Pancake Bear

After the Goldstein email, zero chance of that. Only question in my mind is whether Crane gets mixed up in it. I tend to think no, but who knows. I genuinely doubt the players get punished, but I could be wrong.

To your main point, that’s a fair concern. I’m sure MLB is aware of the possibility. As per strategy, I wish they could change pitchers without taking five minutes for each one who pitches to one guy. When strategy interferes that seriously with game flow, it becomes a problem, IMO.

Rule 1: Roster size expansion from 25-26. That’s a cookie for the PA to get them to chill out about some of the other changes. Rule 2: Regulations on two way players. It won’t change much, but I guess they felt regulation was necessary. Rule 3: Pitchers must pitch to 3 batters or to the end of an inning. Seems a bit bigger of a change, but it mostly just eliminates one batter only specialists. I like it overall. I get that we’re losing strategy, but the constant pitching changes can be annoying to sit through. I do wonder about how they’ll police any ‘injuries’ involved. Rule 4: Change to IL time. Obviously intended to keep teams from shuttling guys back and forth from the big club to manipulate the roster limit. How well it’ll work remains to be seen. Whether it was necessary, I dunno. Someone smarter will have to explain to me why it was a problem, I guess. I'm just waiting for universal DH, both because it’ll improve the game and because it will cause all the whiny NL fans to go into a meltdown. I’d also like to see robo umps sooner rather than later.

I would imagine there will be iniatives in place to guard against that. Plus, as noted, it’s rare that you have that kind of situation anyway. Mostly its just when teams are micro managing. You obviously can’t remove several players in a game because of ‘injuries’. Teams will just learn to adapt.

Individual players get banned half a season for a first offense on taking steroids or steroid masking substances. Second offense is a season. Third is a lifetime ban. Red Sox incident in 2017 was a warning to everyone. A conspiracy to enable an entire team to cheat? Anything less than a year suspension for Hinch and Luhnow (and whatever other executives were involved) is a slap on the wrist. I wold ban them and anyone else (including anyone on the Angels or any other team if they did something of the kind) for life. I think it’s more egregious than steroids and not far off from gambling. (What would be the argument that gambling is worse - e.g. Pete Rose?) Also, remember the Braves GM who got banned for life. Can anyone make a serious argument that the Astros’ cheating isn’t worse? I don't think vacating the championship is realistic (or even necessary, given how it’s now the Barry Bonds of WS wins), nor is a playoff restriction for the next few years. Heavy fines and other draft and international signing related punishment would need to be severe enough that teams actually see it as a deterrent. You could argue that the GM being banned is enough, but I feel like the owner has to suffer consequences beyond losing some employees. Just my opinion, though.

I think the severity of the epunishment will also depend on whether mlb can prove they’ve been cheating since 2017. Obviously they were cheating during the 2017 season. We have rumors they had a system set up during the playoffs. If that’s true, it would be naive to think they haven’t continued right along. But there has to be some testimony or other evidence. If all of that is true, consequences will be monumental.

The dude on youtube (Jomboy) who has been doing videos detailing examples of the Astros 2017 cheating said he's heard that Luhnow is almost certainly gone after this all shakes out. He seemed unsure whether that meant getting fired, suspended, or outright banned. I don't know how reliable he or whoever he heard this from is, and honestly it isn't that much of a stretch. I mean, I think at this point Luhnow and Hinch are screwed. How far the backlash goes remains to be seen, but this is a steroid-level scandal covering a whole team with management involved and apparently instigating the whole thing. People keep saying every team does it. Yeah, well, every team isn't toasting everyone else in strikeout percentage at the plate - which is something that would obviously decline if you know what kind of pitch is coming. The Red Sox were using a freaking Apple watch late in 2017. That's amateur hour compared to what Houston had going on. So if every team is doing it, they're simultaneously a lot better at hiding it than the most analytical team in the business while also receiving no obvious benefit from it. I don't know if vacating a title is possible, but at this point, does it really matter? The 2017 WS is forever tainted now, regardless of what Manfred ceremonially pronounces from on high. If it was just the 2017 regular season, they'd probably skate free mostly because Manfred essentially gave Boston a pass and warned everyone at that point that further punishment would be more severe. But the latest word was that they had a new method to cheat in the playoffs and World Series. If so, that's obviously a lot bigger deal than the regular season. It's a bigger deal that a given player using steroids. It would be like the team organizing steroids for most of the players. It's one thing to ignore or be unaware of individual players on your team cheating, but to set up a system for the whole team to do it? That's huge. I doubt the players involved will receive any real punishment other than the stigma of being a cheat - not entirely unlike steroid users - unless there's evidence someone (like Beltran) played a major role in setting it up. Hinch, though, is screwed. At this point, I think Luhnow is also given the email from Goldstein that came out (no way he was acting alone). If the assistant GM got canned for taunting a reporter, I can't see either of them keeping their jobs, even if Manfred does nothing against them. Beyond that, what other punishment might look like remains to be seen. I suspect draft picks to be taken away and for them to have limitations put on how much international signing bonus money they can spend. The exact parameters of those penalties are going to be what tell us how seriously Manfred wants to send a message. If it's something stupid like their next two 1st round picks - every fanbase in the league would give up their top pick in the next two drafts to win a WS.

Hope not. That whole design should be trashed and forgotten. It was the worst design I’ve ever seen across the board. I hated, hated, hated it. The thought of going back to it on any level makes me want to puke.

Thought I read that he profiled as no better than a decent reliever in mlb.

If they go back to that even slightly they’re nuts. It’s the absolute worst logo they’ve ever had, and it isn’t close.

I wonder what the fallout will be when current or former Astros players have to talk about the sign stealing issue. Right now, it’s the offseason, so they can keep their mouths shut. But let’s say when Cole signs with someone. Isn’t someone sure to ask him about this whole cheating thing? What’s he going to say? “Yeah, I didn't like it but what was I supposed to do?” “Yeah, we did it. I’m sorry now.” I guess it’ll partially depend on whether anything official has come out from MLB; how much is confirmed. Otherwise, it might be just a no comment.

Sign stealing? Sure. Electronically? I doubt most are, although I’m sure some are. The Red Sox got busted for using an Apple Watch to try to steal signs in 2017. The Brewers and Rangers are rumored to have done so. I doubt the Angels do. Neither Moreno or Scioscia seem like they’d stand for something like that, but that’s just my opinion. So the only time they could’ve, if that’s true, is last year. Plus, I don’t think the Angels front office is quite that sophisticated. But I don’t think anyone is doing it nearly to the degree as the Astros. Note how the Astros’ k rate went from worst to first in 2017. Even under the assumption that they were tanking previously, no one gets that much better that quickly. Also look how they compare to everyone else: The difference between the Stros and the second place team (66 k’s) is about the difference between the second and seventh (60) or eighth place teams (71). They weren’t quite as dominant in 2018 (2nd overall), but they were back solidly in first this season. If other teams are doing this, they clearly aren’t as good at it.

I would think either Sunday or Wednesday. Lot of off days on a Thursday, iirc. Edit: Just looked it up. About an even amount of off days on Monday and Thursday with a couple Wednesday’s.

If Cozart is healthy, he’ll be traded as a salary dump if they can find a trade partner or, more likely, released. He won’t be playing for this team beyond Spring Training in 2020.

Moustakas is a barely above league average hitter. Thinking he’s the solution is an even worse idea.

https://www.sny.tv/yankees/news/4-potential-trade-packages-for-yankees-miguel-andujar/311895618 That moment when a professional sportswriter in NY comes up with a trade proposal as ill conceived as the average fan blog.

Both of whom are better players at this juncture.

Buster Olney also makes an interesting observation from the email in question. Hard to believe Luhnow wouldn’t have been involved.

Correct. Even if that did happen, the Dodgers have no real claim to it.

Originally thought the same. Starting to wonder when I read how pissed off the GM’s are and as we’re hearing how extensive their cheating hasn’t been. I still don’t think it’s likely, but there’s a reasonable doubt in my mind now. At this point, very little would surprise me.

Okay, I see where our disconnect is. That’s not how I’d word it. If I say a given pitcher ‘is’ better, I’m thinking about right now, not career numbers.

ST or bust. Sadly, it looks like it’ll be longer. Getting psyched, though.

Again, that isn’t what I asked. I responded to one question, and you changed it to a different one. Having said that, while Sale wins on longevity. Per FG, the best two seasons of each are virtual ties in WAR. BRef gives Sale an edge in both also, as does ERA+. Sale has been good longer. But his two best have only been a little better than Cole’s two best fwiw. With Cole being a year younger, it’s far from clear that even if healthy whether Sale would be better, which is why I asked the question. I never asked who had been better over their career, because that is no more relevant than Blanton being a decent pitcher at one point in his career was relevant to how he would do on the Angels. You said they could get someone better than Cole, I questioned whether that was true. Who was better 3 or more years ago has no bearing on that.