Author Topic: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired  (Read 2626 times)

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Offline EasyAce

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Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« on: January 13, 2020, 08:48:28 pm »
By Yours Truly
https://calltothepen.com/2020/01/13/houston-astros-luhnow-hinch-suspended/

Astrogate’s first consequences have hit the proverbial fan. General manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch are suspended a year . . . and now gainfully unemployed.

The Astros are also hit with a $5 million fine and the loss of first and second-round draft picks for 2020 and 2021. So broke ESPN’s Jeff Passan Monday midday. Then, Astros owner Jim Crane fired both the GM and the manager who shepherded the team’s greatest success period but enabled the chicanery that now puts that entire success under suspicion.

Among other things, before his firing the Astrogate suspension placed Hinch—considered one of baseball’s most sensitively intelligent managers—into some pretty extinguished company.

He’s the third major league manager to be either suspended or thrown out of baseball entirely in disciplinary moves. Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher missed the entire 1947 season after commissioner Happy Chandler suspended him for continued association with gamblers. And Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989 for gambling on baseball.

Passan says MLB has also threatened Luhnow and Hinch with lifetime banishment if they’re caught violating MLB “material rules” again. It looks for once as though baseball’s government, faced with flagrant rule violations, didn’t just take the standard tack of, “If we catch you doing that again, we’re going . . . to be very, very angry at you!”

Year-long suspensions aren’t exactly slaps on the wrist, such as the Red Sox received when one of theirs was caught training an AppleWatch on the Yankees in late 2017. And before anyone starts asking what about the Red Sox—under investigation for turning their replay room into an espionage bank themselves—don’t think manager Alex Cora (the 2017 Astros’ bench coach) will escape unscathed from the Astrogate/Soxgate mess.

Passan subsequently hit Twitter saying Cora is liable to face Astrogate related discipline and it’s liable to be “harsh.” MLB’s formal statement on the Astros’ consequences specifies Cora as a “ringleader” along with Carlos Beltran (DH for the ’17 Houston Astros; now the Mets’ manager), but Cora won’t face disciplinary measures until it finishes investigating the Soxgate side of the high-tech cheating scandal.

Beltran isn’t liable to face Astrogate discipline, though, Passan says, because he was a player. In other words—unlike, say, the 1970s New York police corruption scandals, where the city seemed more interested in punishing “flunky cops” than the bosses who let it fester, before clean cops Frank Serpico and David Durk blew the whistle in the first place—MLB is looking to hit the bosses who let the high-tech cheaters operate or helped operate the schemes themselves, not just some flunky players who helped themselves to the stolen signs. So far.

The MLB statement said Hinch didn’t originate Astrogate or support the players who did, and that the manager was “very remorseful” over it, but neither did he stop the espionage nor tell them he disapproved of it. “As the person with responsibility for managing his players and coaches,” the statement said, “there simply is no justification for Hinch’s failure to act.”

Don’t be surprised if Cora turns out to be hit with the heaviest punishments of any Astrogate/Soxgate figures. The guy who told the Red Sox whom he’d just joined as manager, “You guys were easy to game-plan against—too many bad takes,” is at the core of the worst take possible now. Part and parcel of Astrogate; prospective instigator or at least facilitator of Soxgate. Or so it appears pending the details yet to emerge.

If The Athletic‘s reporters Ken Rosenthal and Even Drellich can be called Astrogate’s version of Watergate reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, then former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers—now with the Athletics, but stopping with the Tigers for 2018—can be considered its Frank Serpico. He traversed the usual let-it-stay-here/when-you-leave-here law of the clubhouse to blow the whistle on the Astro Intelligence Agency in the first place in November.

First, he warned his subsequent teams that the Astros committed espionage. Then, he finally couldn’t bear it any longer and dropped the dollar on it to Rosenthal and Drellich. Making it even more jaw-dropping: this wasn’t just a league bottom feeder looking for whatever little edges they could get even as their seasons were described fairly as seasons in hell.

This was a team that rebuilt its organization from the bottom up, just about, and became a three-straight American League West winner, a two-time pennant winner, and a World Series champion in the first of those three years. And it proved also to be a team that beat out the 1951 Giants—Durocher’s team—for deploying high-tech cheating to enable their postseason arrival in the first place.

Things were bad enough for the Astros when now-former assistant general manager Brandon Taubman was fool enough to say, within earshot of three woman reporters still in the clubhouse after their American League Championship Series triumph, that he was so [fornicating] glad the Astros had obtained reliever Roberto Osuna—never mind that they got him while Osuna’s domestic violence case was yet to be resolved.

They went from bad to worse when Fiers blew the whistle on the AIA, so to say.

No, the Astros certainly weren’t the first team to go high-tech with cheating assistance from off the field. Among others, other than the ’51 Giants, there were:

* The 1940 Tigers—Using the telescopic sight of pitcher Tommy Bridges’ hunting rifle to steal signs from the Briggs Stadium stands in left and center field. (They won the pennant but lost the World Series.)

* The 1948 Indians—First baseman Eddie Robinson eventually acknowledged that the Indians had someone training a telescope aboard a tripod inside the Municipal Stadium scoreboard for a little espionage down the stretch and won 20 of their last 26—including the fabled pennant tiebreaker against the Red Sox. (The Indians won the ’48 World Series.)

* The 1977 Yankees—The story goes that that year’s Rangers were so convinced Yankee manager Billy Martin (a man about whom “scrupulous” would be applied jokingly alone) was bugging opposing clubhouses that they once ordered the Yankee Stadium visitors’ clubhouse to be swept for bugs. Whether by electronics experts or exterminators or both remains up to conjecture.

* The 1990 White Sox—Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, then managing the Orioles, caught White Sox coach Joe Nossek behind the first base dugout with a walkie talkie sending stolen Oriole signs to White Sox skipper Jeff Torborg. A year later, Robinson suspected Torborg and company were doing their own Soxgate stuff: using a video room behind the home dugout in Comiskey Park to steal signs. Robinson and the Orioles complained to the league office about both. And both got three responses: jack, diddley, and squat.

Think if you must that Luhnow and Hinch got off easy even if they were fired post haste. Think if you must that a $5 million fine and losing a quartet of high-round draft picks isn’t enough. But before you start to think that the Astros got spanked for what “everyone” does and that it’s all just gamesmanship, anyway, remind yourself first that there’s a difference between on-the-field gamesmanship and from-off-the-field espionage. Then, remember the counsel of a certain former commissioner, who was the first president of the National League, when he denied the appeal of a pitcher caught cheating.

Cheating, wrote A. Bartlett Giamatti,

[is] not the result of impulse, borne of frustration or anger or zeal as violence is, but are rather acts of a cool, deliberate, premeditated kind. Unlike acts of impulse or violence, intended at the moment to vent frustration or abuse another, acts of cheating are intended to alter the very conditions of play to favour one person. They are secretive, covert acts that strike at and seek to undermine the basic foundation of any contest declaring the winner—that all participants play under identical rules and conditions. Acts of cheating destroy that necessary foundation and thus strike at the essence of a contest. They destroy faith in the games’ integrity and fairness; if participants and spectators alike cannot assume integrity and fairness and proceed from there, the contest cannot in its essence exist . . . Cheating is contrary to the whole purpose of playing to determine a winner fairly and cannot be simply contained; if the game is to flourish and engage public confidence, cheating must be clearly condemned with an eye to expunging it.

And rest assured, for now, ladies and gentlemen, that we probably ain’t seen nothing yet.
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On a more personal note, I applaud Jim Crane for doing what he did almost the moment the suspensions were announced. I criticised him for ducking questions in November, yes, but for taking these bulls by the horns promptly enough he deserves all credit on earth.---EA.


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Offline Polly Ticks

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2020, 10:03:53 pm »
So ... best guess.  Is Cora going to be fired after he is suspended, too, or no?
Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too. -Yogi Berra

Offline DCPatriot

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2020, 10:11:02 pm »
So ... best guess.  Is Cora going to be fired after he is suspended, too, or no?

Cora AND Beltran need to be ousted.

This is the MLB...not the NBA!
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Online AllThatJazzZ

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2020, 10:14:07 pm »
In mourning. Will come back to read later.




So ... best guess.  Is Cora going to be fired after he is suspended, too, or no?

And what about Beltran?
« Last Edit: January 13, 2020, 10:16:25 pm by AllThatJazzZ »


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Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2020, 11:11:07 pm »
In mourning. Will come back to read later.




And what about Beltran?
@AllThatJazzZ
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Going by Rob Manfred's statement, players---which Beltran was on the 2017 Astros---won't be facing discipline in the affair, largely because too many were involved in it. Coming down with both feet on Luhnow and Hinch should send a huge message by itself, particularly if you factor that Alex Cora---a bench coach on the '17 Astros---probably has culpability in both Astrogate and Red Soxgate. As I said in the essay, Cora's liable to have an even heavier pair of boots come down on his head than even Hinch did.

Apparently, and I learned this after filing my piece, Hinch didn't approve of the electronic sign-stealing shenanigans---the instigators according to the commissioner came from among Astro players and a couple of coaches---even to the point of smashing a couple of the monitors kept near the dugout steps, but he didn't really move to stop the Astro Intelligence Agency, either. So it's yet to be known in full just how much hand Cora had in Astrogate and in what I call the Red Sox's replay room reconnaissance ring. But if his hand was deeper in both, I suspect Manfred's going to drop a safe on him, not just both feet. And the Red Sox's ownership could take the same route as Jim Crane did, dumping Cora and performing a little housecleaning in the front office. (The GM in office when the Red Sox won the 2018 World Series, Dave Dombrowski, was fired late last season, but there may be others in the front office who were there in 2018 and who might face the guillotine.)

Beltran may not have been punished by the commssioner's office yet, but that doesn't mean he's entirely off the hook, either. The Mets, who hired him as their manager, might dump him over the Astrogate shenanigans, perhaps as a deterrent warning to anyone among the Mets who might think of starting their own Spy vs. Spy operation. The Mets haven't said anything yet, so far as I know.


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Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2020, 11:14:31 pm »
Also, folks, Brandon Taubman may have been canned by the Astros over being so [fornicating] thankful they obtained Roberto Osuna but he won't be able to get another baseball job this year if he tried (and his prospects may have been grim if he was looking)---he got suspended from baseball for a year, too.


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Offline Polly Ticks

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2020, 11:15:19 pm »
Cora AND Beltran need to be ousted.

This is the MLB...not the NBA!

Agreed.
Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too. -Yogi Berra

Offline DCPatriot

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2020, 11:37:52 pm »
Quote

Beltran may not have been punished by the commssioner's office yet, but that doesn't mean he's entirely off the hook, either. The Mets, who hired him as their manager, might dump him over the Astrogate shenanigans, perhaps as a deterrent warning to anyone among the Mets who might think of starting their own Spy vs. Spy operation. The Mets haven't said anything yet, so far as I know.


@EasyAce

It's weird, imo, that MLB would treat Cora more harshly than Hinch.  Why?  Because it involves TWO teams??

Was it HIS personality that infected the coaching staff?  Was he instrumental in originating this latest version of stealing signs?

Not one honest/moral man in the entire clubhouse stood up and publicly denounced it?  Even Fiers waited too long, imo.

What pisses me off the most:

Loving and respecting The Game as I have for over 70 years, it bothers me that co-conspirators are recognized as 'All Stars' and 'Greats'....only to find out they are complete frauds.

Their offensive numbers are all lies.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Thinking of a possible solution other than suspending a season, etc..

Agree to play 'THAT SEASON' under the notion that there is an open bounty on your head when you're standing in the batter's box...and the umpire won't do a damned thing about it.
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Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2020, 01:08:10 am »
@EasyAce

It's weird, imo, that MLB would treat Cora more harshly than Hinch.  Why?  Because it involves TWO teams??
@DCPatriot
It's not so weird if you consider a) Cora's culpability for Astrogate; and, b) his potential culpability in the Red Sox reconnaissance ring, too. It doesn't just involve "two teams," it involves a guy who's likely culpable for two teams' rule breaking.

Was it HIS personality that infected the coaching staff?  Was he instrumental in originating this latest version of stealing signs?
Here's what Rob Manfred's statement said:

At the beginning of the 2017 season, employees in the Astros’ video replay review room began using the live game feed from the center field camera to attempt to decode and transmit opposing teams’ sign sequences (i.e., which sign flashed by the catcher is the actual sign) for use when an Astros runner was on second base.  Once the sign sequence was decoded, a player in the video replay review room would act as a “runner” to relay the information to the dugout, and a person in the dugout would notify the players in the dugout or signal the sign sequence to the runner on second base, who in turn would decipher the catcher’s sign and signal to the batter from second base.  Early in the season, Alex Cora, the Astros’ Bench Coach, began to call the replay review room on the replay phone to obtain the sign information.  On at least some occasions, the employees in the replay review room communicated the sign sequence information by text message, which was received on the smart watch of a staff member on the bench, or in other cases on a cell phone stored nearby.   

Approximately two months into the 2017 season, a group of players, including Carlos Beltrán, discussed that the team could improve on decoding opposing teams’ signs and communicating the signs to the batter.  Cora arranged for a video room technician to install a monitor displaying the center field camera feed immediately outside of the Astros’ dugout.
 

Not one honest/moral man in the entire clubhouse stood up and publicly denounced it?  Even Fiers waited too long, imo.
Fiers probably faced the same kind of pressure that, in the 1960s and early 70s, New York cops like Frank Serpico and David Durk faced trying to stanch corruption: a culture in which you didn't shoot your mouth off outside the club but kept it inside and did what you could do within the club. Until you couldn't anymore. Fiers went to the Tigers for 2018 and the A's for 2019. At both stops, he warned new teammates that the Astros had an espionage operation going, the better to enable them to think of whatever they could within the rules to nullify it.

(Think of the additional pressure the Nationals put themselves under when they smelled an Astro rat enough to compel everyone on their World Series pitching staff to learn and keep in their heads five differing sets of signs to change up as needed in the event the Astros even thought about it during the Series. Just imagine the additional headaches of the Nats pitching staff adding five new sets of signs to already-heavily-loaded brains.)

Perhaps like Serpico and Durk, who'd beaten their heads against too many walls before finally taking what they knew to the New York Times, Fiers found himself to the point at last where the only way he could make anyone understand without beating his head against any more walls was to take it to someone in the press, in this case The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich.

Incidentally, this, too, from Manfred's report:

Although the Astros’ players did not attempt to hide what they were doing from Hinch or other Astros employees, they were concerned about getting caught by players from other teams.  Several players told my investigators that there was a sense of “panic” in the Astros’ dugout after White Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar appeared to notice the trash can bangs.  Before the game ended, a group of Astros players removed the monitor from the wall in the tunnel and hid it in an office.  For the Postseason, a portable monitor was set up on a table to replace the monitor that had been affixed to the wall near the dugout.


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Online AllThatJazzZ

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2020, 02:02:39 am »
I have to admit that it was a fun couple of years once I discovered the game. I hate that it's coming to a close, but I'm not willing to invest the time, energy and expense (admittedly minimal in my case) after having my heart broken by a team I held in high regard. I can't look at those individual players anymore without suspicion.

I've been trying to find a WS replica ring like the ones they handed out at a few of the 2018 games as a gift for my BFF. We've been in despair all afternoon as we watched the coverage on MLBTV, so I fessed up and told her that I was trying to find one of those rings for her. Her reply? "Save your money." That's what I expected her to say.

Time to pack a cardboard box with my Astros paraphernalia and tuck it in the back of the closet. Maybe they'll earn a reputation one day that will inspire me to dust off the box and return to the game. Unfortunately, I'm a septuagenarian, so they need to hurry. I'm the once-bitten-twice-shy type, so don't see it happening.

NFL
MLB
I think I'll just stick with cryptograms and Word With Friends.


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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2020, 02:36:45 am »
Sounds like the Astrogaters be wishin they had some

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2020, 02:51:59 am »
Sounds like the Astrogaters be wishin they had some
@GtHawk
Or one of these bottled up to go?



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Offline GrouchoTex

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2020, 02:42:47 pm »
Bad day for the Astros.
I heard MLB and Houston Chronicle writer Richard Justice, on the radio this morning.
He said the team would go a long way in restoring the community's faith if they signed Springer to a long term contract.
The logic being that Springer, more than any other Astro,  epitomized the youthful joy and exuberance that led to these guys being so well liked if the first place.

My new feeling is just the opposite.

As much as I hate to say it, it may be time to lose a Springer, a Bregman, a Correa, and even an Altuve, and all the position players, one by one, that remain from the 2017 team.
As long as they are here, they will cast a shadow of doubt.
What happens now when an Altuve retires, and has a shot at the Hall of Fame?
How will he be judged now?
The Houston Asterisks* has been the joke for the last month.

Mr, Crane, blow this whole thing up, just like before, and start it up all over again.
You could keep Tucker and Alvarez and Straw as your new youth movement.
Say good riddance to the rest of 'em.

I may just be ranting, because I am not happy, but this is how I feel right now, today.
Time may change that, not sure.

I wonder, with the Astros, Texans, and Oilers having such crazy histories, if Houston isn't built on some Ancient Indian burial ground....



Offline dfwgator

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2020, 02:55:08 pm »
I'm going to suggest to the Rangers marketing department to have "Garbage Can Night" when the Astros come to town.

Offline dfwgator

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2020, 02:57:28 pm »

Offline dfwgator

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #15 on: January 14, 2020, 02:58:37 pm »
Cora should get a lifetime ban.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #16 on: January 14, 2020, 03:40:44 pm »
I wonder, with the Astros, Texans, and Oilers having such crazy histories, if Houston isn't built on some Ancient Indian burial ground....
@GrouchoTex

I don't know about an ancient Indian burial ground, but when the Astros were born as the Colt .45s and played their home games in old open Colt Stadium, Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn---one of the Original Mets in 1962---got one gander at the joint and said, "This is the only park in the league where the women wear insect repellent instead of perfume."


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Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #17 on: January 14, 2020, 03:42:14 pm »
Cora should get a lifetime ban.
@dfwgator

Manfred probably held out on disciplining Cora over Astrogate just yet because he's likely in the Red Sox's replay room reconnaissance ring either up to his ass or, like Hinch, aware of it but having done nothing to stop it. Either way, I'm betting Cora is liable to get hit with a somewhat heavier hammer than Hinch did since his chicanery involves two teams.


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Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline GrouchoTex

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2020, 04:07:32 pm »
@GrouchoTex

I don't know about an ancient Indian burial ground, but when the Astros were born as the Colt .45s and played their home games in old open Colt Stadium, Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn---one of the Original Mets in 1962---got one gander at the joint and said, "This is the only park in the league where the women wear insect repellent instead of perfume."

Being born in 1962, I didn't go to any games there, but I have heard that the mosquitoes were pretty thick.
Well, I can believe that, as they are pretty thick wherever you go around here.

Offline GrouchoTex

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2020, 04:08:44 pm »
@dfwgator

Manfred probably held out on disciplining Cora over Astrogate just yet because he's likely in the Red Sox's replay room reconnaissance ring either up to his ass or, like Hinch, aware of it but having done nothing to stop it. Either way, I'm betting Cora is liable to get hit with a somewhat heavier hammer than Hinch did since his chicanery involves two teams.

@EasyAce

Where did Cora and Beltran cross paths, the Mets or the Yankees?
Late 2000's Mets, I was thinking......

Online andy58-in-nh

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2020, 05:23:16 pm »
@dfwgator

Manfred probably held out on disciplining Cora over Astrogate just yet because he's likely in the Red Sox's replay room reconnaissance ring either up to his ass or, like Hinch, aware of it but having done nothing to stop it. Either way, I'm betting Cora is liable to get hit with a somewhat heavier hammer than Hinch did since his chicanery involves two teams.
The consensus in these parts (i.e.- New England) is that Cora is going to be canned in short order, owing to the likelihood of a long MLB suspension (perhaps 2 years?) and the many outstanding decisions the Red Sox already need to make prior to the 2020 season, as well as the likely fury of Sox' management at Cora for dragging to Boston what they must have told him not to bring along with him from Houston.     
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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2020, 06:19:24 pm »


Astro receiving the news.
There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter.
John Steinbeck

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2020, 06:23:55 pm »
@EasyAce

Where did Cora and Beltran cross paths, the Mets or the Yankees?
Late 2000's Mets, I was thinking......
@GrouchoTex
They were teammates on the 2009 Mets. The Mets released Cora in August 2010; they traded Beltran to the Giants for Zack Wheeler in July 2011.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #23 on: January 14, 2020, 07:19:16 pm »
The consensus in these parts (i.e.- New England) is that Cora is going to be canned in short order, owing to the likelihood of a long MLB suspension (perhaps 2 years?) and the many outstanding decisions the Red Sox already need to make prior to the 2020 season, as well as the likely fury of Sox' management at Cora for dragging to Boston what they must have told him not to bring along with him from Houston.   
@andy58-in-nh

I suspect it won't just be Cora who gets executed by the Red Sox once his Astrogate/Soxgate discipline comes down. Like Astros owner Jim Crane, Sox owner John Henry will be very compelled to a little, shall we say, cleanup hitting. The GM when the Red Sox won the 2018 World Series, Dave Dombrowski, was fired last August, but there may be another head or two to roll regarding Soxgate.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline DCPatriot

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Re: Astrogate: Luhnow, Hinch suspended—then fired
« Reply #24 on: January 14, 2020, 08:41:32 pm »
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

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