It is not clear that the players could have been punished even without the immunity. They could argue they were not informed of the restricted against electronic signalling (Astros management did not pass the memo down to the players) and that management supported their actions. The CBA also doesn’t detail any punishments. You could argue Manfred should have suspended them anyway even if an arbitrator would inevitably reverse them, but I understand why Manfeld didn’t go down that route.
The big mistake by Manfeld is just how long they took to address this. If they took the initial complaints seriously and actrf then, much of this could have been avoided.
So, he wouldn’t have been a snitch if he said something about it in 2017?
Fiers’s motivates for coming out are of no interest to me, anyway, and I doubt they are of interest to any baseball fan outside Houston. What matters is the cheaters.
I think it’s sad that nobody did anything until someone went to the press. The MLB got multiple complaints about the cheating and did nothing but send out a general “please don’t cheat” memo to managers.
It took public embarrassment to force them to do something, and even that ended up being next to nothing.
Little league is starting in my neck of the woods and I am reminded that when 12 year olds cheat we take away their title and their trophy, we ban their managers and league reps all the way up to the level that had (or should have had) knowledge of the cheating.
The more I think about it, the more I think we ought to force a sale. If we’re serious about this, we ought to force a sale of the team.
Can the Commissioner do that? Although (I think) he determines penalties for violations of the league’s rules and other ‘egregious’ behavior, I would bet the owner’s would not stand for such a move. In fact I doubt the league’s contractual obligations would even allow it.
ETA: It has to be the Commissioner, no? I don’t think the other owners could force them out, again because of contractual obligations.
The owners and commissioner pushed Marge Schott out of ownership of the Cincinnati Reds when she became too overtly racist. The NBA did the same to the Los Angeles Clippers guy. The owners can do it if they’re motivated.
Just imagine: What would happen if a pitcher on the mound against the Ass-tros had told the home plate umpire to “listen to the banging” before off-speed pitches were thrown. If the umpire noticed the pattern at the time during the game, what would he do? Stop the game? Batter is called out? File a complaint against Hou-stink?
What’s funny about not using any regulars for that"road" game is that the Nationals and Astros share the same spring training facility. The road trip involved walking from one end of the complex to the other.
That’s an interesting question because even if the umpire suspects something weird, what can he do? It’s a noise, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to identify what the hell it means or where it’s coming from.
Umps have near-plenipotentiary power to do whatever they need to do to fairly enforce the rules, and in theory an ump could, say, toss someone in the stands who was relaying signs, or demand an obvious electronic system be stopped, or threaten to forfeit the game. In theory an ump could bring the hammer down.
The Astros system would have been hard to stop, though, and in any case the evidence is they stopped doing it whenever someone raised a suspicion.
I think that would be too much to ask of the umpires to be looking for patterns in the noises from the dugout. They’re too busy looking for balks and getting ready to watch the results of the pitch or swing and all that.
To be fair, complaints have been lodged in the past couple of years against at least a third (maybe more) of the teams in the league. The Commissioner’s office wasn’t going to do anything to any team until it got out in the press in a form that couldn’t be dismissed or spiked.