Markakis on Astros: "Every Single Guy Needs a Beating"

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, atomic said:

Canseco weighed on the scandal today.  Said that knowing what pitches were coming was a bigger advantage than being on steroids.  

Interesting question.    I think I’d probably disagree, just based on what I’ve read about the Astros’ home/road stats and various other analyses on Fangraphs etc. about how much advantage the Astros actually gained.     The effects are there, but seem smaller to me than the inflation of stats during the steroid era.    I don’t see any Astros hitting 35 homers at home, for example, but I did see Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa hitting 70ish homers (home and road) when they were on steroids.

[24fps]

2 minutes ago, atomic said:

The Astro playeres, the MLBPA and the commisioner should work out a deal where the Astro Players are suspended. It is in the Astro players best interest to serve a suspension.  Unless they want to be beaned for the rest of their career and booed everywhere they go and the press to vilify them forever getting a suspension seems fair.   Stagger the suspensions.  Give them each a month of baseball.   Time to step up and serve your punishment. 

I think you greatly exaggerate the attention span of people and especially the press these days.  The players will move on fairly quickly IMO and things like beanings will be minimal.  The fans will take great pleasue in sticking it to the Astros until they get bored which I will predict will happen within a couple of seasons.  I think it is very much in the long-term interest of both MLB and the MLBPA for the Astros franchise to have the 2017 WS vacated and the Astros players to serve some meaningful punishment individually.  I'm not sure what the latter would be.

Not for a second do I expect to see either of those things in my lifetime.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Interesting question.    I think I’d probably disagree, just based on what I’ve read about the Astros’ home/road stats and various other analyses on Fangraphs etc. about how much advantage the Astros actually gained.     The effects are there, but seem smaller to me than the inflation of stats during the steroid era.    I don’t see any Astros hitting 35 homers at home, for example, but I did see Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa hitting 70ish homers (home and road) when they were on steroids.

Of course it is questionable how much an advantage steroids/HGH/Speed gave guys as well.

Looking at the home/road numbers it does look like folks are overstating the impact.

[eddie83]

36 minutes ago, 24fps said:

The Commissioner still has broad authority to act in the best interest of the game.  His hands were tied by himself when he chose to render that authority impotent in pursuit of the "truth".  What contemptible rubbish.  Even knowing that he would lose the grievance process he had the obligation to at least pretend that he had a spine.  "Punishments" where no guilty players lose money, playing time or jewelry and no guilty team loses their trophy falls ludicrously short of adequate.

I strongly suspect (actually I strongly believe without the benefit of evidence) that Manfred and Tony Clark brokered this approach with the understanding that sign stealing and all its variants would be addressed in the new CBA and no doubt it will be - probably rigorously.  That's all well and good but the players who were victims of the Astros' cheating and their fans get left holding the bag - in this case chock full of fully justified resentment.

I have a real different take. There was no way he was ever going to be able to punish the players. Right or wrong it wasn’t going to happen. He also is someone who has to negotiate a CBA that is due in 2 years. This idea that any commissioner can act in the best interest of the game is some naive idea that isn’t real. 

At the end of the day if Mike Fiers signs a contract extension with the Astros we never hear about this. In general people who cheat, lie and steal don’t promote or provide evidence of wrongdoing. 

[atomic]

13 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Interesting question.    I think I’d probably disagree, just based on what I’ve read about the Astros’ home/road stats and various other analyses on Fangraphs etc. about how much advantage the Astros actually gained.     The effects are there, but seem smaller to me than the inflation of stats during the steroid era.    I don’t see any Astros hitting 35 homers at home, for example, but I did see Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa hitting 70ish homers (home and road) when they were on steroids.

Bonds hit 46 home runs in a season without steroids.  He only had one season with more than 50  home runs with steroids. Of course pitchers started walking him all the time when he was on steroids.  Going from his pre-steroid 46 home run season of 126 walks to one of his steroid season of 2004 with 45 home runs but 232 walks. 

[eddie83]

At the end of the day in theory what the Astros did could have happened years ago. This wasn’t their replay room. They had a camera in CF with a live feed to a monitor near the dugout. As long as your feed is in real time and the camera is hidden a team could have done this in 2005 for the sake of argument. I know in 17 the camera was legal for player development. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, eddie83 said:

At the end of the day in theory what the Astros did could have happened years ago. This wasn’t their replay room. They had a camera in CF with a live feed to a monitor near the dugout. As long as your feed is in real time and the camera is hidden a team could have done this in 2005 for the sake of argument. I know in 17 the camera was legal for player development. 

The Indians used a center field camera in the early 60's.

[eddie83]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

The Indians used a center field camera in the early 60's.

I went back and looked on the Hangout search option and clicked on game threads and typed in Wieters and signs. I swore to myself I remembered a game in Toronto where Matt was giving a different set of signs with nobody on base. Sure enough I found it. April of 2014 I posted something on a game thread about Wieters giving different signs. Someone else also in April of 2012 posted Wieters giving odd signs with nobody on base. Both games were in Toronto. I’m not sure how to share the posts on this thread.

The Orioles thought something may be going on or they obviously don’t go to all that trouble.  

[eddie83]

Here is one of posts.  

[24fps]

29 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

I have a real different take. There was no way he was ever going to be able to punish the players. Right or wrong it wasn’t going to happen. He also is someone who has to negotiate a CBA that is due in 2 years. This idea that any commissioner can act in the best interest of the game is some naive idea that isn’t real. 

At the end of the day if Mike Fiers signs a contract extension with the Astros we never hear about this. In general people who cheat, lie and steal don’t promote or provide evidence of wrongdoing. 

Golly, I wish I could be a grizzled, world-weary cynic.  If I were given that talent, even for a day, I would use it teach all those foolish MLB players exactly how naive their outrage is.  Lord knows, somebody needs to teach them the facts of life and their place in it.

[eddie83]

Here is the other. 

Who knows what teams have done for years.  

[eddie83]

Just now, 24fps said:

Golly, I wish I could be a grizzled, world-weary cynic.  If I were given that talent, even for a day, I would use it teach all those foolish MLB players exactly how naive their outrage is.  Lord knows, somebody needs to teach them the facts of life and their place in it.

The commissioner does not have absolute powers. That is my point. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

The commissioner does not have absolute powers. That is my point. 

Landis did, the current version does not.

[eddie83]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Landis did, the current version does not.

Right. It is a different world. 

He can’t just do whatever he wants. 

[24fps]

1 minute ago, eddie83 said:

The commissioner does not have absolute powers. That is my point. 

I believed I use the term "broad authority" and he certainly does have that.  There is every reasonable expectation that a person whose job it is to look after your interests actually does so and in this case that applies to both Rob Manfred and Tony Clark.  The upshot of this affair is that the people most victimized remain victimized and most of the people who created the problem in the first place come through untouched in any meaningful way.  It's hard spin that and Manfred in particular has failed miserably in the attempt.