scorched earth if he knows something. If not, he's a big ***** and he'll completely lose the players on his team.expresswrittenconsent said:
I dont think crane has enough credibility to have a nuclear option.
Wabs said:IF (and a big IF) MLB during their investigation assured Crane that others would be investigated, and then they don't, Crane should not give 2 ****s about whether he has credibility. He needs to go scorched earth if he knows something. If not, he's a big ***** and he'll completely lose the players on his team.expresswrittenconsent said:
I dont think crane has enough credibility to have a nuclear option.