Ex-Astros P Mike Fiers says Astros used center-field camera to steal signs (Update: MLB issues punishment) MERGED (2 Viewers)

I do not remember even starting this thread... then the dates on the OP and Tweets don't make sense...

Sorry, I was trying to clean it up and made a mistake and merged it with an old Nascar thread that you started. You can't delete the OP and your thread was older so you moved to the top.

So I just stuck the Astros OP content (that I had actually posted) on your post.

I was going to IM you about it but never got around to it.
 
Ok.. Just making sure I didn't do some drunk posting one night.
 
.......According to people at all levels throughout the sport — players, clubhouse staff members, scouts and executives — the idea that the Astros employed nefarious methods was an open secret.

“The whole industry knows they’ve been cheating their a---- off for three or four years,” said an executive from a team that faced the Astros in the playoffs during that span. “Everybody knew it.”

Like most of the people interviewed for this story, the executive spoke on the condition of anonymity to defy an MLB request that personnel from other teams refrain from speaking freely about the Astros.

He estimated “10 to 12” teams had complained to MLB about the Astros over the years. An executive from another team agreed with that number.........

 
Could there be any backlash to MLB itself if people have been complaining about this for years and they did nothing?
 
.......According to people at all levels throughout the sport — players, clubhouse staff members, scouts and executives — the idea that the Astros employed nefarious methods was an open secret.

“The whole industry knows they’ve been cheating their a---- off for three or four years,” said an executive from a team that faced the Astros in the playoffs during that span. “Everybody knew it.”

Like most of the people interviewed for this story, the executive spoke on the condition of anonymity to defy an MLB request that personnel from other teams refrain from speaking freely about the Astros.

He estimated “10 to 12” teams had complained to MLB about the Astros over the years. An executive from another team agreed with that number.........


Just getting to this article. It's a great read.


 
Good opinion piece
=================

Given the severity of the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal, it would be almost impossible for the coverup to do any more damage to the game of baseball. But the Astros and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred are giving it their best shot.

The Astros have been unrepentant and sorry only that they got caught, if that. Oh, sure, owner Jim Crane fired general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch, but that now appears to be a move made to deflect any blame away from him.

In the Astros’ embarrassing news conference on the first day of spring training, Crane insisted he bore no responsibility for the scandal and at one point actually said, “Our opinion is that it didn’t affect the outcome of the game.” Fifty-five seconds later, he said he did not say those words..........

 
This year’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, like the decade or so of ballots before it, presents voters with an uncomfortable opportunity for moral evaluation, this time in the form of Carlos Beltrán.

Beltrán is not an alleged steroid user like Barry Bonds, nor is he a confirmed steroid user like Alex Rodriguez. He has not run afoul of widespread sensibilities like Curt Schilling, nor has he gambled on his sport like Pete Rose. In fact, Beltrán was one of the most respected players of his era, widely considered a surefire manager long before his playing days ended with the Houston Astros and a World Series championship in 2017.

But he is the first of those 2017 Astros, the ones marred by a sign-stealing scandal that looms over the franchise to this day, to make his way onto the Hall of Fame ballot.

And he will not be the last.

When the Athletic initially reported the Astros used cameras to steal signs during the 2017 season, Beltrán downplayed his involvement in the scheme, which MLB’s investigation eventually revealed he had helped mastermind. The Mets named him their manager in November 2019, at which point he told the New York Post he hadn’t been aware of any cameras. When MLB released its findings a few months later, the Mets fired him before he ever wrote a lineup.

He wasn’t the only one. The Boston Red Sox fired Alex Cora for his role in the scheme, though they reinstated him after he served a year-long suspension and he remains their manager. The Astros fired AJ Hinch, who found a new home with the Detroit Tigers before the 2021 season and has managed them since.

Jose Altuve, who is likely to compile a strong Hall of Fame case by the time he is done, still gets booed everywhere he goes. Third baseman Alex Bregman and shortstop Carlos Correa, who may yet build Hall of Fame résumés, remain stained by the scandal, too.

But no one’s baseball trajectory has sputtered quite like Beltrán’s. He was part of YES Network broadcasts of New York Yankees games last season and will be again in 2023 but has yet to reestablish himself as a managerial candidate. The complication, of course, is that Beltrán had already established himself as a bona fide Hall of Fame candidate as a player.

As of late Monday afternoon, Beltrán was not positioned to hit the 75 percent of votes he would need to be elected to the Hall of Fame this year, according to an unofficial tally of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballots compiled by Ryan Thibodaux. Thibodaux’s tracker, which accounted for just less than 50 percent of all ballots expected, projects that, to make it, Beltrán would need votes on more than 90 percent of those ballots that were not yet known. It appears unlikely he’ll make the cut...............

 

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