Rob Manfred Speaks to the Media
On Sunday afternoon, commissioner Rob Manfred held a press conference at Atlanta’s spring training facility in Florida. Per the typical protocol, the league tried to keep the news relatively muted. The conference was not broadcast on MLB Network — Bull Durham aired instead — nor did it stream on MLB.com. Whether this reflects a continuation of the league’s misguided damage control policy or a misunderstanding of the scandal’s resonance to fans, it was a strange way to downplay the commissioner’s remarks on such a topical issue.
Manfred’s comments themselves will likely not please any of those already skeptical about his ability to manage the biggest scandal the sport has seen in a generation. He again defended the league’s response while offering few fresh details. Listening to his remarks, one gets the impression that the league will remain in reactive mode perpetually as new details emerge, and that Manfred himself wants nothing more than to reach the other side of this. At one point he clumsily exclaimed “we’ll have baseball in 2020!” We’re all excited too, Rob.
Here are some takeaways from his press conference:
Manfred struggles to find the right tone
At this point, the league’s response to the scandal has become a part of the story. Public reporting has driven MLB’s investigations and actions at every step, a pattern most recently reinforced when the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond revealed the contents of a letter Manfred sent to Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow in the weeks before announcing the results of his investigation. The letter indicated that Manfred knew more about the GM’s involvement in the scandal than his public statements insinuated, raising fresh questions about the league’s overall handling of the matter.
When Diamond asked a follow-up question about the letter, Manfred responded dismissively: “Congratulations, you got a private letter that I sent a club official; nice reporting on your report,” he said without a hint of humor and at least a sprinkling of snark. Manfred followed by trying to explain why the letter was something other than what it looked like, which wound up sounding off-key.
The majority of questions were, understandably, about the Astros. By the midway point of the press conference, Manfred seemed like he’d rather have been talking about anything else, saying that “[t]his has been really fun but I’d like to move on to other topics at some point.” Naturally, the following question was about the Astros.
Most dissonantly of all though, in his (otherwise reasonable) explanation for why he didn’t vacate Houston’s 2017 title, he said “the idea of… asking for a piece of metal back seems like a futile idea.”
“A piece of metal.” It was just one flippant line in a half-hour conference, but it was nonetheless shocking to hear the commissioner of baseball refer to the game’s ultimate prize in that manner.
The league got it right on the punishment
Responding to a question about whether the punishments he doled out were sufficient, Manfred responded unequivocally: “Yeah, I do. You have four really good, respected baseball people… who lost their jobs.” He also dismissed the idea that the players are getting off easy, noting that their accomplishments will be forever tainted, and adding “I don’t think there’s a player in Major League Baseball who relishes the idea of being a 2017 Houston Astro out there answering questions about exactly what happened and why it happened.”
Manfred said that he would have disciplined players in “an ideal world”
Manfred explained that, in an ideal world, he would have preferred to punish the players who participated in the sign-stealing scandal. He had previously alluded to some of the impracticalities of that course of action, and his comments yesterday seemed like a response to those within the game who are upset that the players themselves will not be suspended.
Manfred followed that up by saying that the Astros players “had an obligation to play by the rules and they didn’t do it. I understand when people say you know ‘players should have been punished’ because they didn’t do the right thing.” Ultimately though, he didn’t feel that he could get enough players talking on the record about the scandal to justify a different course of action: “If I was in a world [where] I could have found all the facts without granting immunity, I would have done that.”
On Fiers
One intriguing moment was Manfred’s claim that, without Mike Fiers talking to The Athletic, the league probably would have never launched an extensive investigation. “Without the reporting… and the availability of Fiers, we probably wouldn’t have gotten where we got to.”
That’s a strange message in the broader context of the scandal. Players and executives from around the league have talked about how Houston’s cheating was an open secret. Danny Farquhar, at the very least, caught on to the banging scheme in real time. It strains credulity to think that the league couldn’t have investigated this properly without help from the press, and Manfred’s comment only reinforces the impression that damage control has been the league’s unwavering priority in this matter.
Vacating the title was an actual conversation point
Another detail that emerged from the press conference concerned the validity of the 2017 title itself. Manfred revealed that the league had spent a considerable amount of time evaluating whether or not they should vacate Houston’s championship before deciding on a less drastic course of action. He invoked three reasons why the league decided against it: precedent, proportionality, and the slippery slope. As Manfred made clear throughout his comments, he thinks that the public shaming, and the collective public skepticism toward the Astros’ crowning achievement, is a sufficient punishment.
Manfred is also clearly concerned about the precedent of retroactively changing the result of something as significant as a World Series title. Given that the 2018 champions are also caught up in a similar scandal, you can understand his hesitancy and concern that other seasons would get pulled into this discussion as well: “Once you go down that road of changing what happens on the field, I don’t know how you decide where you stop.”
Retaliation will not be appropriate
The commissioner was asked about the heated rhetoric directed toward the Astros from rival clubhouses, particularly charges of potential on-field frontier justice. Manfred says he has followed the discourse and that he’s attempted to proactively address the problems by speaking directly with managers: “I hope that I made it extremely clear that retaliation in-game by throwing at a batter will not be tolerated… It is dangerous and it’s not helpful to the current situation.”
Other notable comments:
Video room: While making clear that no rules have been formally adopted, Manfred sounded optimistic that the league and player’s association will soon agree on a rule that prevents players from accessing the video replay room during games.
Minor leagues: Manfred wasn’t happy with the way MLB’s discussions with minor league owners have been portrayed: “The proposal that we made to Minor League Baseball and every single conversation we’ve had with Minor League Baseball about this topic included a plan so that every single community that has professional baseball would still have some form of professional baseball. Minor League Baseball has chosen to mischaracterize the discussions in an effort to put public pressure on [us].”
As if we should be surprised that the teams up for the chopping block continue to see MLB’s de-affiliation plan as an existential threat.
Boston sign stealing: Somewhat lost in all the Astros news lately is that the league has still not administered discipline to Alex Cora (or anyone else) involved in Boston’s sign-stealing scandal. Expect that to change in the next fortnight: “We always want the investigation to go as quickly as possible,” Manfred said. “Never, however, at the expense of making sure that we have pursued every possible lead and done everything we can do to get the facts right. I think by the end of next week we should be done and have a decision out.” Whether anyone will be happy about that or not, we’ll see.
Tomahawk Chop: Manfred was asked about the Tomahawk Chop twice. He declined to weigh in both times, saying “I certainly understand the sensitivity of the issue” while also stating that other league business had prevented him from having substantive conversations with Atlanta on the topic. If you want to parse the fine print for an inclination of his thinking here, he did offhandedly refer to the action he took that led to the removal of Chief Wahoo from Cleveland’s official logos and uniforms.
Playoffs: Manfred downplayed the report that came out earlier this month that the league was considering expanding the playoffs. While acknowledging that the league has informally discussed different scenarios — “In an entertainment environment that is as competitive as the one we live, if were not at least talking about that we probably wouldn’t be doing our jobs” — but he reiterated that there has been no decision about altering the playoffs and he didn’t linger on the subject.
Brendan covers prospects and the minor leagues for FanGraphs. Previously he worked as a Pro Scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
I particularly liked the part when Manfred highlight the intestinal fortitude of the league for issuing a public report on the investigation. Of course, it turns out that report left out key details about the involvement of the front office, and despite the Astros’ cheating being something of an open secret around baseball for years, the league only began its investigation when The Athletic’s report created so much public pressure that it was the league’s only conceivable course.
That sounds more like an intestinal blockage than intestinal fortitude, Rob.
Yeah, and it didn’t address the players using buzzers. Why is the buzzer story so quiet?
I mean, what seems fairly obvious is that the league knew, told them to stop doing it at some point in 2018, then tried to sweep it all under the rug until the Fiers reporting began.
This comment will not be popular… but the Commissioner is responsible to the owners, and in some ways constrained by the players union and what they would accept on behalf of the players as a whole. The Union includes the Astros, whether other players like them or not. It’s simpler to express what we, as fans, expect or desire… but the actual complexities of what he can accomplish, and how, is far more complicated.
the only reason manfred hasn’t been fired is because he is a puppet for the owners. They say jump, he says how high. Crane says don’t punish my players, he says yes sir.
We need multiple owners to start coming out and making this right. Crane should be forced to sale the team.
This is true to an extent, but does not preclude the justified criticism from those in and around the game of how he and the league have handled this entire situation.
Absolutely, agreed. This will be written up as a HBR case study in poor crisis management for a business.
agreed. Cranes public arrogant response speaks volumes. He knows hes untoucable because he’s manfreds boss. Thats why he’s coming across the way he is. Basically the summary of his speech was “you can’t touch me because i tell manfred what to do, i’m manfreds boss”.
Basically it shows the last few years where all of the astros arrogance has been coming from, its coming from the top.
I think this played into the decision of who to punish. Nobody who was punished has a framework to appeal the decision outside of going to court. The players probably would have appealed any suspensions and MLBPA would have had to represent them. I think Manfred didn’t want to get into a fight with them and make it look like an owner vs player thing. He also clearly wants it to go away and having a bunch of appeals get reported on one by one doesn’t serve that goal.
To be fair, he would have almost certainly have lost on the player suspensions. Would have made him look very weak (amazingly, even weaker than he looks right now).
I disagree. It actually would have been a brilliant move on Manfred’s part, and thinking about it now, I’m really surprised he didn’t take this course of action…
If Manfred comes out with a damning report about the players’ involvement in sign stealing (even in his tame report he said it was “player led”), and then followed up with strong blustery statements about fairness and necessary punishments. Giving each Astros player getting a month long suspension or so, thereby basically forcing the Astros to vacate 25+ games. It would have set up a showdown between Manfred/MLB and the MLBPA, and showdown Manfred knew he was always fated to lose. BUT, that’s exactly the point, it’s just a trumped up public relations campaign.
MLBPA has to become the bad guys, vociferously defending a bunch of cheaters. The suspensions inevitably get lifted, and Manfred comes away looking like he was trying his best to defend the integrity of baseball, but the big bad union got in his way. The non-Astros players come back with the same criticisms they have now, demanding more justice, calling for Altuve’s MVP to get taken away, etc.. And the MLBPA is weakened both among the public and internally, causing rifts between the union members themselves.
MLB/Manfred get big wins right before the new CBA negotiations begin.
Manfred should be fired by the owners for failing to use this opportunity. Never mind his botched handling of the current state of affairs.
This is an insightful and plausible perspective Willl. Although I see Manfred as a puppet for the owners (and hardly a ‘brilliant’ strategist), your analysis makes one think that by keeping Manfred as the owners’ whipping boy, Manfred can remain the villan to fans and non-cheating players…thereby shielding all owners from condemnation while the issue is still hot.
Then, at some later opportune point, the owners can discard Manfred like a worn out piece of metal and emerge as the good guys to both the fans and players. The facts that the non-cheating players are mostly united in their disgust of Manferd and that no other owners have spoken up lends credence to this perspective. Wow.
The problem is MLB was only able to get the info they got by offering players immunity if they talked. No player is going to talk if MLB plans on crucifyibg them. And It’s pretty hard to come up with a damning report with no sources.
I generally agree with the original comment that Manfred did the best he could under the circumstances.
Shirtless George Brett,
Max Power posted a good explanation below:
“I don’t see how Manfred can claim they had to give the players immunity in order for the information to get out. You could start the investigation talking to Fiers, other former Astros players, and execs around the league that had knowledge of the Astros cheating. You could watch the games and listen to the bangs, which some random internet fan had the time and ability to do, certainly the league office had the capability to do this. Then, you go to Astros players, tell them “This is the information we have, you’re looking at an 80-game suspension, cooperating with our investigation could bring it down to 60 games (or whatever)”.
Now the players could have easily called Manfred’s bluff, knowing the MLBPA had their back. But that would further play into Manfred’s hand. Imagine Bellinger’s dismay when he found his own union strongly advocating for why Altuve should face no repercussions for cheating him out of a MVP and his team out of a World Series victory! At the least, it would sow significant disunity among the union, at worst it could break it apart. And that doesn’t even factor in the public perception factor. All the vitriol fans are directing at Manfred right now, would be directed at the MLBPA! It would be a public relations nightmare.
Were Manfred wiser, he would have played his hand this way, and come out much cleaner than he is now, AND with a vastly stronger CBA negotiation position. THAT’S how he could have done better under the circumstances.
Thats kind of a pipe dream though. For starters, by only talking to ancillary people you are getting circumstantial evidence and hearsay at best. This investigation goes nowhere with that. and secondly the commissioner cant just arbitrarily threaten to suspend players. I mean, he could but the PA would laugh him out of the room.
This whole plan seems to hinge on the commissioner threatening players with bogus suspensions based on flimsy evidence and the players agreeing to incriminate themselves for……reasons?
You mean like how the MLBPA vehemently blocked any form of PED testing for years but everyone blames Selig for the steroid era and not the players??
You are taking alot of things for granted here.
What did the Commissioner’s report tell us that we didn’t already know from Fiers and other leaks? All it did was confirm what we already knew, and nominated convenient fall guys.
Signstealingscandal.com gave us more information and more conclusive details than the Commissioner did.
All due respect, I dont think you fully understand how an investigation works. Fiers and leaks can say whatever they want. Without corroboration you are dead in the water though. And the only way to get corroboration is from the inside.
It’s the same reason you see mob murders given plea’s and even immunity to testify against their bosses.
I think the problem with this Machiavellian approach is that cheating may be much more widespread than the reports and penalties to date indicate. If it comes out that, say 20 teams or more were doing something like what the Astros were (even if it isn’t as sophisticated) then it becomes a huge problem for all of baseball. Congress probably gets involved and even threatens their precious anti-trust exemption.
Or if it comes out that a few front offices started these schemes and not just players than the teams become the bad guys and MLBPA gets the leverage.
Your idea only works if we have seen something close to the full depth of this and I doubt that is the case. I also think Manfred knows this. There are a lot of parallels with the PED scandals where there were far more players using than were ever punished (still are, probably), and the front offices looked the other way or even encouraged it because the enhanced performances sold tickets. The teams successfully villainized the players in that one, but I bet MLBPA has gotten wise to that trick now and it would be a lot more difficult to get away with it.
If Manfred took on the astros players, he would have had the support of the fants and players on other teams. Even a loss in litigation would have worked in his favor, and against the union.
Having the support of “players on other teams” is not the same as the view of the Union. The Union has a duty to protect all members, regardless of their conduct. Any Union has an interest in avoiding new precedent that could be expanded in the future against other members. The Union would have eaten Manfred’s lunch, and he acted accordingly. (Not appropriately, mind you, and horribly poorly from a communications and effectiveness standpont, but accordingly given the limits upon him.)
Yeah, but reporters are responsible to the fans and fans have choices about where they spend their money. In the end, the fans are the ones with the money owners want, and they need to convince us we should give it to them.
“In an entertainment environment that is as competitive as the one we live, if were not at least talking about that we probably wouldn’t be doing our jobs”
lol yeah that would be terrible huh
Manfred is disgusting. Fire manfred.
According to some of the articles, bregman is the first one to initiate the sign stealing in 2016 in which he went told the video analytics dept what he wanted. What people haven’t thought of, was this was during his debut when he was 0-50 and had one of the worst starts in mlb history.
MLB didn’t punish any of the cheaters so now the players feel like they have to police it themselves. SAD.
Purely in terms of style, this the most thorough channeling of the Vox Praesidi in any FanGraphs comment since 2017.
What is Vox praesidi?
Vox is latin for voice.
Praesidi is in the dative declension of the noun praeses, meaning president (or leader, champion, protector, etc…)
My mom is going to be stoked that those years of Latin finally paid off in the form of a comment reply on Fangraphs.
Manfred being opaque about his decision-making AND angering multiple stakeholders bodes poorly for MLB. I recognize that his main job is to keep the owners happy (see also: Roger Goodell), but it’s hard to make the claim that his tenure has improved the sport, and this most recent handling really does feel like a fireable offense, should enough of the other owners get tired of it…
Of course, it’s not like they’d replace him with Sean Doolittle or Meg Rowley, but I’m at the point where I feel like a new commissioner (and possibly new ownership in HOU and maybe BOS) would invigorate baseball powerfully and crucially.
He’s doing a good job of pulling the heat from the owners to himself.
This interview was clumsy, but Manfred really has but one role–to advance the economic interests of the owners. Admittedly, he doesn’t show much imagination or adherence to the idea of an empiric “best interests of the game”, but that’s been true with just about every Commissioner with the possible exception of Fay Vincent, (who was forced out for that very reason.) MLB is the equivalent of a closely-held corporation, and Manfred is just a well-compensated CEO. He can be dispensed with….it just takes money, and he’s never going to get a better gig than this. He knows it, and so do his employers.
MLB is a profitable cartel with a tailor made antitrust exemption purportedly in the public interest. Very little to do with Milton Friedman. If they were just there to make money, Congress would need to remove the exemption yesterday (hint: MLB does NOT want this).
There are more ways to retaliate than throwing at a player. Many of their fellow peers will shun them for one. Aggressive base running, slap tags to the face, etc… It’s going to be an interesting year.
Reading the comment of Mick Markakis today there is one clear thing. Fellow MLB players want their pound of flesh… and some more than others. I imagine there are quite a few pitchers reflecting on getting crushed at Houston and back then wondered how they pitched so poorly. Now they know. That is messing with careers.
I am not promoting retaliation … I am reading what I believe the tea leaves are saying. Get ready for a long year Astro players.
It’s as if being a clown is a requirement to be a commissioner in the big 4 sports. MLB’s is no different, this man needs to be removed. Between how this situation has been handled and the ridiculous rule changes to please those who don’t care for the sport anyway, I’ve about had it with him.
I would have a lot more respect if he and Houston just came clean on everything and address the cheating properly. No, it’s not the easy thing to do, but it’s the RIGHT thing to do…and moving forward would be a lot easier on us all. Punish them correctly, Astros need to at least try to sound sincere and not calculated, and we move on, just like we eventually did with the steroid era, which also was botched horribly by Selig. You’d think people in such high power wouldn’t act like cowards.
Trying to mute or hide the elephant in the room really is just disrespecting our intelligence as fans of the sport.
Adam Silver is far from a clown.
Silver is definitely the best of the Big 4 going right now – the Hong Kong thing definitely threw him for a while, but eventually he got there. The problem is that the commissioners at their root have to be company men, because they’re working for the owners and the only thing the owners are interested in is more money. So they inevitably find themselves in situations like this in which they come off as obliviously transparent.
In Manfred’s case, the problem is also trebled when you’re also talking about a guy who should simply never be allowed on camera.
Other commissioners at least pretended to care about the game or the fans. Manfred is telling everyone he does not. This, above all else, is why he is a worse commissioner than many before him.
I don’t see how Manfred can claim they had to give the players immunity in order for the information to get out. You could start the investigation talking to Fiers, other former Astros players, and execs around the league that had knowledge of the Astros cheating. You could watch the games and listen to the bangs, which some random internet fan had the time and ability to do, certainly the league office had the capability to do this. Then, you go to Astros players, tell them “This is the information we have, you’re looking at an 80-game suspension, cooperating with our investigation could bring it down to 60 games (or whatever)”.
Also, disappointing the Astros org (and Jim Crane) especially hasn’t faced any discipline for the Brandon Taubman incident and trying to ruin a reporter’s career.
at the very least, hire a prosecutor to give you ideas about how to get the information without giving up on all punishment.
Do you really think that MLB is not up to their ankles in lawyers? Manfred himself was/is a lawyer lol.
As far as I can see, Manfred was never a prosecutor, he’s never talked to a grand jury about why they didn’t yet want to convict and what they would need. Most lawyers do dumb shit like request “all relevant documents.” Well, if that isn’t a request to get buried in documents until nobody gives a shit anymore, I don’t know what is. Most lawyers win battles that set themselves up to lose wars.
To conduct an investigation with a ticking clock, to get people to rat each other out, that is something only a prosecutor has experience with.
There is no such thing as an adequate response. It doesn’t exist. The only thing that you can count on is the system continuing to churn out dollars.
Manfred is a tool of the owners. He is orchestrating a coverup to try and maintain the status quo, which is a lot of money flowing into the pockets of his bosses. Now that the extent of the attempted coverup is being exposed, he is dancing as fast as he can to stay ahead and contain the damage. Unless both the owners and players union prioritize cleaning up the game as opposed to making money, nothing will change. In a few years we’ll be talking about the sequel to steroids and Astros.
But that’s the problem. Manfred bugled this because he shouldered all the responsibility, when he could have passed the buck to MLBPA, by forcing them to defend the cheaters, thereby undermining the public’s support for MLBPA in the upcoming CBA negotiations.
Either way you look at this (from the “Manfred is a tool of the owners” perspective or the “Manfred is the Commissioner and should look out for the best interests of baseball” perspective) Manfred messed up. The owners should be mad (we don’t actually know what their opinion is in all this mess), and the players and fans are currently mad. He could have charted a path that made MLB look like defenders of integrity (handing down long suspensions he knew were unenforceable) thereby forcing MLBPA to be the bad guys by contesting the suspensions, and driving public support behind MLB and away from MLBPA.
He’s not actually acting in the best interests of the owners, and THAT’S why he’s no longer fit to remain as Commissioner.
I understand the Astros are the ones being targeted right now, but why aren’t people more suspicious of other teams? The Red Sox and Yankees were caught cheating in a similar fashion in 2017 and received a small fine from MLB in response. Alex Cora leaves the Astros for the Red Sox in 2018 and they win a World Series that year. Mookie Betts wRC+ in the three years leading up to 2018 are 120, 136, and 107, he jumps 78 points from 2017 to 2018 to a wRC+ of 185!
A current MLB player, Logan Morrison, made a since deleted post earlier this year accusing the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers of using similar methods of cheating. Morrison and Fiers have both indicated that the Astros cheating actually started in 2014, which happens to line up with Jose Altuve transforming from a nobody into one of the best hitters in baseball.
Why are all these random hitters from the Yankees posting wRC+ of 125 or more? Gio Urshela, Mike Tauchman and Luke Voit are all 27-29 year old minor league journeyman without any success at the Major League level before they joined the Yankees. Cameron Maybin and DJ LeMahieu both played 2017 & 2018 as below average hitters (all four seasons between 87-94), they join the Yankees in 2019 and post 127 and 136 respectively.
I know this is all very “loose” evidence, but I am very suspicious of a lineup that got infected by the injury bug posting a season long wRC+ of 117. Especially in an environment with an artificially raised level of average with the Astros at 125 (last time any team was as high as 125 was 1927, when there were 16 teams.)
My suspicion is that this scandal has a lot more in common with the steroid era than it does the Black Sox. The Astros have been forced into the role of scape goat here, but I believe there were many more teams/players with similar schemes. If this has been an “open secret” around baseball for the last 6 years, do we really believe there is only one team doing it?
If you are wondering my angle, I’m just a Cubs fan. My team went from having what was considered a potent offense in 2016 – Tied for 3rd in wRC+ at 106, OPS of .772 to being considered a middling offense in 2019 – T9th in wRC+ at 102 despite the OPS of the team increasing to .783.
Are balls really becoming more aerodynamic, or are more and more hitters gaining the knowledge of what pitch is coming their way?
Why are people not talking about the buzzers? Altuve was wearing one in the ALCS in 2019. Suspend them all.
Jeff Passan’s incredibly credulous article on ESPN today says Altuve didn’t want people to rip his shirt off because he had a tattoo of his daughter’s name on his chest that he didn’t want people to see because he didn’t like the way it came out and wanted to get it altered. Or something like that. Passan actually seems to believe that, or is pretending he believes that.
Except this is totally false. The Yankees were not fined for stealing signs, they were fined for improper use of a bullpen phone. From Manfred in 2017: “We learned that during an earlier championship season (prior to 2017) the Yankees had violated a rule governing the use of the dugout phone. No Club complained about the conduct in question at the time and, without prompting from another Club or my Office, the Yankees halted the conduct in question. Moreover, the substance of the communications that took place on the dugout phone was not a violation of any Rule or Regulation in and of itself.”
How did this guy not get enough media training to avoid responding to Jared Diamond that way? Or to not refer to the championship as a “hunk of metal?” I cannot FATHOM the commissioner of a major league sport saying that. I get that is probably how he feels, but it’s your job to go out and at all costs, avoid throwing gas on the fire by saying something really dumb. And he did it at least twice!
I have no idea how he recovers credibility after this. This whole thing going to be a storyline throughout all of spring training now.
Buzzergate is the story here and no one is talking about it. Why?
Der Kommissar Mannfred:
“We’ll have baseball by 2020!”
“Congratulations, you have a private letter I sent to the official; good report on your report,” “” “” “” “” “” “” “” “” ” ‘
“It’s really interesting, but I want to move on to other topics at some point.”
“The idea … Finding a piece of metal behind seems like a useless idea.”
“Yes, I do. You have four very good, famous baseball guys … who missed the job.”
“I don’t think big-league players, who came up with the idea of becoming the Houston 2017 Astro – have an answer to the question of what exactly is and why it happened in the past.”
The Astros’ “players” are expected to play by the rules and not. I understand when people say players should be punished for not doing it right.
“If I were in a [place] world, I could find all the facts. Without giving up, I would have done it.”
“There are no reports … And muscle availability probably won’t come from where we came from.”
“Once you go this route to change what’s happening on the ground, I don’t know how to decide where to stop.”
“I hope I have made it clear that retaliation by throwing and jumping will not be tolerated … It is dangerous and does not help the current situation.”
“The proposal we made about the small tournament ball, and every conversation we have with the Youth League includes a plan, so any professional baseball community still has a picture. “A professional baseball formula. She was chosen to misrepresent the negotiations to put pressure on us by the public.”
“We always want to explore to get through as fast as we can,” Manfred said. “However, we never make sure that we can all and do everything possible to find out the truth. I think we should do this by the end of next week and we have a decision to make.”
“I certainly understand the sensitivity of this issue.”
“In an environment as interesting and competitive as the environment we live in, if we don’t at least talk about it, we probably won’t do our job.”
Really hammers it home seeing this: This when your press conference reaches the depths of the worst of the fangraphs comments section.
Manfred is such a sniveling, condescending, parasitic little protozoa. I’ve never seen a person disregard the people and the history of those that pay his salary to the same degree.
It has long been evident that his only concern is establishing his own legacy. He has no regard for the fans he’s alienated. He has no clue how to reverse the downward trending TV ratings and attendance.
He’s just a little amoeba that’s found the perfect way to stroke his massively inflated ego.
Manfred’s comments belong under the “piece of metal” that the Astros banged on so brazenly.
Such a strange juxtaposition from Adam Silver, who spoke through the China scandal without sounding crass and got everyone on message. He also banned an owner who was bad for the league for life.
This. And, Silver didn’t throw Morey (or anyone else) under the bus when it would have been expedient to do so.
The amount I spend on MLB continues to drop and unless the Astros series is taken away I wont spend any more money on MLB. F***um.
>Biggest baseball controversy in years
>yeah but what about muh tomahawk chop
I actually think Manfred got it mostly right here, even if he’s been a little tone deaf as people have continued to dump on the Astros. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to vacate a title, and disciplining the players was never going to work. I think Manfred is quite surprised by how much backlash there has been, and don’t disagree. If we all knew most teams were flirting with this line already, and if it was already an open secret within the game that the Astros were pushing this line, why are players suddenly all hating on the Astros? Gary Sanchez’s team has also been upping their game on stealing signs and yet he’s coming down hard on Jose Altuve. I think that’s taken Manfred somewhat off guard.
remember how the cardinals illegally accessed the Astros scouting/analytics database and front office emails for like 2 years and everyone basically shrugged and forgot about it a week later?
Ask Chris Correa if he thinks everyone forgot about it a week later