bmags

Perhaps the eulogies were written prematurely. That offense is disgusting.

This is ugly. Do you really want to take the side that Keuchel not doing anything was a positive good? He didn’t have to publicly snitch to have handled it.

His was back in November.

Rosenthal definitely unsurpassed in understanding player movement, but passan is the best baseball writer in america now.

I don't disagree with Balta except the part where he should just be hounded for sucking. There is a grey area here where if we had signed a hitter from the 2017 astros it would be more fair to hound him than the pitchers. There is likely, beyond the not shaking the boat and accepting rules being governed by the manager, even more pressure for pitchers to just focus on pitchers and not tell the position players how to play. However, the guy had the opportunity to do a the correct thing in this situation and didn't do it. Imagine had it come out that Keuchel tried to stop it internally, would fans here be upset? No they'd be through the moon that he did something so amazing and just proof that a white sox player is great. I understand not wanting the unpleasantness, which the white sox had nothing to do with, to interfere with the white sox season by way of Keuchel. But if you could isolate that, I'm struggling to understand how the board sentiment could exist that wants to see the astros sent to the sun (of which I am a part of), but also that criticizing an astros player that benefitted (by way of a world series) from that cheating, who now happens to be a white sox, behaved completely normal and actually, now that we think about it, cheating is normal and good. Balta certainly has the maximalist stance against cheating. I liked melky, and I think you serve and then move on. But Keuchel isn't unscathed from this. And it's fair to want shame to be put on him because that astros team did some bullshit.

well, the athletic articles from rosenthal and drellich have been pretty spot on, and what they detailed with the red sox was more limited than the astros garbage can antics.

good for him.

But doing what? What Boston did isn't as severe to me as what HOU was accused of. I'm sure more teams than houston were using the replay tv to decode signs, but houston was giving real time feedback on every pitch, and boston just when man was on second. That's a big discrepancy.

There you go, that's good. If sox view him that way that's great. Seeing our left side, I wouldn't mind them returning Saladino as a guy to keep in Charlotte. Not blocking anyone of interest there.

Yeah but as he graduated he became more exclusively 2b. I'm not sure he played SS past W-S.

As much as we didn't want to see Covey pitch, at least that dude was available. Banuelos deserves much more crap for being even more awful and also getting injured immediately.

Eh, I doubt it. I'm sure teams do scout the signs intently and look for an edge. The real time feedback astros were getting and relaying to batters mid-sequence was what was out of line. And I really doubt "everyone did that" because this clearly stood above the rest.

Manfred silencing other owners from speaking while allowing Crane to disagree with one of the big findings that would implicate him is just really *chefs kiss*

creating consistent programs and teaching methods and information across levels so that players aren't re-inventing the wheel with each coaching staff.

While that’s great (and I’m sincere about that, like these moves), your qualifier is what I’m pointing out. I want Sox to want to be better than other teams, not just incrementally improving themselves.

While I am happy they are continuing upon this route, this is all still rather marginal. Last year I would have considered the Sox among the bottom of franchises in keeping up with technology and integrating it into their PD, and put them with the reds in that dept. Then the reds hire the Vandy pitching coach as their MLB coach and follow up by acquiring Bauer and then Boddy from driveline. That’s a dramatic surge to catch up and get an advantage over the competition. The Sox by comparison may be improving upon what they were doing, but who knows if it is even at a pace to keep up with others? Maybe only the Rockies and royals at this point could be peers to the Sox. The mariners, marlins, reds, orioles and tigers have started to make big movements to overhaul everything.

Also bravo for Passan not just parroting the harshness I’d the penalty (cough Rosenthal cough)

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28477741/why-anger-boiling-scenes-houston-astros-sign-stealing-punishments I wanted time stand and applaud after reading this.

I think he was a roaming pitching instructor last year. He started in BH.

So...Another point in Gerwigs favor then!

Eh, I have to really prioritize theatre movies with 2 kids. I’ll see it eventually.

I don’t hop on college pitchers trains until it’s clear they are good their last year because it’s too depressing to get @fathom updates when they start sucking. Preps are easier since we hear nothing about them once season starts.

Have quite a bit to get to, this makes me want to put 1917 on backburner.

I'd be pissed if I was Cherington. Shoulda held out.

Would be amazing if Goldstein is hired as GM.