What? No forum about the Houston Astros? | FerrariChat

What? No forum about the Houston Astros?

Discussion in 'Sports' started by Whisky, Jan 13, 2020.

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  1. Whisky

    Whisky Two Time F1 World Champ
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    The original Fernando
    I am shocked...
     
  2. Nospinzone

    Nospinzone F1 Veteran

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    When Alex Cora gets fired maybe Bill can hire him! :D
     
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  3. pilotoCS

    pilotoCS F1 World Champ
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    Are you talking about the ban on the manager and GM, and their subsequent firing by the owner?

    I thought sign-stealing and lip reading were a part of the game's subtleties. I guess not . . . .
     
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  4. willwork04

    willwork04 F1 Rookie
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    I love Hinch and Luhnow. But, I agree with Crane’s hard stance. You lie with dogs, you are going to get fleas. They knew the risks. Now they must accept the consequences.
     
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  5. TexasF355F1

    TexasF355F1 Six Time F1 World Champ
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    I'm torn but Crane knew too. So he has to save face.

    I haven't cared since I heard about it. Over the years I've learned that baseball is so silly about their "stats". Baseball is more exciting with the "cheating". In this case they still have to hit the ball. Whether they know the signs or not. Whether it's elaborate or not, the Astros are definitely not the only team doing things like this.

    I want to know what Mike Fiar's beef is all about. What did he gain by speaking about it?
     
  6. tomc

    tomc Two Time F1 World Champ

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    Sign stealing is a old as the hills in baseball. Can someone explain to me in a few sentences how this is different? They used technology?!?
    I've not followed this closely....T
     
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  7. Nospinzone

    Nospinzone F1 Veteran

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    Yea, I guess they used technology instead of old world sneaky underhandedness. :D
     
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  8. tomc

    tomc Two Time F1 World Champ

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    I know you are kidding, but that seems to be all I can figure.

    Didn't the Red Sox have a guy in The Green Monster stealing opposition signs?

    T
     
  9. willwork04

    willwork04 F1 Rookie
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    Reports say Crane didn’t know. I’m not sure he did know. I’m sure lots of people say “how could he NOT know?”.

    Well he owns the team, sure. But, he is also running another business. With a million other things going on.... it is hard to be in the weeds on everything. I have 120 guys that work for me offshore. I sure as **** don’t know everything going on.
     
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  10. TexasF355F1

    TexasF355F1 Six Time F1 World Champ
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    Good point. I'm just always suspicious when it comes to winning in sports. I guess I'm unfairly comparing Crane to Craft.
     
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  11. willwork04

    willwork04 F1 Rookie
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    Who knows. Heck he might have been the one telling them to do anything possible to win.
     
  12. ebobh15

    ebobh15 F1 Rookie
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    They used monitors to steal pitches in real time and transmitted it to the batter in real time, way worse and way more effective than anything before then (the Red Sox were using smart watches to steal signs, resulting in a death penalty warning from the Commissioner in 2017 everyone knew). Look at the difference between their home and away games in the 2017 World Series and it reveals stark differences in their performance that is now explained by being able to read the pitches. Darvish especially got the hammer. He was the hottest pitcher in baseball, and they rung him up like a pinball game. Kershaw had pitched a gem in Dodger Stadium, and all of a sudden couldn't get them out in Houston. Read the report, look at the systemic way they cheated; they had portable monitors installed after people started to get nervous about them using the replay monitors to cheat. It went on all year, even when Hinch told them to stop & tore out the monitors twice (but did nothing else).

    Cora, their bench coach, was the mastermind of the cheating, and he did the same in 2018 with the Red Sox when the Dodgers got screwed again (as did there Yankees and Houston's and Boston's opponents throughout the year). Lots of people hurt in the aftermath; Kershaw's reputation as a choker in a big game was confirmed, Darvish declined to sign a new contract and is playing elsewhere after the fan anger at his collapse, Dave Roberts earned a collar of tanking in big games. The Dodgers won't get the championship trophy, but MLB should fly to Houston and pick up the hardware and make them tear down their 2017 pennant.

    I played through college, and organic means (sloppy catchers, pitchers who tip the pitch when they hold the ball or their arm differently for different pitches) is part of the game. That's why every team from little league on up has a process to disguise pitches whenever a runner is on second. Teams also still have pretty exotic signs for the third base coach at all levels. Technology has changed the game a lot, making cheating easier and less obvious, but no less despicable than when the Giants did it in 1951 to make up a 13-game deficit (once again, to the Dodgers) by putting a guy with binoculars in the center field scoreboard; BTW, Bobby Thompson's shot heard round the world was tipped, so much for the purity of heroics.

    What a sad day for a sport I love. I quit watching MLB after the 2017 Series; I kept telling my wife something stunk, but I couldn't figure out what - it just felt wrong. Now we all know, although the parade never held, the championship rings never made, and the actual human beings who were victimized by Cora and Beltran's cheating, won't get any of that back.
     
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  13. willwork04

    willwork04 F1 Rookie
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    Where is the report? I would love to be able to read it.
     
  14. tomc

    tomc Two Time F1 World Champ

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    Excellent. Thanks for the synopsis.

    Btw, I read somewhere that Sandy Koufax tipped his curve ball. Still couldn't hit it.

    T
     
  15. ebobh15

    ebobh15 F1 Rookie
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    I saw Koufax pitch one of his no-hitters; I really think that if he had Kevin Costner catching and telling the batter what was coming, it wouldn't have mattered. Bob Gibson was the fiercest, Don Drysdale the scariest (he's stick one in your ear and laugh), but over a five-year period in the 1960's, Koufax was the best I ever saw, then or since.
     
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  16. ebobh15

    ebobh15 F1 Rookie
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    Here's a link to the report published by the Boston Globe (BTW, they'll have a new manager next year, too...): https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2020/01/13/read-mlb-report-astros-cheating-scandal/A0997LnftNuxKQJCJMtKKJ/story.html

    Cora was the one who had a camera installed adjacent to their dugout that gave them the centerfield camera feed in real time - that camera is supposed to only be used for 'player development' and not available to the teams during games. The team and a number of players were active participants, and everyone in the dugout knew what was going on - so did a lot of opponents, who had been asking MLB to investigate Houston and Boston for a few years.
     
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  17. willwork04

    willwork04 F1 Rookie
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    Thank you. Will read it tonight/tomorrow.

    How widespread do you think electronic cheating is across the league?
     
  18. ebobh15

    ebobh15 F1 Rookie
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    As a lot of people have said, the old time cheating stuff has always been around. Stealing signs by the third base coach (who is the only one who can really see the catcher's signals if the catcher is sloppy), looking for tips and tendencies in a pitcher, and dupe plays (hidden balls, dropping fly balls on purpose) look to take advantage of the rules, or take advantage of the other team's sloppiness, to get an advantage. Those issues are known, ad hoc, and defended against every day. Catchers spend countless hours every year working on how to frame pitches and induce umpires to call a ball a strike, and pitchers still doctor balls (illegal, but tough to catch unless the other team really pays attention). All of these things are in the repertoire of things everyone knows is done from time to time, so their potential to be used systematically is pretty low. A cheating conspiracy (which is was this was) is way different IMHO.

    Modern tech gives us both opportunities and challenges. Teams have books on every pitcher and batter, looking for tendencies. I'd hate to be playing now because I'd spend 5-10 hours extra every week just studying match-ups and opponents. Re tech, there's no going back, and a lot of it helps make the game better (if they can continue to cut down the time they take for review, and continue to speed the game up). I personally favor balls and strikes called by machine; umpires are too easily fooled by the way the ball is framed. They already use tech to call safe or out, and the tech to call strikes is ready to go. After this, they'll probably also delete some camera positions, and also remove them from the dugouts and locker rooms (like the NFL does, and which it enforces, as we saw a couple weeks ago when a Patriot film team was caught taping the Bengal's bench for a brief period of time)
     
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  19. tomc

    tomc Two Time F1 World Champ

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    My dad said the same about Koufax. High praise indeed from a Brooklynite!
    T
     
  20. tomc

    tomc Two Time F1 World Champ

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    Thanks for posting this.
    Players seem to throw manager and GM under the bus....we knew it was wrong, but would have stopped if Hinch told us to. :rolleyes:
    Go out of their way to clear the owner, early and often.
    T
     
  21. TexasF355F1

    TexasF355F1 Six Time F1 World Champ
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    So it sounds like Lunhow was the ring leader. And that the business side and baseball side were in fact separate.
     
  22. ebobh15

    ebobh15 F1 Rookie
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    Luhnow is probably most responsible for setting the tone desired by his owner (who is getting to skate on all of this IMHO), and then remaining in the 'plausible denial' mode while his team disproportionately won at home. Hinch was way too reticent to stop it once it got rolling, tearing down the monitor twice, but not telling Cora or Beltran to knock it off. Everyone in the dugout knew what was happening, and almost all took part in one way or another. Cora is/was the main actor, devising a way to put live feeds into the dugout, and then leading the system to tip batters re what was coming. I think Cora could get a Pete Rose-like penalty since he poisoned two teams. Beltran will skate from MLB, but might get damage from the Mets, who now have a proven cheater leading their team.

    Ask any owner if they'd trade firing their manager and GM, losing 4 draft picks and getting a $5M fine for winning a World Series, and almost all of them would see that as the deal of a lifetime. The value of the Astros increased substantially after the 2017 win, money that can be used to continue to improve the team. $5M to a MLB owner is chump change...

    Yu Darvish, who probably suffered the most from his fan base after the 2017 collapse, tweeted today that he wanted to be a part of the Dodgers World Series winning parade, and asked to be able to wear one of those "You garbage" jerseys some people made up at the time. He's taking it pretty well, kind of like the innocent man getting out of prison.
     
  23. tomc

    tomc Two Time F1 World Champ

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    Cut to the chase and fire him now. Horrible move to hire him as manager.
    T
     
  24. Gatorrari

    Gatorrari F1 World Champ
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    Perhaps the Astros should be forced to vacate the 2017 title? After all, USC was forced to vacate a college football championship.
     
  25. tomc

    tomc Two Time F1 World Champ

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    Yes, and award it to the New York Mets!
    T
     

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