Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Houston may have cheated by stealing signs, but the Yankees should expect no justice from MLB

video making the rounds on Reddit purports to show 25 minutes of the Houston Astros stealing signs in 2017. I dunno about that. If it shows anything, it's that stealing signs and hitting are fundamentally different skills, and the former does not guarantee success. 

When I watch "proof" like this, the first conclusion is that it will be ridiculously hard for any MLB suited gum-shoe to compile a smoking gun. If ex-Astros step forward to spill their guts, that's one thing. But videos won't do it. If Houston players and management clasp hands, form a circle, cross themselves and deny, deny, deny... the franchise will skate. Remember: It's not in MLB's interest to prosecute a feel-good team like the adorable Astros. The poobahs sell a lot of Jose Altuve jerseys. 

Why would we expect any suitable punishment? Remember how the 2009 Yankees' world championship was later tainted by charges that A-Rod had been juicing? Yankee-haters wanted the world series overturned. In the end, the Yanks suffered bad headlines, and A-Rod took the brunt: He lost his bid to chase down Barry Bonds' asterisk-laden home run records. No single Houston player has been tied to the sign-stealing accusations, and I doubt one will step forward to accept the darts. Houston can curl up, take some bullets and threaten to sue. We know what happens then.

To me, what will be interesting is the future direction of the Astros. In the minds of many, they will always be cheats, an outlaw franchise that bent the rules and won. Even if they're docked a draft pick, the success from cheating will outweigh all negatives. Nobody will lower that World Series flag. They have figured out how to develop pitchers. Lance McCullers Jr. will return next year. Even if they lose Gerrit Cole, if they find a replacement starter, Houston could remain the team to beat.

As for our so-called "Death Star" - (Brian Cashman's self-identity, which was supposed to invoke fear among our opponents, which is now almost laughable) - if we've cheated in recent years, we've done a damn good job of hiding it. Even now, while complaining to MLB about Houston, the Yankees have proven to be good losers. 

They have refused to use their almost limitless financial advantages over smaller markets. They self-handicap in spending, and their bizarre attempts to gain an honest advantage have generally sputtered. 

Five years ago, Cashman orchestrated a wave of lavish, million dollar contracts upon 16-year-old Latino prospects - a move later copied by San Diego and other teams. To date, it has netted us almost nothing. (The biggest expenditure, a 1B-DH named Dermis Garcia, remains mired in Single A; he hits balls a mile but strikes out too much.) They tried the most extensive set of defensive over-shifts in baseball; that didn't do it. They hired the sage of pitching coaches, Larry Rothschild, and now are doing a complete 180 - using advanced analytics to build rosters. Give Cashman credit: It's not for lack of trying. 

And let's face it: They are close. Shut your eyes, and you can easily imagine the 2020 Yankees playing in the post-season. From there, anything can happen. But without a Gerrit Cole or a Stephen Strasburg anchoring the rotation for two or three years, it's damn hard to imagine the Yankees building a dynasty. We need that workhorse, the ace who leads the team in the way Justin Verlander has done for the Astros. Who leads the Yankees staff for the next three years? We wanted it to be Luis Severino. Based on last year, that doesn't work.  

Do any of you honestly expect Hal Steinbrenner to shell out $300 million for a pitcher this winter? It won't happen. The reason: Hal seems to think that spending money is a form of cheating. 

I believe otherwise: I believe to NOT spend it is cheating... cheating Yankee fans.

11 comments:

TheWinWarblist said...

"Self-handicap" is known as collusion in a court of law. And it's much easier to prove than sign stealing. These idiot owners are ramping up to play hard ball at the next contract negotiation. Colluding to keep salaries down, shrinking MiLB. It's going to be a long and bitter fight and Baseball will once again be damaged by the greed of the owners. Mark my works, this crop of owners is too short sighted to remember or even care about the lessons of the last strike. Why negotiate an equitable contract when you can burn it all down and try to grab every last dime you can? Who cares if Baseball is damaged and the money coming in tanks. It's all of a small fortune better that most of an immense one?



Fuck all of you to death.

JM said...

The nuns in Catholic school said that self-handicapping would make you crazy and grow hair on your palms.

Next time you see Hal on TV, check out his hands.

Anonymous said...

To help ameliorate the effects of no baseball on my psyche, I tend to read at least one or two baseball themed books every fall. This year the first one is Damn Yankees.

Not the one that gave birth to the musical but this one.

Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team - Rob Fielder.

It was written in 2013 and is good enough. Some of the essays are great, others feel like they are forced. I'm reading one a night.

The reason I'm sharing is the following paragraph written by James Surowieck about why the Yankees have been dominant for so long...

"Perpetuating that virtuous cycle depends, of course, on winning. But it also depends on the willingness of the team owners to take the long view, and to be willing to put up lots of money today in the hope of getting much more back down the line. And over the course of their history , one of the Yankees great strengths been that they have owners who were willing and able to do just that."

He goes on and then ends with...

"The Yankees have done just that for most of the past ninety years. And there's no obvious reason why they can't do it for the next century"

Uh... The obvious reason is Hal's deep seeded disdain for winning over profits. For rooting against the team his whole life and now running it not for the great, great entity that it is, not for the tradition, and certainly not for the people of New York.

He is only for himself and he will ultimately destroy one of the great American institutions.

Apparently it's an epidemic.

Here is where the book can be found.

https://www.amazon.com/Damn-Yankees-Twenty-Four-League-Writers/dp/0062059637?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ffsb-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0062059637

From the listing: " Love them or hate them, the New York Yankees have been an American institution for nearly a century. With their rich history and colorful cast of characters, the Yankees never fail to inspire or provoke. In this exciting compendium, some of our most acclaimed writers—including Pete Dexter, Colum McCann, Roy Blount Jr., Dan Barry, Jane Leavy, Charles P. Pierce, J. R. Moehringer, Bill James, and many more—step up to the plate to take their cuts. The result is a collection of original essays as idiosyncratic and expansive as the team that has inspired them: ruminations on Babe Ruth's gravestone, Derek Jeter's swing, and every other subject that spans from the hilarious (the Yankee wife swap of the seventies) to the sublime (the grace of Catfish Hunter). Superbly written, deeply insightful, and full of both passion and humor, Damn Yankees is a completely fresh look at baseball's most enduring franchise."

Doug K.

Anonymous said...

OUR "DEATH STAR" IS MORE LIKE A "COMA BEACON".

EITHER WAY, HAL IS GOING TO HAVE TO SPEND CLOSE TO $230-250 MILLION TO BE A REAL "CHAMPIONSHIP CALIBER CLUB".

ZACK WHEELER ALONE WON'T CUT IT.

ADD BUMGARNER TO THAT, AND YES, NOW WE HAVE SOMETHING.

ODORIZZI IS OFF THE BOARD, WHICH I GUARANTEE WAS COOP'S BIG SURPRISE PICKUP, (WHO I COULD HAVE LIVED WITH, HE ISN'T BAD).

ALREADY THAT'S ONE PITCHER GONE.

WATCH THEM DISAPPEAR ONE BY ONE, WITH US SITTING WITH OUR THUMBS UP OUR ASS.

I HATE EVERY OFF SEASON NOW.

I'M EVEN HATING EVERY "IN-SEASON".

FULL OF HEALTHY HATE.

13bit said...

Cashman said the other day that he was going to fill the pitching void via trades. Case closed. We are done.

Anonymous said...

DONE IS RIGHT , 13.

THEY LOST ME AT THE STADIUM.

I WILL NEVER EVER EVER NOT LOVE THE YANKEES.... IMPOSSIBLE.

....BUT I CAN CHOOSE TO SEND HAL SOME SORT OF MESSAGE.

I HOPE MORE YANKEE FANS THINK THIS WAY.

OUTRAGEOUS THAT HE WON'T HELP THIS TEAM GET OVER THE TOP, WHEN HE CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

ONCE AGAIN, WE ARE NOT A "CHAMPIONSHIP CALIBER CLUB".

ONCE AGAIN, WE WERE NOT "1 PLAY AWAY" FROM GETTING TO THE WORLD SERIES.

NOT EVEN CLOSE.

TheWinWarblist said...

How exactly does one trade for a number 1 starter?

HoraceClarke66 said...

Exactly, Warbler. It's like saying, you have the thing everybody wants the most. Here, we will trade you several of our secondary things for that. What, you don't want them???

The only way that happens is when a top starter makes himself so obnoxious and is so unhappy that his team fears he is sure to stomp off the following year as a free agent. A recent example is Chris Sale, who left Chicago for Boston...and for the prospect HAL was too cheap to sign.

Sigh.

HoraceClarke66 said...

I fear you are right, Warbler. For the owners, 25 years is like a millennium, and not even all their runaway profits will keep them from going after the players.

American capitalism has become something akin to psychosis, in which the people who have the most aren't satisfied with that, they can't rest until everybody else has less.

Greed—not a legitimate desire for money to live well on, or even to live high on—but outright, irrational greed, has always been the sin/desire I understand the least.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Thanks for the review, Doug K. That sounds like a lot of fun.

And ALL-CAPS, I hear ya. I even tried to stop rooting for the Yankees once, when George was at his craziest in the 1980s and dealt away Graig Nettles. I honestly tried to root for the Mets instead.

Couldn't do it, though I don't hate the Mets. It just wasn't the same. When they announced that George was banned for life, I was filled with joy.

Now, I'd pay cash money to have him back. On the other hand, if he HAD been banned for life, his son probably wouldn't own the team now.

No, I'm stuck rooting for these guys. And there have certainly been worse times, as in the CBS days. But then, the team was hemmed in by the rules: a draft and no free agency. At least they were trying. HAL's not even trying is what kills me.

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