Pancake Bear

Exactly. Only way this makes sense is if we think getting him out of Boston and the AL East will turn back the clock and make him SuperPrice. Otherwise, we’re creating a hole and spending the same money we would be for another good arm with more upside. 

if they take away the comp pick, maybe they'll remove the loss of a draft pick for the team that signs Cole.  😉

are we that desperate to take on Price for his age 34-36 seasons at a ridiculous salary?  Even if the Sox paid some of that salary, what does it come down to?  20mil per?  Just spend that money on Wheeler.  We're taking away some of our financial flexibility for a marginally useful pitcher.  Forget the name for a second and look at what you're getting for a guy in his mid 30's making tons of money.  The whole point of paying a guy like price that much is so that you get his age 30-33yo season with the assumption that age 34 and beyond is likely gonna be painful.   If here were a free agent this year, he'd be in the Hamels/Keuchel/Ryu range at best getting 2/30-3/45 at most.  
He's on a bullet train to sucktown on the Sox dime and we want to jump in front to take him there ourselves?  
 

I have been saying all along that the “fun” having Cole on the mound would really help the team win.

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. 

Those are very general predictions. How about some details?  LOL

I think it would be more cost effective to overpay a little for Wheeler.  Giving him 5/110 to get him and make sure you've got at least of this winter's top SP could be worth it and then you become less worried about having to give Cole an extra 30-40 mil to get him.  Not sure if my thought process or math is right with that thinking, but it makes sense in my brain.  

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.  

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.
 

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.
 

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 think it will be more embarrassing for baseball if the Astros don't get punished.  It's already out there that they cheated.  And it's not like one guy took it upon himself to convince some other guy to doctor up a ball or steal a sign or two from the pen.  They sent out emails with their intention, set up a closed circuit camera system, and cooked up a fairly elaborate plan to communicate the information to the batter.  This was seemingly done by almost every player on the team while the manager watched it happen and not just for a game or two here and there but for the better part of three seasons.  During those three seasons they averaged over 100 wins, went to two world series and an ALCS and won a world championship.  
This isn't glancing at the exam of the guy next to you cheating.  This is paying some guy to fake your SAT scores and get you into college on an athletic scholarship via a sport you don't play type cheating. 
There is no way in hell Manfred can sweep this under the rug.  If anything, the public would be outraged by any punishment that isn't super severe.  Slapping them on the wrist would be far more damaging to the sport than hanging these douche bags out to dry.    

They’re going to be made an example of. I’m skeptical any other team is doing this to anything close to the same degree. But even if they are, the Astros are a perfect team to take it on the chin. They need someone to get hit hard to dissuade other teams for continuing or even starting up something similar. 

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 don’t believe this in the slightest.  These will be harsh penalties than come with suspensions For management, fines to the ownership, loss of picks and international monies.  

The same could be said about Moustakas since his OPS+ was 104 in 2018.

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

Baseball is always flapping its gums about how much they care for and need to protect the integrity of the game....   Well, this is maybe the biggest hit on that since the Black Sox scandal..   Far uglier than the coke scandal of the 80s, more impactful on the game than the collusion that went down, and promoted a far more imbalanced playing field than steroids ever did -- let's be real... MLB willfully let that happen because it was in their best interest..   IMO, anything other than some seriously vicious disciplinary action would IMO make Manfred look like a feckless little bitch and take any talk of MLB caring about the integrity of the game off the table for me.
Not only is it worse, it took a lot more people to pull that off and ultimately involved more people than the Braves situation did -- and it's how the Braves situation was handled that kind of worries me. 
Manfred pretty much put everything on one dude -- banned him for life in some fake show of force but let everyone else off with a slap on the wrist or less.    I mean, considering the shit teams have always done in Latin America, the Braves situation doesn't really register as being all that heinous.  Are there people naive enough to believe what the Dodgers were doing with the smuggling of Cuban players was less egregious than anything the Braves did?   That whole thing was kind of a joke.
Anyway, if this shit really happened like it's being played out -- then you had everyone from the very top to the actual players taking part in an effort to DEFRAUD the rest of MLB.    How is that not worthy of some nuclear level punishment?

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.  

If the Sox would be willing to entertain taking on Cozarts dead money in exchange for Sale I'd view that as an indication they believe his elbow is shot.  I say that because the dude pitched a lot better than his ERA last year, the only real question is whether or not he's a pitch away from a future TJ surgery.  Sale elected to go with a PRP injection so.... He's not fully broken but he's not 100% either.

Every single trade proposal that includes Zack Cozart is just plain funny to me. I understand the context of each proposal, but they're all, still very funny to me.

But when the chips are down... this will be really interesting in big games.

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. 

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. 

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.