Manfred is a clown.
So that was an insane interview Manfred gave. He basically admits what I always thought as to why the players never got punished. Mainly because they would of had a war with the players association based on the players technically not being advised of a letter that was sent to the teams in September of 2017 (I think I got the date right) about sign stealing and they would of lost any case based off of that. Never entertained the idea of stripping the WS title or anything like that because it would set precedent (never thought this was a reality anyway). Says the players punishment is what they are going to have to deal with this season but in the same breath says there will be penalties for retaliation.
So at the end of the day MLB was stuck with a situation where there really didn't have a ton of options (according to them). The only real penalty of consequence is the draft picks which Crane probably doesn't even realize the full scope of. With the way some of these other players now are sounding off you just know it's going to be open season on the Astros this year. Some of that is due to the way MLB has handled this plus the reaction that's coming out of Astros camp.
For as long as the current group of players are there, everyone is always going to suspect them of cheating. There are players that STILL think they used buzzers no matter what the report said. Correa can say all he wants on how Altuve didn't take part in anything but like Phillips on MLBNetwork said, he still benefits from everyone else on the team cheating around him.
"They cheated ... I don't agree with the punishment ... I lost respect for some of those guys."
"Going up to the plate knowing what's coming ... that would be a lot of fun."
"You can take my shirt off," Trout told Ardaya about the Altuve video. "If you hit a homer to send your team to the World Series at home, you can do whatever you want to me."
Turner response to that was perfect. Manfred is a joke.Pretty interesting seeing some of these comments now that position players are showing up at camps. Trout is a boy scout and never says anything negative so it's surprising he said what he said. It's bad enough the Astros cheated to begin with, but the aftermath/reaction/fallout especially from the Astros themselves and Manfred has made it 100 times worse. Manfred calling it a 'piece of metal' is salt on the wound. I get that the WS trophy isn't all that compared to other sports but imagine Goodell saying the Lombardi trophy is just a 'piece of metal'. It's still a championship trophy.
“I don’t know if the commissioner has ever won anything in his life,” Turner said in front of his locker Monday. “Maybe he hasn’t. But the reason every guy’s 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.
The logic is clear dude. Chapman threw a bad pitch, so Houston was clearly not cheating.Lol, what the fuck is Reynolds saying? That aside from stealing signs the Astros also employ a soothsayer who knew Chapman was gonna be wild and struggling when Altuve stepped to the plate so he wouldn't need a buzzer?
Get the fuck out of here.