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How Far Is Too Far? Astros Cheating Scandal Ends In Firings, Disarray, Disgust (1 Viewer)

As long as we should ban posting articles that make me scroll through a bunch of tweets to read the news? :lol:

In all seriousness, the punishment reminds me of bounty gate.  Probably could have done an extra year.  I feel for players like Yu Darvish and Kershaw who were really impacted by this

 
Yep. Some of their opponents did get painted with a broad brush respecting their clutch abilities and now there's this. Sad all around. I sort of always wondered, given that the signs were coming at such a delay between sign and pitch, if there couldn't have been a camera reader down in the dugout, too. Never mind Apple watches and the like.

Anyway, it's sort of like the 1954 Giants. Tainted title. 

 
Was watching Rich Eisen earlier this week, and he said (probably correctly), that if this had been NCAA rather than MLB, there would have been a removal of the championship as well.

 
rockaction said:
Yup, hit the Red Sox, too. Stealing sings like that. No bueno.
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Alex is in even more trouble imo.  He was part of the issue in Houston and then brought it over to Boston.

I would not be shocked if he gets a two year suspension or something else massive.

 
NewlyRetired said:
Alex is in even more trouble imo.  He was part of the issue in Houston and then brought it over to Boston.

I would not be shocked if he gets a two year suspension or something else massive.
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Yeah, that thought crossed my mind. Wow. That's such a big cheating culture that it depends on all of your guys not talking. This is apparently why conspiracies are so hard to pull off with nobody knowing.

Unless, of course, all the witnesses wind up dead. But this is sports, however huge. You have to imagine somebody leaks and somebody pursues it. 

At the very least...

Undone

I can't remember anything as bad for baseball as the steroid era. 

 
rockaction said:
Fox News is the news, fellas. This isn't the PSF.  :football: It will be heard the proper way. Obfuscation, reaction, innuendo, and bumpers. 
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Just a pet peeve.  If i wanted tweets, I would go on Twitter.  I hate that I cant get away from it on "news" sites and on TV shows.  I am old though.. 

 
KarmaPolice said:
Just a pet peeve.  If i wanted tweets, I would go on Twitter.  I hate that I cant get away from it on "news" sites and on TV shows.  I am old though.. 
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I used the finest news room in America. :shrug:

Heh. Nah, I don't blame you. Will update with a better article later.

 
Astros fans in a bit of a bind, too. I mean, I  basically waited my entire life for my team to win a title.  What am I supposed to do with my joy? Retroactively swallow it?

 
Teams engaged in systematic cheating should be stripped of their titles.  Anything else is a slap on the wrist.

It’s like giving a thief community service, but letting them keep the stolen goods.  It’s not really that great a deterrent if stealing is still the better option.

 
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The behavior of AJ Hinch seems strange. He had the motivation to pick up a bat and disable the video monitors because he disapproved of its purpose, but yet he never simply yelled out to his players, "Hey, cut that crap out."

 
kevzilla said:
Astros fans in a bit of a bind, too. I mean, I  basically waited my entire life for my team to win a title.  What am I supposed to do with my joy? Retroactively swallow it?
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This is unfortunate. It makes me think of the steroid era, Giambi, Clemens, Pettite, Ortiz, etc. and think about the Sox/Yanks '04 and '04 titles.

 
Sounds like I hold a less popular opinion.

There need to be rules. There should be established consequences for violations. I just don't think any of this justifies someone losing their job, or vacating wins or titles. It's just not that big a deal for me.

 
brun said:
Sounds like I hold a less popular opinion.

There need to be rules. There should be established consequences for violations. I just don't think any of this justifies someone losing their job, or vacating wins or titles. It's just not that big a deal for me.
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While there may not be established consequences, there are rules. The Astros pretty clearly violated them. 

 
Rules but no precedent, that is. There seems to be precedent now, which is why that grey area, now filled in, is so important to baseball and cheating.

As someone upthread pointed out, it's not the biggest deal in life. But it's a pretty darn big deal with respect to integrity of the game and sport.

 
Come to think of it, how different is this than any other consumer scam, really? What is it about integrity of the game that should be so important?

It reminds me of the scandal a bunch of years back where video game journalists were paid by the video game companies themselves to put out a "review" of said game and pass if off to computers as a genuine review, though that's not totally on point.

It just reinforces that we want our information to be "free," but only to the certain extent of what the line means vis a vis sport, cash, outcome and the rest.

 
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I mean, if we're looking at IP law and its rubric as an overall doctrine for information, it seems like reverse engineering out and that catcher's signals are more like a patent than a trade secret.

That may be a forced analogy, but it's something to think about. You can't, under patent law, just take a vacuum apart willy-nilly and sell the protected invention under a different name as just as effective a product at market. But you can reverse engineer a trade secret; that is, you can take apart an product without a patent and duplicate it and sell it as your own at market. The reason people use trade secrets is because they bet against reverse engineering and figuring the invention of recipe out even without the static caused by patents and markets.

I don't know. There's just a grey area there where one side has the information, has to convey it to the supplier of something and somebody else wants to use that particular information for its market.

 
I think you are looking at this too deeply rock. MLB doesn't want it in their game. It doesn't matter where it sits in the overall life perspective. 

 
rockaction said:
Come to think of it, how different is this than any other consumer scam, really? What is it about integrity of the game that should be so important?

It reminds me of the scandal a bunch of years back where video game journalists were paid by the video game companies themselves to put out a "review" of said game and pass if off to computers as a genuine review, though that's not totally on point.

It just reinforces that we want our information to be "free," but only to the certain extent of what the line means vis a vis sport, cash, outcome and the rest.
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It took me quite a while to realize that a lot of the product reviews I read are just affiliate sites. Just one reason why communities like this are so great as members are not just willing to share, but also call out the disingenuous.

 
rockaction said:
Come to think of it, how different is this than any other consumer scam, really? What is it about integrity of the game that should be so important?

It reminds me of the scandal a bunch of years back where video game journalists were paid by the video game companies themselves to put out a "review" of said game and pass if off to computers as a genuine review, though that's not totally on point.

It just reinforces that we want our information to be "free," but only to the certain extent of what the line means vis a vis sport, cash, outcome and the rest.
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To answer the bolded, I'm less likely to watch the sport they are selling to me as a consumer, the more I know the rules of the sport are being broken.  Astro's fans are asking in this thread what they should think now.... but what about the fans of the teams the Astros beat by cheating? What are they supposed to think? One team's fans missed out on a WS Title because the Astros cheated it away from them. 

 
Politician Spock said:
To answer the bolded, I'm less likely to watch the sport they are selling to me as a consumer, the more I know the rules of the sport are being broken.  Astro's fans are asking in this thread what they should think now.... but what about the fans of the teams the Astros beat by cheating? What are they supposed to think? One team's fans missed out on a WS Title because the Astros cheated it away from them. 
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I'd really tend to agree with you. I think the more rampant the cheating, the less eyes they'll have on the screen. The whole dynamic of baseball changes with knowing what's coming. It makes it a different game to watch.

 
brun said:
It took me quite a while to realize that a lot of the product reviews I read are just affiliate sites. Just one reason why communities like this are so great as members are not just willing to share, but also call out the disingenuous.
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Where would you say the product reviews are affiliate site reviews done most commonly and how?

I'm always on the look out, but never really effective in how that goes. A lot of my buying recently has been on the second hand market with limited edition clothing, and honestly, who knows what you're getting?

 
brun said:
Sounds like I hold a less popular opinion.

There need to be rules. There should be established consequences for violations. I just don't think any of this justifies someone losing their job, or vacating wins or titles. It's just not that big a deal for me.
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Then you might as well allow them to cheat.

 
Hov34 said:
I'm going hold off judgement until I hear from @TheIronSheik
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I would say that no matter what sport, your team, whoever they are, are somehow pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules to get a competitive advantage.  If they get caught, they have to pay the price.  But no team is squeaky clean.  If the discovery of a team breaking the rules offends you, maybe sports isn't meant for you.  Steroids, corked bats, spitballs... the game was born and raised on cheating to get an advantage.  This is a sport that has unwritten rules that say you can peg a guy with a fastball in the back if he hits a home run off of you.  It's also the only sport where an official can see something done wrong, but will only make the correct call if you appeal to him.  

I think this whole thing is being overblown.  I'm all for the penalties since the team got caught, but I don't think it's as big a deal as most are making it out to be.  

 
I, for one, prefer my professional athletes to be cheating.  I mean, they are doing it for my entertainment after all. 

 
TheIronSheik said:
I would say that no matter what sport, your team, whoever they are, are somehow pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules to get a competitive advantage.  If they get caught, they have to pay the price.  But no team is squeaky clean.  If the discovery of a team breaking the rules offends you, maybe sports isn't meant for you.  Steroids, corked bats, spitballs... the game was born and raised on cheating to get an advantage.  This is a sport that has unwritten rules that say you can peg a guy with a fastball in the back if he hits a home run off of you.  It's also the only sport where an official can see something done wrong, but will only make the correct call if you appeal to him.  

I think this whole thing is being overblown.  I'm all for the penalties since the team got caught, but I don't think it's as big a deal as most are making it out to be.  
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Regarding the bolded, this whole issue shouldn't be an issue to die hard fans, and to be honest, I think most die hard fans aren't offended by it.

But as a business, no sport can rely financially on die hard fans alone. They also need  the casual fans... the  ones that take the wife and kids to one game a year.  These are  the customers they lose when the integrity of the game is shattered. And there are millions of these types of customers to pro sports. Millions of them. 

 
Politician Spock said:
Regarding the bolded, this whole issue shouldn't be an issue to die hard fans, and to be honest, I think most die hard fans aren't offended by it.

But as a business, no sport can rely financially on die hard fans alone. They also need  the casual fans... the  ones that take the wife and kids to one game a year.  These are  the customers they lose when the integrity of the game is shattered. And there are millions of these types of customers to pro sports. Millions of them. 
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I understand what you're saying, but I don't think people are going to stop going to games because a team was stealing signs.  I mean, I guess some people might.  But 99% of people will not.

 
TheIronSheik said:
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think people are going to stop going to games because a team was stealing signs.  I mean, I guess some people might.  But 99% of people will not.
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MLB is a business where the players alone take 50% of the revenue. Add in the labor costs of the coaches, front office and support staff, and MLB is a business with ridiculously high labor costs, before they even pay for rent of the stadiums, etc.... Losing 1% of the fans, while small compared to over all revenue, is huge when compared to what's left after all business costs. And honestly I don't think it would be as small as just 1%. I think it could be as high as 5 to 10%, and now your talking about the entire profit margin in the business model. 

 
I wonder if MLB knew that the Astros would simply fire them both as soon as they were suspended? Doesn’t seem to punish the org that much (other than loss of continuity). Basically just gave them a public scapegoat and ability to “move on” with a clean slate.

 
E-Z Glider said:
I wonder if MLB knew that the Astros would simply fire them both as soon as they were suspended? Doesn’t seem to punish the org that much (other than loss of continuity). Basically just gave them a public scapegoat and ability to “move on” with a clean slate.
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Losing draft picks will most likely mean that the Astros will return to rebuilding in about 3 to 4 years.  This punishment might not seem like a lot now, but I think in a couple of years we'll see the true affect of these fines.

 
I'm an Astros fan. A very big fan. The last few months I have been wavering on my continued support. I felt there needed to be major changes for me to continue my support.

That has happened. 

I have not yet recaptured by enthusiasm, but this is a step in the right direction. Its an acknowledgement of wrong-doing and specific actions that are the right thing to do, even though detrimental to the team. Also, losing those draft picks is pretty huge. 

I now feel morally okay about resuming my stance as a fan, but I am not particularly enthusiastic about it.

 
To be sure with cos and Shiek's sentiments, I used to be a diehard Red Sox and baseball fan. The games proved too long for my forty year-old self, so I stopped watching. But as for cheating, back when I was diehard, I can say with certainty that Ortiz and Ramirez, through leaked test result info., damaged those titles they won in my mind a bit. I'm with cos on the matter, really, though no justice was ever brought to bear on the team via the CBA. Were the Sox cheating in 2018 they way they got nicked for it this year? How would that make me feel about a great 108 win game season or so? 

We'll find out. I wonder what my stance will be. 

 
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Stealing signs is not against the rules.  The Astros just took it to another level by using technology.  It doesn't really change the integrity of the game because sign stealing has occurred since the game began.  It's the whole reason why teams mix their signs and switch things up.  If other teams were concerned and thought their signs were being stolen they could have changed the sequencing like every other team in the history of baseball has done.  The act itself is not the issue.  The issue is the means to do it.  Obviously MLB has put in rules disallowing cameras to be used to steal signs and the Astros violated those rules and have been punished.  Time to move on.

I agree with the Sheik.  I think this is way overblown.  They were caught.  They were punished.  Move on.  It's not that big of deal. 

 
TheIronSheik said:
Losing draft picks will most likely mean that the Astros will return to rebuilding in about 3 to 4 years.  This punishment might not seem like a lot now, but I think in a couple of years we'll see the true affect of these fines.
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Oh, I agree. I think the draft penalties are huge to the org. The $5m was barely a slap on the wrist (but apparently it was the most they could fine them). The suspensions only seemed to punish the individuals. I wasn't expecting them to fire them instantly. I just wonder if the MLB knew that would be the result. Almost seemed to "backfire" on them to me, but maybe they knew this would be the outcome?

 
Gally said:
Stealing signs is not against the rules.  The Astros just took it to another level by using technology.  It doesn't really change the integrity of the game because sign stealing has occurred since the game began.  It's the whole reason why teams mix their signs and switch things up.  If other teams were concerned and thought their signs were being stolen they could have changed the sequencing like every other team in the history of baseball has done.  The act itself is not the issue.  The issue is the means to do it.  Obviously MLB has put in rules disallowing cameras to be used to steal signs and the Astros violated those rules and have been punished.  Time to move on.

I agree with the Sheik.  I think this is way overblown.  They were caught.  They were punished.  Move on.  It's not that big of deal. 
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This is about where I stand.  It was a step too far according to the MLB, so do something about it, but it's odd to get too worked about something that is built into the game like stealing signals is.  

If you are serious as a league, you definitely have to do more to a team than just vacating titles- that does jack.  Draft picks, decrease salary cap, etc.  Do stuff that impacts a team to send a message.  

 
Go read Tim Flannery's Facebook post.  It's spot on to what I've been saying since this was announced.  

Also, the famous Shot Heard Round The World was accomplished by sign stealing.  This has been around forever.  I said from the get-go that if you're dumb enough not to disguise your signs and change them, that's on you.  Tim Flannery said the same thing... and more.  

 
TheIronSheik said:
Go read Tim Flannery's Facebook post.  It's spot on to what I've been saying since this was announced.  

Also, the famous Shot Heard Round The World was accomplished by sign stealing.  This has been around forever.  I said from the get-go that if you're dumb enough not to disguise your signs and change them, that's on you.  Tim Flannery said the same thing... and more.  
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You can say it as many times as you want. It doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t what is being discussed and isn’t what is being punished. 

 
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