Beans

Surprised no one's mentioned the primary and secondary logos being swapped... I like the powder blues, but prefer the primary logo of the past few years.

Astros Fan Fest is tomorrow...

¡No le vayas a decir a nadie!

Guys, this is obviously a terrible look for Houston. The Astros were either (1) one of the best teams in baseball and they cheated, or 2) one of the best teams in baseball because they cheated. What do you guys think? 1 or 2?

So internet rumblings, basically. I'll wait for actual evidence. If it's out there, it'll come to light.

With spring training in 27 days, this year will be full of rumours, questions, jokes, and internet memes—and fans might boo every single time an Astros player gets a hit on the road.

100% This is turning an already wild controversy into a full-blown conspiracy theory. And all because Twitter did what Twitter does best, finding photo and video evidence that could suggest the presence of those buzzers, generating enough noise that MLB felt compelled to respond, saying it "found no evidence" of wearable devices during its investigation. These buzzer rumours aren't supported by actual evidence, so don't mislead yourselves into thinking they're anything more than internet rumblings.

Did the Astros not think this would eventually get out when players left the team…? Did they just not even care? So confused.

I think the At Bat app was released for free for the first time back in 2012. Like you said, they had no ads for the first few years. Perfect little app, did everything, had everything. I think I even paid one year, maybe for the audio feeds... Those were the days, boy, I tell you what.

I saw this last year and I was about to post it here after reading everyone s***ing on BAM. Gary Vee nailed it, like you said. But while baseball's core audience is still old boomers right now—they struggle with Gen Xers and millennials—Generation Z (22 and younger) likes baseball very much. At least that's according to a 6,000-person study by both the NYU Preston Robert Tisch Institute for Global Sport and Fox Sports. "When it comes to baseball, Gen Z is all in. For perspective, millennial and Gen X sports fans have a strong preference for the NFL as their favorite sport — by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. For Gen Z, MLB has rallied to pull even with the NFL as their favorite sport. That’s partly because football declines in popularity as you move from Gen X to millennials, and finally to Gen Z. But for baseball, millennials are the low-water mark, with Gen Z representing a significant resurgence." https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2019/07/08/Opinion/Gennaro.aspx Hopefully someone at MLB read that and is in the process of loosening up the content restrictions, because they actually have a shot at the future with these zoomers.

I was going to say the same thing and make a crack about his being vegan, but the fact that he played every day last year and put up 6 WAR (might have been more if that calf injury in 2018 hadn't permanently slowed him down on the bases).... If he's playing every day, hitting (15th in Runs Created) and fielding well (15 DRS; +8 OAA), but running like s*** (-3 BSR), then he's got another couple years before he moves to DH. Who knows if he'll still have the bat speed then, but his process this year was excellent (xWOBA .387; Barrels/PA% of 9.4!), suggesting he might age well. Hopefully Dominican Ryan Howard (Sano) can stay on the field till he's 30, sliding into DH when Donaldson retires. There's a lot to like in this contract. 3 years would have been better, but at this AAV and with the DH option, going 4 years to age 37 for a guy like this is not insane.

Every time they cut to Montoyo playing in his living room it cracked me up!

Spygate has come to MLB, and the Houston Astros are officially the New England Patriots of baseball.

Exactly. Every headline they had before this was also a bad look for the sport, going back to last year. I mean, not as bad as this, but take everything that's happened this week, then add the juiced balls they recently held a presser to address, previous sign-stealing scandals still coming out in investigations/reporting (half the articles remind us of when the Red Sox used an Apple Watch), and the bogus claims that blew up a couple months ago of teams colluding to suppress player salaries. s*** is not looking good for MLB right now.

Just signalling whether it's offspeed is enough. They were mostly taking the offspeed pitches they knew were coming, because more often than not those pitches end up being balls, and teeing up on the fastballs.

"As I got older, I started thinking about showing my butt (in public), so I think that's why," Yamaguchi said through a translator Wednesday, prompting laughter from reporters at his introductory press conference at Rogers Centre. ... this guy's going to be a lot of fun!

Brilliant!

Last night on MLB Network, Tom Verducci said he was told that the Houston Astros in the course of this investigation made certain to the commissioner’s office that there were as many as 8 (!) teams in 2017 who were using similar systems to steal signs (Boston being one of them).

Yes, sign stealing has always been there, but through players’ own wits. That is what is allowed. What is not allowed is the use of technology to steal signs during games.

Not enough to deter Logan Morrison from whistleblowing this tweet out: Although, I mean, both the Red Sox and Yankees were punished in 2017 for stealing signs using the replay room (remember the Fitbit scandal?) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/sports/baseball/red-sox-fined-stealing-signs-yankees.html

Cora will be fired, of course, but I wonder when the hammer drops on the Red Sox and the cheating they did in 2018. And it might be even worse, the punishment for Boston, because there were teams punished for misuse of the replay room in 2017, but starting in 2018, MLB strictly prohibited the use of the replay room to steal signs. And there're a lot of sources saying that Boston was zooming in through cameras, in real time, to steal signs that year (that Ken Rosenthal piece last week in The Athletic even quoted someone who was with the team in 2018 saying “we were cheating“). And then this... I would love for Boston to receive an even greater punishment than Houston did :-)