MARCO’S
BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2020: BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?
“The bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I’m busted...”
(Ray
Charles)
The
Boston Red Sox had a magical season in 2018 when they won 119 games
or some such on the way to a smashing victory over the Los Angeles
Underachievos in the World Series of that bygone year. Since then
they’ve been in Karmic Meltdown. You may remember that they brought
in Dave Dombrowski to win them another championship and Dave did just
that. He did what he always does with every team he’s been with:
he spent all the money available on front line pitchers like David
Price and Chris Sale and ignored the depleted farm system and
presented a winner to the fickle owners and public. Then when those
same players didn’t produce in 2019 they fired him.
Now
you hear whining all over New England...”We went over the salary
cap (whine) our team is too expensive (whine) ‘SNOT
FAAAAIIIIRRRRR! (a big Germanic whine from the Big Lebowski
nihilists)
So
presto chango the team fires DD and hires Chaim Bloom from Tampa Bay
who is used to running teams on a shoestring. His mission? Get the
payroll under the luxury cap of $208 million so the Sox can reset the
Cap Clock and avoid millions in penalties. And oh by the way, compete
with the Yankees and go to the playoffs or else we’ll fire your ass
too!
Is
this any way to run a team?
I
got two names for you O Whining Sox-Natics!”Rusney Castillo” and
“Yoan Moncada”.
While
you are complaining about the expensive players you had to pay to get
you that championship in 2018 and keep you relevant in the American
League East, just remember you gave $72.5 million freaking dollars to
Rusney Castillo to come over from Cuba at age 27 and be a star.
Whoops. And then you promised Yoan Moncada $63 million. Rusney never
got out of the minors and Moncada played for about a week in Boston
before being the sacrificial prospect piece in the Chris Sale trade.
Moncada is hitting (when he’s not striking out 200 times a season)
for the White Sox but he’s not going to be the combo of Tim Raines
and Robbie Cano that was hoped for.
The
point is, you risked that kind of money on two “what-if” kind of
players and now you’re unwilling to pay Mookie Betts what he has
proven he’s worth? You should be offering Mook the $35 million a
year he wants and keep the Face of your Freaking Franchise who is
essential to keeping you in the hunt with the Yankees. There’re
just not that many players like Betts.
Very
rarely does baseball produce that special player who is just a joy to
watch and an inspiration to the game...a guy with all the tools who
can also warm the hearts of the withered with just a smile. Willie
Mays, Ken Griffey Junior type players. Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson,
Ted Williams...they are all baseball Gods. But they don’t smile
their way into our hearts...they batter the doors down. And that’s
wonderful in its own way. Mookie does that with his bat, his speed,
his arm and his smile. I can only think of 4 other players right now
who have that quality: Mike Trout, Ronald Acuna Jr., Vlad Guerrero
Jr., and Francisco Lindor. Smiling Baseball Adonises. (Jose Altuve
and Carlos Correa of the Astros might have made that list if not for
an unfortunate incident with a trash can. Keep smiling boys. Maybe
we’ll forget.)
The
Cleveland Indians are about to lose Lindor and that’s tragic for
them. But the Indians are a small market team who can’t pay their
stars...never could. The Red Sox have money...lots of it. They should
keep Mookie. If they don’t they’ll regret it.
Sale
and Price and Eovaldi? The trouble there is you can’t get enough
back for them seeing as how they are each injured for about a third
of every season. And the other starter, Eduardo Rodriguez, is also
hurt every year. The Sox have to hope that at least two of those
guys come up with their A game this season and next so they can make
a run before they have to go out and scrounge for starters again.
The
Sox actually got big seasons last year from unlikely sources...their
catcher Vasquez hit plenty and Rafael Devers was a huge surprise at
third. He was a top five MVP candidate! So if those guys, along with
Bogaerts, Betts and J.D.Martinez are still boppin’ in 2020 the
Beantowners could surprise...if only their pitching holds up.
But
if you trade Betts and Price for young talent they may finish back of
Toronto
and Tampa...not to mention the
Yankees. (New
York is so deep that Miguel Andujar hit 27 homers and 47 doubles in
2018 and can’t even get on the field now!
)
THE
WAGES OF SIN
Now
I must speak once again...briefly...about the Current Debacle of the
Great Techno Cheat.
The
penalties came down about like I figured. But the Astros owner tried
to regain the public trust and moral high ground by going ahead and
firing his already suspended general manager and bench manager. I
don’
t think those guys will ever again have those positions with a major
league team. Baseball is
going to run away and try to forget this sorry episode.
The
joke is that every player and every coach on that Astros 2017 team
had to know about the cheating… and they get to keep playing and
coaching because MLB can’t afford to give a whole team the death
penalty. But does one of those coaches get to move up to manager?
That seems unfair.
Also,
how the heck did the Astros ever think they could keep this kind of
cheating hidden? I mean, the year after they win in 2017 several
players move on to other teams. Did the Astros think that these
players would now keep quiet while the Astros continued to beat their
new teams by stealing signs electronically? Especially pitchers! What
would happen to the Pitching Fraternity if hurlers just kept
accepting getting killed by a cheating system that they knew was
happening?
Well,
Carlos Beltran and Alex Cora moved to other teams in 2018 so the
Astros had to stop cheating (at least with the system that those two
guys helped devise). And now the Astros want the fans and the rest of
baseball to forgive and forget? Fat chance! The players may have
escaped this round of penalties, but what they will get in 2020 may
be worse than suspension and heavy fines. They will get the
excoriating contempt of every rival player and fan. They will hear
boos. They will feel beanballs. They will have rival fans beating
on trash cans when they come
to the plate.
The
Wages of Sin, Astros.
The
Boston Red Sox story is slightly different. Yes, Cora has to go. He
was warned to keep it clean and he still sponsored TV’s next to the
dugout so stolen signs could be communicated quicker. But he didn’t
put a camera in centerfield this time. MLB left free chips on the
table and then was shocked, shocked I say, to find that gambling was
going on!
I’m
talking about the replay rooms now universal in baseball where there
is a full time monitor in the clubhouse where coaches can run down
and see a replay and tell the manager whether to challenge an
umpire’s call on the field. If you ever watch
baseball on TV, you might have noticed that MLB uses something called
a “center field camera” to home in on the plate so we fans can
watch the catcher flash signs to the pitcher. What baseball genius
had the idea first? “Hey! I can see that catcher’s fingers real
good on this here television
set! I bet I can figure out
his signs! Let’s see...one finger means fastball, two mean curve,
three mean change up! I got it! Hey
Lefty, go out to the on deck and tell Pedro that a curveball is
coming!”
For
over a hundred years, runners on base (and sometimes base coaches)
have tried to peer in to pick up signs from catchers so they can
relay that information to the batter. Totally legal. (When
the Giants sent Coach Herman Franks out to centerfield at the Polo
Grounds to steal signs with his telescope
in 1951...that’s
illegal.) Sometimes
teams try to dampen the enthusiasm for sign stealing by drilling a
few perpetrators next time they come up to the plate. Self policing
they call it.
But
the main defense against sign stealing has always been changing the
catcher’s signs when a runner gets on and changing signs frequently
to keep the opposition from homing in. If you don’t change the
signs up, the other team can spot your tendencies and get an edge.
It’s all based on getting a good look at the catcher’s fingers.
So
now MLB is letting TVs show the whole game in a private room next
to the dugout and telling
baseball personnel that it’s fine to study replays but don’t look
at close ups of those
signs that the catcher is flashing. That’s
like telling a Labrador not to pay attention to a pork chop.
Anyway,
that’s what the Red Sox were doing in 2018, using the TV to see the
catcher’s fingers better. One techno step away from the permitted
tradition of using eyeballs on the field only. Still cheating, but
not camera- in- centerfield- cheating. And I guarantee you that many
other clubs in baseball were doing the same thing, and will continue
to do it unless MLB bans tech from the clubhouse during the games.
What
must be done? Once the game starts, no team-run or player- owned tech
in the clubhouse or on the field. No TV on, no cell phones, no
laptops for the duration of the game. And all replay calls made by
the umpire watching from above or in New York or wherever. The
manager can still challenge, but only on his own...no waiting for TV
confirmation before he protests. Should make the games go quicker
too.
One
last question must be addressed:
SHOULD
THE HOUSTON ASTROS HAVE THEIR WORLD SERIES TITLE OF 2017 OVERTURNED
IN FAVOR OF THE LOS ANGELES DODGERS?
I
say “No.”
Because
the Stros also cheated against the American League teams they beat in
the playoffs and maybe one of those teams could have beaten the
Dodgers. Impossible to account for all that. Should we go back and
vacate the 1951 New York Giants tainted victory? Maybe we should take
the title away from some of the Steroid Champs of the 90’s?
But,
in the minds of baseball fans everywhere, there will always be an
asterisk next to the 2017 Astros name in the record books. But MLB
should make it official.
WORLD
SERIES CHAMPIONS:
2017:
HOUSTON ASTROS * over Los Angeles Dodgers.
(*the
Houston team was later found to have used technological assistance to
steal signs during the 2017 season, including the Playoffs and World
Series)
Just
put it in the same section with the other great Black Eyes of
Baseball History.
--Marco
Perella 1/20/2020
