Jerome is usually a blathering moron but he is making some damn good points. This is a complete joke and everybody knows it.
2017 MLB - "Ok Boston, don't do it again alright?" Boston - "lol k" 2020 - MLB -"Boston...what did I tell you about cheating" Boston - "um.....r...rogue employees? MLB - "lol k"
Correa (said) that, "Liar, liar, liar!" https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/22/red-sox-sign-stealing-scandal Boston posted an .872 OPS with runners in scoring position in 2018—not only the best in baseball that year but also the best by any team in the previous 12 seasons. Boston hit .364 with runners in scoring position in the postseason, up from .289 in the regular season. The MLB postseason average in those situations that year was .236. The Red Sox beat the Dodgers to win the World Series title, just as the Astros did the previous season. “This team was next level with sign-stealing,” the team source said, referring to players’ aptitude and interest in legally decoding signs. “We were all over it … ‘chase the one, strikes plus one, outs plus one’ … whatever. Just about every team did that. Alex never once influenced us about that. Our mistake was probably having the advance guy as the replay guy.”
Poor JT Watkins. Hard working guy, he didn't ask for this. So who is J.T. Watkins? A former minor league player and U.S. Army artillery officer, Watkins maintained a largely behind-the-scenes presence for the Red Sox over the last few years, working in the scouting arm of the team’s baseball operations department. Watkins originally joined the Red Sox organization when he was drafted in the 10th round in 2012 out of West Point. After playing that year in short-season Lowell, Watkins served two years in the Army as a field artillery officer at Fort Stewart in Georgia before returning to the Red Sox in 2015. A catcher, Watkins played two more seasons in the minors at Single-A Greenville and High-A Salem alongside Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers and Michael Chavis. But he decided his playing days were over following the 2016 season. In 88 games, he hit .184 with a .363 OPS. In 2017, Watkins was hired as an advance scouting assistant for the Red Sox. The scouting genes run in his family as his father Danny has worked as an area scout in the Red Sox system since 2004. Danny Watkins was responsible for discovering Betts and convincing the Red Sox to draft the future MVP in 2011. Over the last three-plus seasons, the 30-year-old Watkins has worked with the major league coaching staff preparing the club for opponents while also serving as the team’s in-game instant replay coordinator. Anytime a play needed to be challenged, Watkins would be the one the manager relied upon for a quick decision. But he also had another job: decoding the signs used by other teams before and after games. He was not supposed to extend that work into the games themselves. But as he sat in the replay room with the feed in front of him, Manfred’s said, sometimes, with some players, he passed along additional information “utilizing in-game video to update the information that he had learned from his pregame analysis.” Manfred added, “communication of these violations was episodic and isolated to Watkins and a limited number of Red Sox players only.” It was rare, Manfred said in the report — happening only some fraction of the roughly 20 percent of the time that the Red Sox had a runner on second — but it happened, despite Watkins’ denials to MLB investigators. In the report, Manfred seemed to have some sympathy for Watkins due to his dual role as both replay coordinator and pre-game sign decoder. “In my view, Watkins was placed in a very difficult position by virtue of his dual role as the person responsible for decoding signs pregame and as the person responsible for operating the Red Sox’ replay system,” Manfred wrote. “Thus, he was placed in the difficult position of often knowing what the correct sequences were but being prohibited by rule from assisting the players by providing the correct information. While this does not excuse or justify his conduct, I do believe that it created a situation in which he felt pressure as the Club’s primary expert on decoding sign sequences to relay information that was consistent with what he naturally observed on the in-game video.” Watkins was often praised by Cora for his keen eye and ability to handle the pressure of relaying quick decisions on video replay. Even Manfred’s report stated that “virtually all of the witnesses described Watkins as a hard-working and diligent employee.” Now he’s the lone person being punished for wrongdoing MLB found on the 2018 Red Sox.
Living proof that you cant mess with MLB's royalty franchises. The Stros were too high tech and were going to be a powerhouse for a long time with Luhnow in charge. Cant have that, it would affect MLB revenues. This was about nothing more than money. The Red Sox lack of punishment proves this. Manfred has now overtaken Goodell as the biggest POS to run a major sports league.
This is because they didn't have a rat-fink snitch like Fiers out them. They circled the wagons and realized Manfred was completely toothless if they didn't implicate themselves on anything.
This whole thing is one big effing joke. Astros will continue to be the fall guys and yadda yadda yadda. Wow just wow.
Let's be honest, the Astros and the Red Sox BOTH got away with it. Both teams are sitting around a campfire like 6th graders thinking holy ****, we did it and we got away with it. MLB looked the other way both times. It's the media that will determine if they are tagged with a scarlet letter. Likely, they won't be, but only because we are on that front line.
I mean, got away with it means there were no consequences what so ever. Our first round picks, former head coach, and former GM beg to differ.
Will this bogus, laughable punishment be an impetus for anyone to investigate Manfred's handling of all of this and find out how commonplace digital sign stealing actually is? What else does the sports media have to do right now besides renew their worship of the 90s Bulls?
Lol so all we should have done is get a low-level employee to do all the stuff, and MLB wouldn't have cared
When in doubt, take the Boston sports route and blame the low level employee. He acted alone. We had no idea. He was just trying to get footage for the team-produced show.
