Astros Get the Signs of Suspension

[kcmets]

I find it hard to imagine Beltrán won't be fired soon, maybe this week...

[Ceetar]

WTF would they fire Carlos? that makes no sense.

[Guest 41Forever]

=kcmets post_id=29679 time=1579025522 user_id=53]
I find it hard to imagine Beltrán won't be fired soon, maybe this week...

Edited January 14, 2020 by Guest

[nymr83]

Regardless, the commissioner seems to want to pretend he's "resolved" this by telling other teams to stop talking about it. lalala nothing to see here, we made a big show of punishing the Astros and now it's all fine. Also lots of national/local "reporters" chomping at the bit to harass Carlos Beltran about this.

Why would people stop talking about it? the precedent now is that players won't be punished so every player who doesnt like a coach/front-office is incentivized to rat out his former teams and watch them get punished for lack of oversight

[Guest 41Forever]

The Mets will certainly have to address it, saying they are aware of the report, would never condone such action and have told Beltran it will not be tolerated. They should probably get Beltran in front of some reporters quickly once they know he won't face discipline. Get out in front and move on.

[kcmets]

=Ceetar post_id=29682 time=1579026732 user_id=102]WTF would they fire Carlos? that makes no sense.

[Guest 41Forever]

Did the Astros name an interim yet?

[G-Fafif]

=41Forever post_id=29689 time=1579027759 user_id=69]
Did the Astros name an interim yet?

[Frayed Knot]

Regardless, the commissioner seems to want to pretend he's "resolved" this by telling other teams to stop talking about it. lalala nothing to see here, we made a big show of punishing the Astros and now it's all fine.

Tough to make the case that suspending for an entire year (and in effect breaking up) what had been the most successful Mgr/GM tandem in recent years, on top of imposing the maximum allowable fine under MLB's constitution and the taking away of four top draft picks is the equivalent of wallpapering over a bad paint job.



And beyond just the immediate penalties, do you think Hinch and Luhnow, or Cora for that matter, are getting jobs in MLB again? Or that Houston's lone championship after nearly 60 years of existence isn't tainted by all this? Or that this doesn't set the future of the franchise back by several years?

I mean, short of taking the franchise away from Jim Crane, I'm not sure what else Manfred was supposed to do; maybe get Trump to order a drone strike on the city of Houston?

[nymr83]

Frayed Knot wrote: Regardless, the commissioner seems to want to pretend he's "resolved" this by telling other teams to stop talking about it. lalala nothing to see here, we made a big show of punishing the Astros and now it's all fine. Tough to make the case that suspending for an entire year (and in effect breaking up) what had been the most successful Mgr/GM tandem in recent years, on top of imposing the maximum allowable fine under MLB's constitution and the taking away of four top draft picks is the equivalent of wallpapering over a bad paint job. And beyond just the immediate penalties, do you think Hinch and Luhnow, or Cora for that matter, are getting jobs in MLB again? Or that Houston's lone championship after nearly 60 years of existence isn't tainted by all this? Or that this doesn't set the future of the franchise back by several years? I mean, short of taking the franchise away from Jim Crane, I'm not sure what else Manfred was supposed to do; maybe get Trump to order a drone strike on the city of Houston?

Luhnow may have other issues with the whole Taubman thing. Hinch is widely respected as a manager and the investigation found he didnt create or involve himself in the scheme and even tried (half-heartedly?) to destroy the equipment involved. he is being punished for not stopping it, but i think he is still pretty damn employable.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/mlb/cglrhmlrwwbkacty27l7.pdfhttps://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/mlb/cglrhmlrwwbkacty27l7.pdf

[Guest 41Forever]

Wow. And there it is. He's the only player mentioned in the report.

Approximately two months into the 2017 season, a group of players, including Carlos Beltrán, discussed that the team could improve on decoding opposing teams' signs and communicating the signs to the batter. Cora arranged for a video room technician to install a monitor displaying the center field camera feed immediately outside of the Astros' dugout. (The center field camera was primarily used for player development purposes and was allowed under MLB rules at the time when used for that purpose.) Witnesses have provided largely consistent accounts of how the monitor was utilized. One or more players watched the live feed of the center field camera on the monitor, and after decoding the sign, a player would bang a nearby trash can with a bat to communicate the upcoming pitch type to the batter. (Witnesses explained that they initially experimented with communicating sign information by clapping, whistling, or yelling, but that they eventually determined that banging a trash can was the preferred method of communication.) Players occasionally also used a massage gun to bang the trash can. Generally, one or two bangs corresponded to certain off-speed pitches, while no bang corresponded to a fastball.

[Ceetar]

because he's no longer a player.

[kcmets]

Did you even read it? 2017, it's in the first sentence.

[smg58]

=nymr83 post_id=29695 time=1579036179 user_id=54]Luhnow may have other issues with the whole Taubman thing. Hinch is widely respected as a manager and the investigation found he didnt create or involve himself in the scheme and even tried (half-heartedly?) to destroy the equipment involved. he is being punished for not stopping it, but i think he is still pretty damn employable.

[TransMonk]

Yeah...this is a pretty horrible look for Beltran and the team's decision to hire him.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

They should fire him now and fire the idiot who hired him too

[seawolf17]

I'm a little surprised he/they haven't made a statement of some kind yet. I guess they're waiting for fallout to settle a bit?

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I'd whack him now. Even without this scandal he was an iffy choice IMO but I suppose to be fair they oughta come clean as to what he'd revealed and what he hadn't.



The president may get away with lying to the media but Carlos Beltran shouldn't

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Beltran is impressive as he can lie in 2 languages

https://nypost.com/2019/11/03/mets-risky-media-obsession-put-carlos-beltran-over-the-top/https://nypost.com/2019/11/03/mets-risky-media-obsession-put-carlos-beltran-over-the-top/

Carlos Beltran: Astros stole signs in 2017, but not illegally By Joel Sherman SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Carlos Beltran, a member of the 2017 Astros, denied knowledge of a camera that his team allegedly used to electronically steal signs that season, claiming that the World Series champions stole signs organically and legally. “I'm not aware of that camera,” Beltran told The Post in a text message exchange. “We were studying the opposite team every day.” A report on The Athletic, which included whistleblowing quotes from former Astro right-hander Mike Fiers, described a camera that was positioned in the outfield at Minute Maid Park. According to the story, Astros personnel deciphered and relayed signs to hitters through a banging-on-trash-can signal. Beltran, who is well-regarded for his baseball IQ and was named Mets manager earlier this offseason, insisted the Astros only stole signs from standing on second base. “We took a lot of pride studying pitchers [on] the computer. That is the only technology that I use and understand,” he said. “It was fun seeing guys get to the ballpark to look for little details. “The game of baseball for years, guys have given location and if the catchers get lazy and the pitcher doesn't cover the signs from second base [then] of course players are going to take advantage. I don't call that cheating. I call that using small details to take advantage. I think baseball is doing a great job adding new technology to make sure the game is even for both teams. It's easy to blame someone when they win.” Astros manager AJ Hinch declined comment on the report.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I have to wonder what kind of impact this may have on Beltran's Hall-of-Fame chances.

[Ceetar]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I have to wonder what kind of impact this may have on Beltran's Hall-of-Fame chances.

why? It's not like he has pimples.

[ashie62]

=kcmets post_id=29679 time=1579025522 user_id=53]
I find it hard to imagine Beltrán won't be fired soon, maybe this week...

[Guest 41Forever]

The only thing I worry about is that the other three "faces" of this issue are gone, and will soon fade away. Beltran will be the only one out there every day and it has the potential to come up over and over.



I know Manfred told the other teams not to comment on the discipline. But if I was advising the Mets for communications, I'd get Beltran before some reporters to face the music, get it all out in an answer-til-you-drop press conference and get it behind him.



He needs to say that he did lie to reporters, but not to the Commissioner and his investigators. He's going to get questions the first time around the league in each visiting city. He has goodwill with the players and the media, and will take a hit, but can rebuild that.



But they need to do that now before the "Will they fire him" speculation grows and grows. These guys have nothing else to write about. Give them a better story.

[nymr83]

I know Manfred told the other teams not to comment on the discipline

Did you like the Dodgers' "non-comment", it was basically "we've been asked not to comment on being cheated out of a world series"



https://twitter.com/Dodgers/status/1216955908799860736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%22%3EJanuaryJanuary">https://twitter.com/Dodgers/status/1216955908799860736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2020

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

They fired Mickey for a lot of reasons but being bad with the press (occasionally hostile, often awkward) was one of them.



Beltran is "good" with the press inasmuch as he can comfortably lie to them.



Fuck him and Trump

[Willets Point]

Maybe the solution to sign-stealing problems in MLB is to allow the pitcher & catcher to use technology like a smartwatch to communicate? I suppose batters/baserunners would still try to peek but it would be easier to hide from peeping eyes.

[Ceetar]

Willets Point wrote: Maybe the solution to sign-stealing problems in MLB is to allow the pitcher & catcher to use technology like a smartwatch to communicate? I suppose batters/baserunners would still try to peek but it would be easier to hide from peeping eyes.

whoops, the catcher kept the tech on during his AB while the pitcher was 'relieving himself' back in the video room.





You could make the 'live' feed in stadium have a delay.



You could use better signs that aren't as easily decoded. That's really all they had to do. be like, 5% more sneaky. But hell, maybe that's what happened. All this fuss is over something that seemingly ended on it's own because it was deemed to maybe not be that useful, and perhaps part of that is teams got better about encrypting their signs?



Really, of all the easy things MLB could've done to combat this, tapping the phone lines was their solution? That's the "put a traffic cone on the pot hole" level of problem solving.

[Willets Point]

All good points. My main idea is that people in baseball have been trying to steal signs forever, and if the sign weren't out in the open, they would be harder to steal. I don't think MLB is going to solve a systemic problem by punishing a few individuals, but maybe if they come up with a more secure way of the pitcher & catcher to communicate, then they wouldn't have such a big problem.

[Centerfield]

Just have the catcher text the pitcher before each pitch. Done. No signs.