Could Oakland do what the Angels did and completely redo their stadium after the Rams left?
IIRC, the Oakland stadium is right next to a BART stop, but I haven’t been there in over ten years.
The Angels re redid their stadium to make it back to a baseball only stadium. The difference is that Disney paid for all or most of it and the City of Anaheim was willing. The City of Oakland just doesnt seem to want to work with either the A’s or the departed Raiders.
Red Sox probably cheated by stealing signs in 2018. So they know what to expect if they are found guilty by MLB
One new question I have is that are the Astros hitters really as good as we think if they new when a pitch was a changeup, for example. MLB should have fined the owner a figure well above 5 mil if they have the authority. Its the guy on top who has to accept final responsibility for wrongdoing.
$5 million was the maximum penalty. It will be a weird situation for the interim GM (especially) - do you make a big trade if there’s an opportunity near the trade deadline and the team is in contention?
Brendan Taubman also suspended for the year for his misogynistic outbursts during the WS.
Nice culture there Houston.
I would think any GM would need owner OK to make a major trade, no?
Also, apparently Carlos Beltran was identified as one of the leaders of the sign-stealing scheme - it will be interesting to see how that affects his hall of fame case (which otherwise looked pretty solid) in a couple years.
Guess who led MLB in team batting in 2017 by 20 points?
Hinch and Luhnow fired. Correct move by Astros owner Crane.
Carlos Beltran is the new manager of the Mets, at least for now.
Crane’s decision is probably also sound from a competitive standpoint (at least the Luhnow firing) - you want a GM who can make personnel decisions without worrying about being second-guessed by the guy who is coming back in a year.
They should also get a playoff ban for a few years but I guess that may not be allowed.
There is nothing remotely like that in baseball. They can throw the people involved out of baseball. They can penalize draft picks, MLB share money, international signing money and the like but the MLB does not take back titles or ban you from postseasons.
They can certainly change the rules to allow no postseason or removing titles in the future for cheating in the future.
Baseball HOF formally agreed to not allow banned for life players in the HOF. You can probably figure out why they did that. Hint, it was because of something that happened in 1989.
The stuff coming out is interesting. Looks like every team suspects every other team of doing similar things, and some of them (maybe most?) are going to be right.
It’ll be interesting to see how many other teams get slammed over the course of the next season or two. The Red Sox, at a minimum, and the Yankees are already under heavy suspicion.
That, for one, is a reason you won’t see too many postseason bans - half the league or more may eventually get implicated.
I suspect MLB will eventually relent on technology. Trying to keep it out in perpetuity is a mug’s game.
You seem to be the only one that has the Yanks under heavy suspicion. Reports are saying Cora’s punishment will probably be heavy. It appears he is involved in both Astros & Red Sox scandals.
I’m reviewing the 9 page report from MLB now.
The share money is the place to really put the screws to teams. Take away all of their share money for the next 5 years or so.
After Manfred’s memo in 2017 came out, teams have either stopped or, more likely, slowed down.
The Yankees were caught in 2017 before that memo but are still somewhat under suspicion. It doesn’t help that Carlos Beltran was on the payroll in 2019.
One of the problems is that it appears to be player driven. Hinch and Luhnow didn’t direct the sign stealing but didn’t do enough to stop it, and the lack of organizational control is what they are being punished for. Alex Cora is the only coach to be thought directly involved. And with player driven schemes, things spread as players move to new teams. It might be a mistake for no players to have been punished.
The hope is with the heavy penalty, that coaches and front offices are pro-active about stopping things, and that players take note and stop on their own.
I like that. Doesn’t upset direct competition, but really punishes the team. If you sentence a team to not be eligible for the post season, it upsets the game too much.