So much happened in the baseball world today I don’t even know where to begin. From more on the Astros scandal, to burner accounts and wild accusations, let’s go through what you might’ve missed today.
Beltran “Steps Down” as Mets Manager
I think most people saw this coming. Everyone else mentioned by MLB in a managerial role related to the Astros scandal has either been fired or stepped down. I doubt the Mets organization wants any association with this whole thing. It’s unfortunate considering Beltran never even managed one game. It’s less than a month to spring training and the Mets no longer have a manager.
Alleged Burner Account for “Beltran’s niece”
There is a twitter account claiming to be Beltran’s niece. The owner of the account announced Beltran’s hire to the Mets and that Beltran was stepping down days before it was announced by anyone else.
People now have all sorts of theories to who the owner is, including Beltran, one of the 2017 Astros, or an MLB insider.
The account is now deleted, but the owner today tweeted the following, which alleges that Altuve and Bregman both wore buzzers on their arms to signal pitchers.
The account owner is claiming that Bregman and Altuve wore buzzers to steal signs. And of course, now there are videos and pictures circling around of “wires” hanging from their jerseys. The most popular video seems to be Altuve motioning at his teammates not to rip his shirt off (believed so that they wouldn’t reveal the wire). The account also acknowledged this particular moment, see below:
MLB claims to have investigated the use of buzzers and found no evidence. Here’s two of the videos, I couldn’t see any definitive evidence of a buzzer, but you can decide for yourself. It’s obvious he does not want his shirt ripped off, which he even explains to Ken Rosenthal later on in the second video (claims his wife got angry at him last time they ripped his shirt off).
Also I don’t really see a big difference at this point, even if they were using buzzers. We know they were cheating and MLB has concluded the investigation. They aren’t going to go back and now punish the players that MLB promised immunity.
Maybe it would be better if pitchers and catchers used buzzers to communicate about pitch selection. That way it never shows up on camera.
Jessica Mendoza’s Take on Mike Fiers
Jessica Mendoza is both an ESPN analyst and an advisor for the Mets. If this wasn’t a conflict of interest before, it certainly is now. MLB asked all MLB teams not to comment on the Astros cheating scandal. However, in an interview today, Mendoza says Mike Fiers should not have gone public with the information regarding the Astros cheating. See the interview below:
Mike Fiers is the player who came forward about the Astros cheating, which started this whole thing. Mendoza’s opinion is interesting to say the least, considering she didn’t mention anything about the cheating itself being bad for baseball. She just explains that he should have kept it to himself, and warned other teammates if necessary. That being said, does it look good for baseball to bring the cheating out in the open like this? No it doesn’t. But if they were to sweep it under the rug and let it get completely out of hand, that would be much worse.
Mendoza released a statement on Twitter a few hours after this interview blew up:
Also, it really was not appropriate for her to comment on the matter at all since she is an employee of the Mets. Even if she was acting as an ESPN analyst at the time, she is still a MLB employee and should’ve adhered to the stricter rule of not commenting at all.
LA Petitioning MLB for a Trophy
The Los Angeles City Council is planning to vote on a resolution to MLB to award the Dodgers the World Series trophies from 2017 and 2018. Councilman Gil Cedillo said that this issue is important because the Dodgers were beat by teams that were cheating, and that the Dodgers nor any community members specifically requested this. See a quote regarding his reasoning below:
“This is an equity and justice thing, who was the best team in 2017? Who was the best team in 2018? It was the Dodgers. They got beat by teams that were cheating…Do they need to be told that they shouldn’t have a title?”
Councilman Gil Cedillo, Reported by the LA Times
While we don’t know how much the sign stealing influenced the outcome, he is right that the games were not completely fair. We’ll never know what the outcome might’ve been.
Today was a crazy day in the baseball world. I’m sure all the excitement is far from over, so let me know what you think of it all! And we’ll see what happens next.