Moose Milligan

Not many people like being right more than you.

Dude, CoC loooooooooooooooves DSJR. Couldn't get enough of him last year, remember? I want to get a bunch of DSJR baseball cards and mail them to him. Maybe a big box of them all at once or a steady drip campaign of one card per day until the season starts.

What are you brain trusts looking for out of Rutschman this year? What are you expecting?

Expecting Akin and Kremer up at some point this season.

Whoa. It's like....a well thought out, measured response that deals with reality. What a concept. Well done, LookinUp, well done!

I suppose. I mean, I wouldn't get my hopes up but it could be cool. With Elias, Sig, etc, for once I feel like a signing like this could actually have some upside.

....so it's a low level signing.

I think it's pretty great when a low level signing slips past wildcard. Kinda made my morning.

Nah, there shouldn't be any leniency, no staggering. Team's gotta deal with how to fill the gaps, too.

I was expecting to see some of the players getting suspensions. I thought after the managers getting in trouble, that would come down next. I suppose it'd be hard for them to suspend practically the entire team but...it seems that some players should go down, too. I dunno how to quantify how many games they should lose but it's a bit ridiculous that they won't be getting any penalties.

Isn't he always hurt?

Big fan of his. I know he's not a great fielder and that's ok. But I think he's a very solid, professional hitter and a good teammate. Good character. Glad to see the Orioles draft and develop a guy like this.

Just happy no reports of forearm stiffness, etc.

Frobby! You big softie!!

Finding out that Frobby enjoys romantic comedies just made my day.

Absurd.

I think we should proceed with Cobb as not expecting much from him. Anything positive we get, including being able to trade him, is a positive.

I'd root for the Astros if they brought Buck aboard. They canned Luhnow and Hinch. Sure, they'd have some players remaining that benefited from the cheating but I can't imagine most players saying "no" to something that would give them a leg up on the competition that's not steroids. I would bet that some of these guys lump sign stealing, corking bats and pitchers scuffing the ball with what just happened in Houston.

MLB continues to get caught with their pants down. First on steroids, then on electronic cheating. I guess it's hard to tell what the next thing will be but it seems that MLB is always operating from a reactive place where they have to put out fires and then figure out how to explain them. Selig didn't get it, Manfred doesn't seem to get it, either.

Did not see that. Understood. But I think most teams are probably suspicious of other teams cheating. Players talk, of course. I'm players were suspicious of the Yankees too. After all, they're the Evil Empire I agree, doing nothing is terrible. If you're going to punish the ringleaders and the franchises, not punishing the players isn't a good look, either. Hard to prove who did what but there certainly seems to be players that without a doubt benefitted. Also hard to prove that Houston doesn't win the title in '17 without benefitting from this but I am inclined to agree with you. I'd like to see Cora get a lifetime ban because...well, I already hated him to begin with.

I agree with all your points. The conclusion that Bonds never failed a drug test doesn't really summarize what happened here. And to your cycling point, Lance Armstrong didn't, either. But because some guys banged on a trashcan doesn't mean that Altuve and others were wearing buzzers that let them knew what pitches were coming. It doesn't mean that Altuve was cheating on every pitch on every at bat throughout the entire season. It doesn't mean that when he got a base hit, he knew it was coming and it doesn't mean that when he struck out they weren't using their system. The results aren't that binary. This is different than Bonds because Bonds, for years, had that juice running through his veins. Every at bat of Bonds, post 1999 or whenever he started juicing, was automatically amplified by whatever he was taking. It's easy to assume that every time the Astros got a hit that it was a result of the batter knowing it was coming. That might not necessarily be the case.

I don't necessarily disagree, but tell me where and when you start and stop player suspensions. Which players for how long, etc.

Oh come on. Again, people wanting to see what they want to see. I'm not saying you are, but people inferring that Chapman's smirk is somehow knowing that the Astros were cheating is absurd. Dude hung a slider that was belt high and out over the plate. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that that pitch usually gets hammered. Altuve can do that not knowing it was coming. Maybe the Dodgers were cheating, too. I haven't been reading every article and every tweet but it's been my belief that if teams are being quiet about this, they've probably got something to hide and don't want anyone looking at them. As of yet, I haven't seen any statements from the Dodgers about how outraged they are, etc. If I haven't, it's because I haven't looked in the right places.

Not to get off topic here but I'm pretty positive blacks were fighting for us in both World Wars. Maybe not FULLY integrated to high officer levels but that becomes semantics when you take into consideration that there were blacks on the front lines giving their lives. That said, let's assume your statement is correct. If so, it's sad that baseball, something in comparison meaningless in importance when compared to armed forces, was the first to show the way. Don't get me wrong, it's GREAT that baseball, Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey paved the way and opened up societies eyes but it's sad that it took that long. And it's sad that, as important as baseball is to some, that it was baseball that had to take that stride before anything else. And correct, it didn't cause fans to doubt whether the outcomes of games were fairly achieved...but again, way easier to point fingers at guys we see every day instead of whoever the Indians owner was in '85. But fans then should have doubted whether or not that their team was doing their best to win. I mean, if you're a Yankees fan back then and you come to find out that your team doesn't get Carlton Fisk because Steinbrenner is the ringleader in organizing the owners in order to keep salaries down...well, it doesn't even get to a stage where you're allowed to wonder if the outcome of a game is fairly achieved. The owners don't allow it to because they're too preoccupied with sticking it to the players. But I get what you're saying, you're talking about the on field play and what happens between the lines. Even then, I'm not sure this is worse than the Black Sox.

And, IMO, this is not the worst thing since the Black Sox Scandal. Let's get ahold of ourselves here. Two things: Systematic agreement between owners not to let black people play major league baseball Collusion between the owners in the mid 80s to keep salaries down amongst free agents The color barrier gets talked about because people always throw up their hands and say it's terrible that Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and others never got to play in the major leagues. And it is terrible. Way worse than banging on a trashcan to let a batter know that a curveball is coming. And way worse than anything Pete Rose did, way worse than anything the Black Sox did. Those are isolated, one off incidents, this spanned decades and permeated every franchise. Every franchise decided it was in their best interest not to put the best possible team on the field because they didn't like black people. While people love to lament what players like Gibson, Bell, Paige and others would have done if they'd gotten to spend their careers in the MLB, hardly anyone wants to point fingers at the people who systematically kept them out. In respect to #2, the owners binding together not to sign free agents while at the same time cutting their nose to spite their face and not making their teams better is egregious. Again, not doing their best to win because they disliked a group of people. Yet these two items don't get talked about as being as bad as the Black Sox because...well, it's way easier to romance Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose. It's easy to romance Shoeless Joe, the country bumpkin who couldn't read and was taken advantage of. He's part myth, he's also part martyr. It's easier to look at that one portrait of Cool Papa Bell and wonder how he'd have looked in a Cardinals uniform or a Dodgers uniform and what he could have done. The owners are a largely a faceless bunch. Sure, you get a Steinbrenner or a Marge Schott who are easily dislikable and don't mind making themselves seen but it's easier to aim downfield at a guy like Beltran, not so much a guy like Crane. Yet it's my belief that the owners are clearly responsible for the two worst things that have happened in the games history, yet no one wants to talk about them in the same way we're talking about the Astros cheating scandal. It's not as fun to hate owners who history has cast off to the wayside and has forgotten, yet did permanent damage to the game, careers and legacies. Unfortunately, it's way easier to look at guys like Cora, Beltran, Hinch and say "OMG, WORST THING SINCE BLACK SOX!!!" when that's not remotely the case.