You think people are upset about the Astros sign stealing scandal? Pitchers have even more of a reason to be upset. This is very personal to them and their careers. Andrew Heaney sure didn’t hold any punches when he recently spoke out about the Astros.
Andrew Heaney didn’t pull any pitches and why should he? We are still waiting for a heartfelt honest apology from the Astros on this.
I guess Taylor Cole has now wade in on this . He’s still buzzed about buzzers. Of course his 14.50 ERA at the Enron vs. a 0.00 ERA at the Big A certainly supports his arguments.
wade
Wait
‘s for noone.
Dearest Andrew,
We will hate the Astros on your behalf. You go ahead and focus on getting through three innings on less than 90 pitches. Maybe get that ERA below 4 for once in your life and don’t get hurt. Honestly, if you pull that off, I don’t care if the Astros openly cheat against you….. you probably won’t either.
Well Andrew, take all that hate, anger, fear, and go all Sith. Pitch pissed. Whatever it takes for you to become the pitcher we need.
Midi-chlorians. HGH. Scientology. Whatever it takes man.
Did Manfred come up with the way to deal with a huge cheating scandal all by himself after consulting with the league lawyer’s or did he bring in a few owner’s too. No matter how the punishment came to be brought forth Manfred takes the fall if this scandal does not die down in the next few months, It appears that along with the fans of MLB that are not happy about the outcome of the punishment of the Astros the fans do not at all believe that the punishment should end there. Way to many people knew that the sign stealing was happening with not only the Astros but with other teams as well. So who knew what when, how many other teams, why cut the players involved slack, and then comes the big Question, why was this not addressed earlier and why was MLB afraid to go after everyone involved.
That the commissioner acted as though he was handcuffed or afraid of the player’s Union is telling. It tells us that there is weak leadership, disrespect of the fans and disrespect for opposing players. But the commissioner is not alone in this disrespect for the game as there are 30 owners quilty in this disrespect of the game and the resolution of this cheating scandal. But is not the Player’s Union part of the problem? This scandal is going to hurt the game, not just any game but America’s Game. The MLB office is going to throw out a lot of things to mis-direct the attention of this cheating in hopes that is goes away, but until they realize that more and much more than mis-direction needs to be addressed such as changing commishers with a leader from outside the sport the only thing for sure is more of something that looks like a downhill sled ride with no control.
The Astros themselves may even be Boo-ed at home and on the road it will get down right nasty, right or wrong it’s going to be brutal for them Now is the time to really address this before it really hurts the game more than it has.
I’ll second most of what you say here…I strongly suspect that there will be additional layers that will float to the top of this scandal, just as happened with the steroids.
I will also add that we Angels fans should be quite thankful that this whole Asstros, “Bang the can loudly” scandal squirreled everyone away from the whole opioid crisis that was hanging over this team last Fall! If I were Heaney and the Angels I would strongly consider keeping collective mouths shut and let their play on the field do their talking!
Wait, Houston cheated?
On Who and with Who?
No! Who is on first.
I don’t know
Third base!
This is going to be a special Angels team. One that speaks out from day one, and won’t be muzzled. The tragedy of last year has probably accelerated everyone’s appreciate for what this opportunity today means, how fleeting it all is, and thus glorious and magnificent. Heaney has been to hell and back, well, back doesn’t mean 72-90, it means competing for every second of every game, and destroying the Fucking Astros from the first second of Spring Training.
Our first game of the regular season is in Houston and our home opener is against Houston. Hopefully we make them feel like shit!
I bet they feel a few fastballs in the ribcage
Joe’s the type that would tell his guys they can do whatever they want in terms of drilling those assholes. If this was Scioscia there’s no chance retaliation is an option. But Maddon? I expect the very first game and even the first batter we drill them right in the ribcage. Hopefully the umpire crew allows one hit batter to slide. This is for all of baseball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lXe9aWt5P8
For the Love of Baseball, Drill Them First Pitch of the Season.
Is Heaney going to be the Opening Day Starter Now?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrtye8nhC30
It is worth the run, and the ‘taxing’ of the bullpen, to ‘start’ Noe (one pitch, thrown out) and then use fringe bullpen arms to load the bases.
I can tell this year is going to be fun. Last year our manager had the personality of a pear. Heck it took me 2 months just to remember the name of the pitching coach. Maddon will let this group play with fun. Wanna talk smack go ahead. Drill someone have at it. Celebrate a homer go for it. Can’t wait!
At an absolute MINIMUM every player on that team is complicit in at least knowing what was going on whether they benefited from it or not…and they all stayed silent. Although, since they got a ring I guess they all did benefit in one way.
Since the commissioners office seems to scared to do anything about it I say let the other teams handle it…and handle it they will.
MLB is certainly leaving this in the players hands. They know players are involved, and players on other teams seem angry. I can see this being a challenge for umpiring crews for at least the first few weeks, if not all season. An opener for each game that only plans to see a few batters? Springer, Altuve. Bregman?
Exactly. And at a minimum each player took and kept very large playoff shares for winning three rounds of playoffs and the title. So they financially benefited in a very tangible way.
MLB should make the players donate those playoff earnings to local charities. Bring some good out of this situation.
Just looked it up, the Astros playoff bonuses averaged about $490k each: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2017-mlb-postseason-shares-astros-to-split-record-30-42-million/
Really, it’s not that different than stealing somebody’s credit card info and running up a bunch of charges. They have taken money out of the pockets of their competitors. They have stolen money, plain and simple.
My respect for Heaney has increased.
Tell me more.
Heaney has a career waiting for him doing Shakespeare.
“What’s that fucking light from yonder window breaks?”
LOL
haha!
Andy truly makes Shakespeare come alive for me.
Billy didn’t shy away from the vulgar slang (though perhaps he disguised it more eloquently).
“By my life, this is my lady’s hand. These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s, and thus makes she her great P’s.”
Pretty refreshing to have the exact quote and an unfiltered answer. As Angel fans we aren’t used to seeing any retaliation, but a few Percival heaters inside sure seem to called for. Obviously don’t want anyone getting hurt, just frustrating to see the sport get dragged down yet again.
Our Halo can win the American League West.
Astros are damaged and will not be that good.
The rest of the division isn’t that good either.
With a couple key moves before the deadline.
And a mega powerhouse run scoring offense.
Take us to the W/S Joe…you have the players!!!
I wouldn’t say the rest of the division is bad. Astros will still win 90+ games unless they just absolutely collapse. Their lineup is still legit. Oakland maybe overachieved last year, but they still won 97 games. Texas pitching should be improved with Gibson. Mariners will stink, but I don’t think the rest of the division will
Do we know their lineup is ‘legit’? Is that based on the flawed numbers from the cheating? Sure, maybe they are good. Maybe the cheating was far more extensive than we think. Looking forward to seeing just how good they really are, with proper scrutiny.
fine, their lineup is “above average.” They still have talented hitters at almost every spot. I understand the scrutiny behind the scandal, but I think it’s silly to overlook their lineup because of it.
if you want to take pitching into account, they were third last year as a team in ERA. I know that includes Cole, but still a much better pitching staff than we have trotting out there.
How good will they be without the bonus run support from the dark arts?
P.S. dark arts is a lame ass name. Should have gone with Mordor or some shit like that
Mordor would be more fitting since Luhnow was known as “the Wizard”
I wonder how good Danny Espinoza would have been for us if he knew what pitch was coming.
35-40HRs?
I’ll kick the Astros while they’re down as much as the next guy, but Altuve, Correa, Springer, Bregman….those guys were studs when they were drafted high, studs throughout the minors, and are still very talented ballplayers.
I do expect them to drop off unless they’ve come up with new buzzer type schemes, but the talent to succeed legitimately is there.
If they drop off I think it is more likely age catching up with Verlander and/or Greinke, the bullpen getting taxed as a result, and a slight drop in runs scored.
I wouldn’t discount decreased confidence when they can’t put up the numbers they are used to, or win close games because of the advantage. Also, not having as much of a lead might put more pressure on their pitchers, especially the pen.
Sure, these guys played well in the minors, and are likely good ball players. But that is different than the MVP conversations that they have been in. How much of a drop off it is remains to be seen.
Brandon Wood and Kaleb Cowart were studs throughout the minors
Yeah, we all have to remember… Altuve was a .340 hitter back when the Astros won 50 games a year and he had no other protection in the lineup… when they were certainly not cheating like this. He’s a great hitter… made even greater when given the advantage of knowing the offspeed pitches coming.
This is all similar analogy to the way Barry Bonds was and rightfully should be treated. Yes, Bonds was a great player who did very well honestly (to our knowledge) in early years of his career, was a star by all rights. Then, he cheated and made himself even better than he should. These Astros players have also cheated. Doesn’t mean they were not great to begin with, but every ill-gotten advantage makes them almost super human. They should still be paying the price for what happened. And now, they’re going to get more adversity thrown their way given the anger bubbling up by fans and fellow players.
Bonds analogy further… he was an a$$hole and everyone knew it. The Astros’ reaction as a team has shown the same hubris and I think that’s as big a contributor to the vitriol as was the actualy cheating itself.
@matthiasstephan We might not see how good they really are because they could very well be using buzzers again in 2020. Trash cans were so 2017, technology moves fast.
True, they could double down on the cheating. I am just hoping there is more scrutiny on them this year, so they can’t get away with spoiling the game.
I was just reviewing the game log from a couple of the three games where bangs were prevalent against us on signstealingscandal.com. Even assuming the 70% normal failure rate, I’m not sure how many times they came out ahead to be honest. There were at bats with no bangs and a two run homer. I mean, these guys are talented no matter what, and they will NOT drop off a cliff this year. The cheating benefits were marginal at best it appears, which makes it even more sad.
Yes but were the “no bang” at-bats just ones on which only fastballs were simply thrown? If that were the case, it’s easier as a hitter to sit back and hammer a fastball when you’re expecting it. No bangs needed if no off-speed pitches. Or perhaps there happened to be a few at-bats where the pitcher/catcher changed signs for other reasons and they weren’t able to decode the new signs quickly enough? So much we’ll probably never know.
The Astros are going to play to the most hostile crowds, which is going to make the teams they are playing bring an extra level of pride and determination, it will create a playoff atmosphere and wear them down. We might also see a record number of HBP on the Astros this season, to the degree that the league will feel pressed to step in.
I can see a WBC type atmosphere, Banging, yelling, Vuvuzelas!
Astros will circle the wagons. After a few weeks, the trash can banging and jeers from the crowds will just be background noise. Expect some lively dust-ups, pitchers have long and extremely accurate memories of specific at-bats from several years ago. Beyond that and overall, this will pretty much blow over as they progress into the season. Dusty was a good hire, he’s a senior statesman in the game and brings a level demeanor to their clubhouse. I wouldn’t put too much stock into any thinking the Astros are going to collapse because people are yelling mean things at them.
@halofansince1978 thanks for today’s Haiku, It has given me many spiritual blessings.
Meanwhile, Max Stassi says he wasn’t aware of the Astros cheating in 2018. Did they cheat without telling him? 😮
We’ll see how he does this year. His numbers were career best in 2018, and that’s saying something!
Just another reason to wish him away to the cornfield.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocI_R8lMpM
Here is the solution for the Astros—we need to wish them into the cornfield.
Well, there is that “Field of Dreams” game this year in Iowa. This can literally happen. Maybe that should be the punishment for organizational cheating going forward: you have to play in an Iowa cornfield for three years.
There is no way he didn’t know and participate in the cheating in 2018. Just compare his numbers between “17”, “18” v. 2019.
I think I know who will NOT be Heaney’s “personal catcher” this year…
now he’s apologized. So….let’s throw out his 2018 stats and see what we have for his career numbers …
.176 BA, .241 OBP, .255 SLG, .496 OPS.
for reference:
Jeff Mathis, .195, .254, .299, .552
MLB should allow Eppler to undo that deal and the Twins to terminate Marwin’s contract. After all, both teams were sold on false numbers.
Orrrr…. now just hear me out: we get to bang a trash can exactly 5 times this year during games against the Astros of our choosing.
A compensation pick?
Astros are losing picks. Why not give us and Twins picks.
Not for pitchers, only for position players
Wow. The Mathis comp really puts it in perspective…
Time to cut Mr. Stassi. Aside from sucking it seems highly likely he is dishonest as well.
Stassi is full of shit