2020 Baseball Thread

[LIPH]

Major League Baseball was investigating the Houston Astros for illegally stealing signs during games. Jeff Luhnow, the general manager, and AJ Hinch, the manager, were just suspended for one year. After the announcement about the suspensions was made, the Astros owner fired both of them.

The Red Sox are also being investigated for stealing signs. I wonder if Alex Cora and whoever their general manager is might be next?

[Dr.Corona]

Scuttlebutt making the rounds.....sounds like indeed Cora is gonna get hammered too.
This morning, my girlfriend heard about the "stealing of signs" controversy on the news.
She thought Astros were stealing actual display signs of other teams..

[Bicycle Bill]

Cora did get the heave-ho.

Alex Cora, who in 2018 led the Boston Red Sox to a World Series championship and on Monday was found by Major League Baseball to have played an integral part in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal as their bench coach, on Tuesday was let go by the Red Sox.

The team announced the parting as a mutual agreement.  Cora was under contract through 2021.

“We agreed today that parting ways was the best thing for the organization,” Cora said in a statement.  “I do not want to be a distraction to the Red Sox as they move forward.”

The club said, “This is a sad day for us.  Alex is a special person and a beloved member of the Red Sox.  We are grateful for his impact on our franchise.  We will miss his passion, his energy and his significant contributions to the communities of New England and Puerto Rico.”

The decision comes as MLB initiates an investigation into alleged illegal sign-stealing by the Red Sox during the 2018 season, under Cora’s watch.  Any discipline would amount to a second strike against the Red Sox, who in 2017 were fined for stealing signs by using an Apple Watch.  Commissioner Rob Manfred warned teams then that further technology-driven incidents would bring severe penalties.

Let's see — teams are already using videos and computer programming for frame-by-frame analysis of these videos to correct flaws in batting or pitching (or to detect 'tells' in opposing pitchers).  And literally every ballgame that is televised today has a camera out in straight-away center field focused in on the batter (and catcher), so the signs the catcher passes between himself and the pitcher are already out there in the open for anyone with a TV set to see them.  Sorry, commissioner, but the technological genie is already out of the bottle, and it ain't gonna be easy to put him back.

-"BB"-

[LIPH]

I wonder if Carlos Beltran will be the next one to be fired? The Mets hired him as their manager in November. He played for the Astros in 2017 and is the only player mentioned in the MLB report about the cheating. That isn't a good look, especially for a guy with no previous managerial experience. It's not like they hired someone with a track record of winning.

[atmarler26]

The Red Sox are also being investigated for stealing signs. I wonder if Alex Cora and whoever their general manager is might be next?

I sure hope the 2018 allegations do not turn out to be true (but expecting the worst)....it would be a shame to see such a magical season (where Buffett playing at Fenway helped us win the WS) forever have an asterisk next to it because of something like this. It would be so disappointing.

[tropicalmindset]

MLB did state that they won't be punishing Carlos Beltran, so he is most likely safe.

However, the Red Sox did fire their GM earlier in the off-season. I wonder if the owners had some intel on this and wanted to try and keep it on the down low

[LIPH]

Beltran is out as Mets manager.

[atmarler26]

Looking back on and listening to the show from 8/9/2018 will never feel quite the same again now that we can be almost certain that so many of those grand slams and clutch hits (or at least the ones in regular season home games) happened not because of a combination of real skill and good fortune, but because they knew or at least had a very good idea of what pitch was coming in those situations (and received that information during the game itself, not in between games). It all seemed too good to be true, and now we just about know that it was.

Even though I don't really like the Houston Astros, I was also rooting for them in the 2017 WS because and only because of what the city went through that year during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey- and now we officially know their whole story is tainted as well. It is all such a shame.

[LIPH]

Congratulations to Derek Jeter and Larry Walker, the 2 newest members of the Hall of Fame. Jeter missed being voted in unanimously by 1 vote. Walker is the second Canadian player voted in, after Ferguson Jenkins.

[Dr.Corona]

Congratulations to Derek Jeter and Larry Walker, the 2 newest members of the Hall of Fame. Jeter missed being voted in unanimously by 1 vote. Walker is the second Canadian player voted in, after Ferguson Jenkins.

Please explain....ANYONE......Please???

[Dr.Corona]

Congratulations to Derek Jeter and Larry Walker, the 2 newest members of the Hall of Fame. Jeter missed being voted in unanimously by 1 vote. Walker is the second Canadian player voted in, after Ferguson Jenkins.

And Barry Bonds & Roger Clemens once again come up short & pay for their scandalous cheating ways.
Oh the horror...........

[SMLCHNG]

I'm beside myself with happiness for Larry Walker!!! I'm so pleased he's going to be inducted as a Rockies player (he played with the Expos and Cardinals, and is Canadian).

https://www.mlb.com/rockies/news/derek- ... ll-of-fame

[SeattleParrotHead]

Congratulations to Derek Jeter and Larry Walker, the 2 newest members of the Hall of Fame. Jeter missed being voted in unanimously by 1 vote. Walker is the second Canadian player voted in, after Ferguson Jenkins.

Please explain....ANYONE......Please???

Three people didn't vote for Kid Griffey and 23 didn't vote Willie Mays... 28 didn't vote for Joe DiMaggio and 43 idiots didn't vote for Mickey Mantle! They should review the votes every year and pull the voting rights of some of those fools.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/bull ... ercentages

[atmarler26]

So glad the Red Sox investigation is finally over with. Maybe a minor asterisk, but there are probably a lot of teams who have members of their staff doing things to the extent of what JT Watkins did (updating pregame analysis during the game). It isn't nothing, but at least we know they weren't actually relaying information and getting signals in real time like the Astros were, which means the memories of 2018 are still just about preserved.

The song that Peter Wolf sang in the opening set at Fenway that night has a whole new meaning now: "Never thought about the consequences....I must've got lost, lost my baseball soul, somewhere down the line back in Houston....I must've got lost, to give away my days as an MLB manager."

[atmarler26]

Baseball is finally back! Was nice to see the Red Sox put up 13 runs in their first game back behind closed doors, even if it was against Baltimore's pitching. Eovaldi was quoted as saying that the Sox could surprise this year despite losing Betts and others, and I agree. In a shortened season anything can happen. But each game also means that much more.

Another idea I had that isn't baseball related, but didn't know where else to post it since the old forum "March Madness: Buffett Style" is closed to new posts: Maybe this year because of the cancellation, we could have done March Sadness: Buffett Style and done just a 16-song bracket of which is the saddest Buffett song. Death of an Unpopular Poet? He Went to Paris? Or even Goodnight Irene? Wonder if we could think of 16 that are contenders....

[LIPH]

Major League Baseball announced that the Field Of Dreams game is postponed until next year, it was supposed to be August 13. I'm shocked it took them so long to make it official.

[LIPH]

Justin Verlander needs Tommy John surgery. I guess his most strenuous activity for the next year will be boinking Kate Upton.

[LIPH]

It's been a bad couple of weeks for former major league baseball players. Outfielders Jay Johnstone and Lou Johnson both died a week or so ago. Former Dodgers relief pitcher Ron Perranoski died yesterday. And Bob Gibson, one of the greatest pitchers of my lifetime, died Friday.

Gibson spent his entire career with the St. Louis Cardinals. For several years the Cardinals catcher was Tim McCarver. When I lived in NY, McCarver was an announcer for the Mets for a few years. He used to tell a story about Gibson. He said when he went out to the mound to talk to Gibson once, Gibson told him "get back behind the plate, the only thing you know about pitching is that you can't hit it."

[LIPH]

And it just keeps going. Hall of Famer Joe Morgan died, he was 77.

[SMLCHNG]

And it just keeps going. Hall of Famer Joe Morgan died, he was 77.