Finally, finally, finally. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training facilities down south. Aaron Boone met with the media and is still upset about the Astros’ stealing of signs in 2017 and 2019. Long-time subscriber, E. Alper, sent SU this article in the Washington Post which is a good read about just how rampant the cheating was with the Astros:
There was another article in The Athletic that really killed Carlos Beltran. He was clearly a leader in all of this. SU says it’s likely this will keep him out of the Hall of Fame when his name comes up unless William Barr somehow becomes the next MLB Commissioner. The Mets were smart to move on from Beltran. SU must admit that my thinking on the cheating scandal has evolved. In the beginning, I didn’t think it was such a big deal as teams have been trying to steal signs for decades. But the use of technology – and especially after the Commissioner warned teams to knock it off – took it to another level. SU saw an article yesterday where Yankee reliever, David Robertson, looked back to game 6 in the 2017 playoff series and thought about how he was lit up that night. He said he was throwing the ball as well as he had all year that game and was surprised at how the Astros laid off certain pitches and were on others.
The Astros hurt other players in their careers. Baseball has a stupid credo where you don’t rat out other players – it goes all the way back to Jim Bouton in Ball Four in the 1960s and of course many years before that. It’s why the PED era lasted so long (and who knows what they are taking today that’s undetected?). You almost feel like the Astros should be punished more and perhaps their 2017 title should be taken away.
The Yankees are already down James Paxton now – another casualty of the Yankees’ medical/strength and conditioning staff from last year who recommended that he not have back surgery after the season. All of a sudden JA Happ is back in the rotation and Yankee fans are already buying up tickets in the right field stands for his games to catch those home run balls. It opens the door for some young players to get into the rotation until German and Paxton return around June.
SU just read that NBA ratings are down 10-12% this year. It’s interesting. SU has the same experience – just not as interested. I watch games to see certain players, e.g., Duncan Robinson on the Heat, vs. any team. The reality is that there are some young, exciting teams out there now – Memphis, New Orleans – and the Miami Heat play the right way. The downfall of the Golden State Warriors is certainly a factor and having no Kevin Durant, Curry or Thompson playing this year is also not helping. But SU feels there are a lot of great young players and in time, interest will rise again. It just may not be this year.
What do you think about the proposed MLB playoff changes being discussed for 2022? Another 3 teams in each League qualifying for the playoffs, best record gets a bye and the best team would get to pick who it wants to play in the first round. Pretty wild. I guess baseball wants to be more like the NHL where everyone makes the playoffs. SU is not a fan at the moment but is open to learning more.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
I think we all knew that baseball would expand their playoffs at some point. Too much money involved not to, and they want the excitement and interest of playoff chases at the end of the regular season. I don’t like the gimmicky approach that teams can choose who they play. Along with this, can we mandate that there can only be champagne celebrations for clinching your division, winning the League Championship series, and winning the World Series?
Adding teams to the playoffs does keep more cities motivated in September. Of course the real reason is the additional revenue it brings. I actually find it interesting that the higher positioned team can choose whom they want to play. These are all good things. The downside is that the #1 seated team has to wait possibly a week before playing. When a team is use to playing 6 days a week sitting out that long can kill your timing and possible momentum. The other downside is that once you mak the playoffs anything can happen in a short series. We see that in hockey all the time. In opposite the seeds in basketball are pretty much on target with the obvious final four making it to the semi finals. If you have a wild card one and done in baseball the team usually with the more dominant pitcher will win. If the higher seated team has 4 very good pitchers while the lower seated team has one lights out pitcher and the balance mediocre is that fair? It’s a very long season which just might get longer and digging into more of the football season. That’s not good.
Beltran will eventually get into the Hall of fame unless baseball keeps him out a la Pete Rose being a cheater…. except Beltran did not cheat while he played….I think !!!
Football and hockey have much more control of their game than basketball and baseball. No one… except maybe Lawrence Taylor is above the law in football. Hockey rarely has any ego issues… or maybe no one really cares or reports on them. When the player the other night passed out off the ice the game was postponed. Would that ever happen in the other major sports? Hockey, as tough as the players are is a very cohesive family.
So how does Happ having a great year two years ago turn into a bum last season? I never got the lowdown on the big change. Maybe he bounces back this year. I know one player better bounce back and that’s Severino. I give the LA Dodgers a very slight favorite over the Yankees. I am very curious how Sanchez and the Ex National league MVP does this season. Can they cut down consistently on their strikeouts? This is the huge offensive question. Who is out big lefty hitter? Gardner?
1) What a great way to respond to a cheating scandal far greater than the Black Sox scandal. Don’t suspend any of the players, just dilute the sport with more playoffs. If it weren’t for fantasy baseball, baseball stadiums would have even more empty seats than they do now.
2) It appears ESPN and the Mets took my advice and relegated Jessica Mendoza to a more appropriate position as I predicted in an earlier column.
3) I take it from your Barr comments the political party and ideology you espouse. However, I would say whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, you should be troubled when the previous Administration thru it’s intelligence agencies try to stage a coup of the incoming Administration, and a two tiered justice system where one person can have a seven to nine year sentence thrown at him for lying, as opposed to the former heads and deputy heads of intelligence agencies who lie before Congress and in court and totally get away with it.