Vote and discuss.

Yes, I know there is no Texas option.

No that's the stupidest thing ever.

Are we seriously expected to believe that the Astros did anything different than the other 31 teams in Major league baseball do every single year and have done for more than a century? The only thing they did wrong is get caught.

What about all the other stuff that's done that's illegal? How many hitters cork their bats? How many pitchers illegally doctor the ball or use illegal pitches?

No one with any sense thinks that every other team completely obeys all the rules and the Houston Astros are the only team in decades that has ever broken a single rule.

We all know cheating is rampant people who get paid millions of dollars a year are you going to do anything they can get away with to get a slight advantage over their opponent.


If this is the standard we're going to employ we may as well vacate every win by every team going back to the beginning of Major league baseball.

Does MLB even have a mechanism by which recorded victories -- World Series or otherwise -- can be vacated?

I know the NCAA does. But if MLB doesn't, then if they vacate the 2017 WS, they are essentially creating an ex post facto rule.

no.... and btw... i agree with doom ...and it's not even lent

from all accounts i've heard , this was a cora/players driven thing ... how many players were penalized ... that they took cheating to a different level only shows to what end a team will go to get an advantage....

i still maintain, given the quality of club (physical, not moral) , they would have won even if they had not exercised their elaborate means of cheating.... commish did not issue his edict about electronic cheating until mid september of 2017

even with the cheating edge, the players still had to perform... and execute ... just because you know there is heat coming doesn't allow you to square it up...just because you know unca charlie is paying a visit doesn't mean you can put the ball in play

and btw, tell the fat boy that is no longer in the game to quit his whining and shut up

and fwiw, i am gutted that we lost hinch as manager .... gotta believe his loss will cost us between 7 and 10 wins this year... might be enough to tilt the tables to another al west team ... though even w/o hinch (i assume the numbers given were after they knew he was gone) , the 'stros win line for over/under this year is still at 97, behind the blue blood's 99 and the bombers' 101... i understand that is the first time ever a team's line has topped 100 ... must the cole factor

anyone hear svp last night... he basically skewered crane ... and i loved it... have not been a crane fan since he exiled us to the american league for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ in his pocket

I don't think all 32 teams were doing it. Stealing signs the old-fashioned legal way, yes. Via center-field camera, no. The reports I see say that many executives and owners from teams that weren't using electronics to steal signs are upset that the Astros weren't punished more.

I think the commish still has the power to act for the good of the game.

well, i certainly wouldn't mind seeing crane hit in the pocketbook for ... oh i don't know 10 times the combined salary of hinch and luhnow , but that would be a drop in the bucket for him.... 5 milllion was a total joke but i think i read or heard that was the maximum a team could be fined .... 4 picks over the next 2 years could be extended to 6 picks over the next 3 years since they cheated for 3 years (starting from the time that cora came to the astros) but the bottom line is, at least to me, they still won the division, the pennant and the world series by performing on the field .... what little help they got from cheating does not override what they did on the field

I mean, "it shouldn't be done because MLB would have to create an ex post facto rule" isn't a good objection. At the very least we can say that there should be such a rule, right?

Yes it does. They were relaying signs to the batters to tell them what pitches to expect.

uh , i am aware of the situation ... if they received so much "help" from knowing what pitches to expect, why was their record so much better on the road than at home? does that even make sense? they were the best team in baseball in 2017 ... period!

let's not forget the blue bloods had home field advantage in the ws.... but we still somewhow managed to win

That's a bad idea.

yeah, that was reported last night on the sports section of our cbs affiliate... typical lalalanders ... the anchor just started laughing... he said he wasn't sure if it was a serious attempt or if they were just doing their part to keep the story alive

I feel the same way, but I thought losing Hinch would be less catastrophic than losing Luhnow, the man who built this team basically from scratch.

As for the other point, I put 99-percent of the blame on that pencil-neck commish Bud Selig. He could have easily put his own team, the Brewers, back where they started. Instead, he dangled money over new team owner Crane to agree.

wasn't the problem with the brewers geographical? hard to think of them as a "west" team, whereas the astros used to play in the nl west back in the day... of course , so did the reds and the braves until some semblance of sanity took place

When titles are vacated, it means no one gets them. It doesn't mean the runner-up gets them.

So I’ve given this some thought.

Part of the “game” in baseball to to discover tendencies of the opposition. That includes stealing signs.

I mean, let’s face it - the signals/signs are out in the open for everyone to see. In football the coaches cover their mouths and create a very elaborate system of disguising the play calls with numbers, colors, pictures, signs, symbols and etc.. And yet still everyone can see them. It’s public knowledge. Teams have been stealing signals in football since football began. So folks have gotten better at disgusting the play calls.

Because a team uses technology that didn’t exist 80 years ago and exploits that technology to gain an advantage I say, “kudos to you!”. That same technology is available to every team out there. That same system to steal signals is out there for everyone.

Because baseball hasn’t yet figured out how to better disguise their “play calling” (e.g., pitch signals) just means they need to figure out something better to fool folks.

It’s kind of like capitalism - because someone invents a better mousetrap just means you need to make your mousetrap better so you can keep selling them.

I just see this as part of the game.

Its only unfair because others didn’t think of it first.

Greetings;

It's not a matter of new technology, because what the Astros were doing was unacceptable in the days of old technology. Stealing signs between the lines has always been part of the game. Having a guy with binoculars in center field giving signs to the scoreboard operator who then turns a light on or off--that was considered cheating back in the day. Doing a fancier version of it with TV cameras is still cheating, and MLB has made that clear.

The Astros, and possibly others (looking at you, Red Sox), knew that what they were doing was firmly against MLB rules and they did it anyway.

It's unfair because it's against the rules and other teams obeyed those rules.

If they were such a good team, then what was the point of cheating? Honestly I think the punishment for cheaters who are already great should be more severe than that for cheaters who are not so great. For example, Barry Bonds was definitely headed for the HOF before he started using PEDs. Now, IMHO, he should be kept out despite being the greatest player of his era without the extra help.

Also, the World Series doesn't necessarily go to the "best" team (Cf. 1990 Reds).