Author Topic: Astros stealing signs - But Dusty to the Rescue  (Read 26692 times)

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Offline UMDNats

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #175: November 24, 2019, 03:40:45 PM »
Their front office is generally extremely arrogant and Luhlow is known openly as a douche (Exhibit A: how he hired the Asst. GM situation) and he clearly hires douchebags, too. Owner is an jerk too, though that's not uncommon in sports.

Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #176: November 24, 2019, 03:42:51 PM »
Sounds like a stretch. Other teams have guys who have been suspended for PEDs.  They have done a great job drafting and developing every day players. And then trading for pitchers to take them over the top. I don’t see what the assistant GM remarks had to do with building the team.

If they can prove the Astros cheated throw the book at them.

I'm just providing facts, not agreeing with the argument.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #177: November 24, 2019, 04:35:38 PM »
Their front office is generally extremely arrogant and Luhlow is known openly as a douche (Exhibit A: how he hired the Asst. GM situation) and he clearly hires douchebags, too. Owner is an jerk too, though that's not uncommon in sports.
If I was that successful I would be arrogant too. I’m watching the Patriots now.

Offline bluestreak

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #178: November 24, 2019, 08:15:04 PM »
Sounds like a stretch. Other teams have guys who have been suspended for PEDs.  They have done a great job drafting and developing every day players. And then trading for pitchers to take them over the top. I don’t see what the assistant GM remarks had to do with building the team.

If they can prove the Astros cheated throw the book at them.

Everyone in baseball was cheering for the Nats in the WS. The Astros have this air of arrogance, between the Osuna trade and firing all their scouts and the rumors of cheating. And Taubman didn’t start being a jerk in the ALCS. He was a jerk the whole time and had a major part in building the team. One of the reasons he got fired is because he had harassed the reporter he yelled at before.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #179: November 24, 2019, 08:39:46 PM »
Everyone in baseball was cheering for the Nats in the WS. The Astros have this air of arrogance, between the Osuna trade and firing all their scouts and the rumors of cheating. And Taubman didn’t start being a jerk in the ALCS. He was a jerk the whole time and had a major part in building the team. One of the reasons he got fired is because he had harassed the reporter he yelled at before.

The Astros are like the patriots, but not as good and even less likable

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #180: November 24, 2019, 08:49:30 PM »
Everyone loved the Astros when they won in 2017. No one cares if they fired all their scouts.

Offline bluestreak

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #181: November 24, 2019, 09:09:30 PM »
Everyone loved the Astros when they won in 2017. No one cares if they fired all their scouts.

I love it when people on the internet confuse the term “I” with  “no one.”

Offline nfotiu

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #182: November 24, 2019, 09:24:43 PM »
Everyone in baseball was cheering for the Nats in the WS. The Astros have this air of arrogance, between the Osuna trade and firing all their scouts and the rumors of cheating. And Taubman didn’t start being a jerk in the ALCS. He was a jerk the whole time and had a major part in building the team. One of the reasons he got fired is because he had harassed the reporter he yelled at before.
I agree on all that too from things I've read from random places outside Washington sports forums.   Also, lots of people hating the Astros for starting the tanking trend.

I also think that Cole's Boras hat stunt and proclamation he was no longer an employee of the Astros must have had something to do with disdain for the front office.   Firing Reid Ryan to replace him with owner's son seemed off too.  Something stinks about that organization and I

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #183: November 24, 2019, 09:29:03 PM »
I love it when people on the internet confuse the term “I” with  “no one.”
Please show me some actual evidence that the Astros were unpopular before this postseason. They lost fans after the ALCS post game incident.  And then the cheating.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #184: November 24, 2019, 09:33:43 PM »
Not related, but reads this, you can see why cole did what he did after the series

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/astros/article/Astros-players-criticize-league-reward-for-13729276.php

Offline NJ Ave

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #185: November 25, 2019, 09:15:18 AM »
Not related, but reads this, you can see why cole did what he did after the series

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/astros/article/Astros-players-criticize-league-reward-for-13729276.php

I've never understood why anyone wouldn't side with players, or think they're greedy. Jim Crane bought the Astros for $465 million in 2011 and now they're worth $1.8 billion (both according to Forbes). That's a 19% return annually. As in all sports recently, part of that appreciation is due to artificial caps on player pay.

freak the owners.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #186: November 25, 2019, 09:36:28 AM »
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/sports/baseball/houston-astros.html

Happy place to sad place in a couple of months.

Offline hohoho

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #187: November 25, 2019, 11:39:37 AM »
I've never understood why anyone wouldn't side with players, or think they're greedy. Jim Crane bought the Astros for $465 million in 2011 and now they're worth $1.8 billion (both according to Forbes). That's a 19% return annually. As in all sports recently, part of that appreciation is due to artificial caps on player pay.

freak the owners.
That 19% doesn't include annual profits. The Lerners bought the Nats in 2006 for $450M and it is now worth about $2B. Not too shabby. That doesn't include several billions in revenue since then.
Good luck in getting MLB team financial statements or figuring out how much they make in profit, though they all do a great job in touting how much they pay in salaries and why they need to stay under the salary cap.
Meanwhile, the courts as recently as 2018 have ruled that MLB is exempt from antitrust laws since it is a sport and doesn't engage in interstate commerce. Seriously.

Offline Five Banners

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #188: November 25, 2019, 01:10:48 PM »
That 19% doesn't include annual profits. The Lerners bought the Nats in 2006 for $450M and it is now worth about $2B. Not too shabby. That doesn't include several billions in revenue since then.
Good luck in getting MLB team financial statements or figuring out how much they make in profit, though they all do a great job in touting how much they pay in salaries and why they need to stay under the salary cap.
Meanwhile, the courts as recently as 2018 have ruled that MLB is exempt from antitrust laws since it is a sport and doesn't engage in interstate commerce. Seriously.

Some already got leaked in a big way:
https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/financial-records-show-pirates-win-while-losing-20613304-082310

One antitrust ruling argued that the exemption should only apply to player contracts.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-08-06-9308060306-story.html

Obviously, MLB wants to stay out of lawsuits and legislative scrutiny as much as possible that could lead to such interpretations and rulings. This makes the move to clear cut parts of the minors a headscratcher, as it put the sport on Congress' radar.

It's evident that that was one of the reasons it took so long for the Expos to leave, both from the Expos side (whose Québécois owners filed a RICO suit against MLB) and the Angelos factor (even though Selig appeared to have best interests of baseball clauses applicable in the situation, especially since Baltimore's only codified rights were confined to the counties that touched Baltimore city and county).

This figures to be relevant to the noises from Montreal about getting another team (outside of financial realities related to business and the fanbase supporting a team at MLB-caliber revenue levels). Stephen Bronfman has emerged as face of potential ownership, which seems problematic given his refusal along with the other Québécois owners to get a ballpark and new ownership deal done when the team was actually there, or to even meet Loria's cash calls to maintain ownership position. Oh yeah, and he just happened to be a plaintiff in the RICO suit against the organization he would want to rejoin.

Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #189: November 25, 2019, 01:35:25 PM »
Some already got leaked in a big way:
https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/financial-records-show-pirates-win-while-losing-20613304-082310

One antitrust ruling argued that the exemption should only apply to player contracts.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-08-06-9308060306-story.html

Obviously, MLB wants to stay out of lawsuits and legislative scrutiny as much as possible that could lead to such interpretations and rulings. This makes the move to clear cut parts of the minors a headscratcher, as it put the sport on Congress' radar.

It's evident that that was one of the reasons it took so long for the Expos to leave, both from the Expos side (whose Québécois owners filed a RICO suit against MLB) and the Angelos factor (even though Selig appeared to have best interests of baseball clauses applicable in the situation, especially since Baltimore's only codified rights were confined to the counties that touched Baltimore city and county).

This figures to be relevant to the noises from Montreal about getting another team (outside of financial realities related to business and the fanbase supporting a team at MLB-caliber revenue levels). Stephen Bronfman has emerged as face of potential ownership, which seems problematic given his refusal along with the other Québécois owners to get a ballpark and new ownership deal done when the team was actually there, or to even meet Loria's cash calls to maintain ownership position. Oh yeah, and he just happened to be a plaintiff in the RICO suit against the organization he would want to rejoin.

The antitrust exemption that applies to baseball is fairly straight-forward.  It's from a Supreme Court ruling in a case called Federal Baseball from 1922.  The holding is indeed that baseball is not interstate commerce (and therefore exempt from federal antitrust laws), because "the business is giving exhibitions of base ball, which are purely state affairs."  The case was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1953 and then again in 1978.   As it's a Supreme Court case, the only way it gets overturned is by the Supreme Court itself or by Congress.

There are a few interesting bits about the stance of this case, one being that at least one current justice (Gorsuch) has strongly suggested he'd overrule it.  If a huge business entity can't rely on Gorsuch's vote in keeping it immune from a suit, it is - and let me summon my decade of practicing antitrust law for this highly technical term - freaked.   

Another is that it's not clear what happens if the antitrust exemption is stripped off; presumably you'd end up with the same level of antitrust regulation as in the other sports, which have much more limited immunity, but largely tied to their collective bargaining agreements with players (which therefore provide no immunity from suits by non-union MiLB players).  A final one is that, at least as a technical matter, the antitrust exemption in Federal Baseball is only a federal one - it was only the 1978 Curt Flood case that also exempted baseball from state antitrust laws.  So you'd need to overrule more than one case to get rid of it.   

Basically, the Supreme Court has repeatedly bent over backwards to exempt MLB from antitrust laws.  It's not clear that it would do so again if needed.




Offline Five Banners

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #192: December 11, 2019, 09:18:28 PM »
https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/12/12/astros-sign-stealing-investigation-expands

"One of those sources said there is no evidence yet the trash can system was used in the postseason or in 2018. The “threads” being investigated from 2018 involve more nuanced methods, such as the possible use of video rooms to decode the sequence of signs used by opposing catchers. Armed with that information, for instance, a runner at second base could then relay the signs to the batter. Teams since then have adopted more sophisticated sets of signs, even with no runners on base, to guard against such subterfuge."

Offline bluestreak

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #193: January 07, 2020, 07:25:38 PM »
Red Sox apparently cheated in 2018 using the replay room to steal signs.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28440015/report-red-sox-used-replay-room-steal-signs-2018-season?platform=amp

I hope the Nats did this clean. And the 2016 Cubs.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #194: January 07, 2020, 08:13:35 PM »
The Sox apparently had players looking at video during games, breaking down signs, then giving signals once/ if they reached base. Not relaying signs directly from cameras. Much closer to the way sign stealing is done normally.

Online sixthree175

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #195: January 08, 2020, 02:08:29 AM »
The Sox apparently had players looking at video during games, breaking down signs, then giving signals once/ if they reached base. Not relaying signs directly from cameras. Much closer to the way sign stealing is done normally.
Right, but did they use their own cameras from center field? 

Offline bluestreak

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #196: January 08, 2020, 08:17:34 AM »
The Sox apparently had players looking at video during games, breaking down signs, then giving signals once/ if they reached base. Not relaying signs directly from cameras. Much closer to the way sign stealing is done normally.

But they already got pinched for this and told the commissioner they’d never do it again. The penalty will be severe.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #197: January 08, 2020, 08:49:39 AM »
But they already got pinched for this and told the commissioner they’d never do it again. The penalty will be severe.
Yes, there was the Apple watch thing they had with the NYY the year before, I think.  I love the guy, but if Cora is found to have been involved in both the 2017 Astros (which he was) and this, then he needs to be banned from baseball or at least suspended for a year and required to apply to be reinstated. 

Offline vicki4471

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #198: January 08, 2020, 09:19:05 AM »
All these things going on I hope some punishments are dished out. Poor Pete Rose.

Offline Five Banners

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Re: Astros stealing signs
« Reply #199: January 09, 2020, 10:52:52 PM »
It's been sugegsted as a potential option to disband the video rooms there primarily for replay altogether, and laps make the replay challenge something that needs to happen in real time rather than after a slew of replays