the cheating thread

I found a picture of the mastermind behind "Codebreaker"!!!!11

https://i.imgur.com/1gUXTFX.jpg

mike bolsinger, the jays pitcher who got shelled by the astros in 2017 and never pitched in the majors again, has sued them

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2020/02/10/mike-bolsinger-sues-houston-astros-says-cheating-changed-his-career/4712164002/

https://sports.yahoo.com/new-details-in-astros-cheating-scandal-put-carlos-beltrans-legacy-in-jeopardy-230153436.html

sure ok "innocent astros"

jesus this organization

https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2020/02/13/astros-owner-on-sign-stealing-our-opinion-is-this-didnt-impact-the-game

What a shit show of a press conference . Ban this fucking team from the game

It's asking a bit much to expect a detached billionaire owner to take responsibility for actions by his "low level employees" (doubtlessly how he sees them). I'm not sure what people were expecting from this. Not to mention that Crane was exonerated by Manfred's report, which was a whole other load of BS, but it means that Crane really isn't obligated to comment on this at all.

xp otm

xp Crane is very obligated to comment on it, he’s the owner of the team. Also, good leaders take responsibility instead of running away from it.

They’re gonna get the fuck booed out of them all year

it's going to be hilarious

I haven't been paying super close attention the last couple of weeks -- have all the sanctions from the league come down or are we waiting for more?

still waiting on sox

according to passan, crane is also lying

Then came the 2018 postseason. During the American League Division Series, a man named Kyle McLaughlin, whom Crane brought into the Astros organization, was caught pointing a cellphone toward the Cleveland Indians' dugout from an on-field camera well. He was removed from the area. The Indians warned the Astros' AL Championship Series opponent, the Boston Red Sox, about McLaughlin, and during Game 1 of the ALCS, he was again removed from a camera well next to the dugout.

I wrote a story about the McLaughlin incidents, and in it, I reported that the Oakland A's had accused the Astros of relaying pitch types to batters during an August series. Further, I reported, two major league players had said they witnessed the Astros hitting a trash can in the dugout as a way to alert hitters.

Again: This was in 2018, more than a year before Crane claims he learned of the issue. The day after the story was published, Crane told another reporter to leave McLaughlin's name out of his story. Clearly Crane knew that a story about McLaughlin had been written. Either he learned of the story's details or avoided them altogether. The former would make him a liar. The latter would make him an owner who ignores potentially injurious information about his billion-dollar business.

the classic question: is he a dumbass, is he a liar, or is he a dumbass liar

day-um

You can see how visibly pissed Cody Bellinger is when talking about the Astros pic.twitter.com/QUXiNwzbxd

— Blake Harris (@BlakeHarrisTBLA) February 14, 2020

How many bench-clearing brawls for the Astros this year? Assume teams will be coming for them.

yep it's gonna be a long year for Houston

lol

The Houston Astros and their 'handling' of the sign-stealing scandal has led some SoCal Little League groups to ban the team from their names. Like in Long Beach: 'Parents are disgusted ... with the Astros and their lack of ownership and accountability.' https://t.co/Ox49MKZjNP

— Brian Martin (@TheBMartin) February 14, 2020

The internet is undefeated...🤣💀 pic.twitter.com/uIj1wt1W3w

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) February 14, 2020

disappointing they don't play the Dodgers in the regular season but they do have a September series at Yankees Stadium which is probably gonna get pretty rowdy

I mean every Yankees fan probably believes 100% that the ALCS walkoff vs. Chapman was illegitimate

I was referring to the question about Crane taking personal responsibility for any of this. Whether he knew about the cheating or not, Manfred let him off the hook, and he can claim that the guilty parties have been punished. There's not a single owner in baseball that would admit to anything more if placed on the same situation.

The fact that he botched his message during his press conference is another thing entirely.

Fresh walk up music for Jose

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0P6zEU_G9v4

this is really not going well. manfred was super pissy today about media reporting on it

The Braves' organist can be pretty sassy with opposing-player walkup music -- last time I saw them it was against the Astros and he used both "It's a Small World" and the Muppet Show theme for Altuve. My money's on heavy use of "Bang the Drum All Day" when they play in September.

Only caught tweets of like every manfred answer at the press conference but every single one makes him sound like more of a scumbag

What a slippery little weasel

Selig was a different sort of transparent weasel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3LM2iQ8p7A

Carlos Correa has the Jesus lines^

I never in a million years thought I would ever miss Commissioner Bud Selig.

To be clear, I don't miss Commissioner Bud Selig. But I'm not sure he could have handled this crisis any worse.

— Rany Jazayerli (@jazayerli) February 16, 2020

lol astros

Astros pitcher Francis Martes suspended 162 games without pay after testing positive for Boldenone, a performance-enhancing drug. He was previously suspended for a similar violation in March.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) February 17, 2020

Atlanta Braves outfielder Nick Markakis has joined the chorus blasting the Houston Astros over their sign-stealing scandal, telling reporters "every single guy over there needs a beating."

"It's anger," Markakis told reporters of his reaction to the Astros' scandal and the ensuing response. "I feel like every single guy over there needs a beating. It's wrong. They're messing with people's careers."

Markakis did not elaborate on what would constitute a "beating." At least two pitchers have indicated that they would consider throwing at Astros batters, and William Hill sportsbook set an over/under of 83.5 for Houston hit-by-pitches in 2020, a number that would rank as one of the 10 highest in the previous five seasons.

that would be a fun over to put your entire life savings on

lol now lebron is weighing in

Love this Justin Turner quote: “Calling the World Series trophy a piece of metal, I mean, I don’t know if the commissioner has ever won anything in his life. Maybe he hasn’t. But the reason every guy is in this room, the reason every guy is working out all offseason and showing up to camp early and putting in all the time and effort is specifically for that trophy, which, by the way, is called the Commissioner’s Trophy. So for him to devalue it the way he did yesterday tells me how out of touch he is with the players in this game. At this point, the only thing devaluing that trophy is that it says ‘Commissioner’ on it.”

it's pretty crazy to see baseball players talking like this about the league, never seen that before

good turner quote.

i think the players' outspokenness is a combo of (obviously) the scale of what the astros did and their idiotic communications to the public afterward, the upcoming bargaining agreement negotiations, and (going out on a limb here) possibly a greater level of awareness of labor issues in general.

it is pretty wild

KM otm, i think it's just that teams work very hard to implement systems of signals and strategy and even when guys uh "organically" or "artisanally" try to steal a sign here and there they'll get a ball in and high next time up. or god forbid a guy should try to break up a no hitter with a certain type of hit.

also for the Astros to have a team-wide communications system means the gloves are really off now. other teams feel like they were totally duped by these guys.

it's not the conspiracy, it's the coverup

i think it was turner who also mentioned that a) teams having to constantly change signs/have meetings creates pace-of-play issues much bigger than intentional walks, and b) being a pitcher who ends up standing 55 feet away from a hitter who knows what's coming is fucking dangerous

when will the first Astros beanball game occur? Do they play Saturday?

does it count as a beanball if someone in the stands threw it?

home saturday vs the nats
split squad at the nats on sunday
full squad at the tigers on monday

interestingly they do not play the yankees -- guess the atlantic/gulf coasts are largely separate

i missed this

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28730745/frustration-mounts-rob-manfred-edict-protect-astros-beanballs

Some organizations might be aided by their own limitations. The video room at Oakland Coliseum resides a significant distance from the dugout, former Athletics pitcher Brett Anderson mentioned.

“I know the A’s weren’t cheating,” said Anderson, who signed with Milwaukee this winter. “Because, one, I don’t know if they could afford it. And to relay from fucking 300 yards away in the video room? What were we going to do, get some vendor to throw some popcorn up in the air, or something? It’s too fucking far to relay something.”

Anderson joked the only way for Oakland to communicate would be through the ballpark’s decaying infrastructure. “The lights go out, it’s a curveball,” Anderson said. “If there’s a sewage backup, it’s a fastball.”

haha that rules

Off-topic but it was SO WEIRD when both Anderson AND Trevor Cahill came back to the A’s in ‘18

lol xp

eat shit papi

Papi on Mike Fiers: "Why didn't you talk about it during the season when it was going on? Why didn't you say, I don't want to be no part of it? So you're looking like a snitch. Why do you have to talk about it after? Why did nobody say anything while it was going on?"

— Ian Browne (@IanMBrowne) February 20, 2020

stfu & go drink a milkshake papi