MLB News: Alex Cora Warned Nationals About Houston Astros’ Sign Stealing, Per Report
The Los Angeles Dodgers as well as former Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora alerted the Washington Nationals of the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing prior to the 2019 World Series. Notably, this report comes from Barry Svurluga of the Washington Post.
The key notes here are the current Dodgers’ allegiance to Brian Dozier, as well as Cora’s friendship with Davey Martinez led to the tip-off of what was going on. Furthermore, it’s interesting to me that with Cora’s involvement and then status as a manager; that he would get involved at all.
Dodgers players, Alex Cora warned Nationals about Astros' sign-stealing before 2019 World Series, per reporthttps://t.co/TrOAO042sK pic.twitter.com/qaCI6hJbj1
— CBS Sports MLB (@CBSSportsMLB) February 11, 2020
This is from the CBS Sports article linked above. For one, it seems that the inner-circle of the baseball world knew well that the Astros were up to something.
Houston’s sign-stealing exploits were no secret within baseball going into the World Series, so much so that Nationals players received warnings from around the league. According to Barry Svrluga and Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post, several Dodgers players reached out to Nationals infielder Brian Dozier to warn him about sign-stealing. Dozier played in Los Angeles in 2018.
Therefore – if it wasn’t Mike Fiers who outed his former teammates – isn’t it fair to assume that someone else eventually would have? The truth always comes out, and not everyone could have kept this secret bottled forever.
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[adace-ad id=”119376″]There’s more, including Max Scherzer reaching out to a former teammate to pick up some tips on the Astros.
Martinez, according to one person, also reached out to Tony Sipp, a reliever for Houston from 2014 to 2018 who spent the first part of 2019 with Washington. Martinez and Sipp didn’t connect, but Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer took his own steps to track down Sipp. It is standard for pitchers and catchers to switch to a more complex set of signs with runners on second — to prevent the runner from stealing the sign and signaling it to the batter, a practice that for years has been considered acceptable — but Scherzer asked Sipp whether the Nationals needed to be concerned about the Astros even with no runners on base. Sipp said yes, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Obviously, the Astros did a very bad thing; and more less got away with it. Now that the intricate details are coming out, it’s hard to believe that the Astros didn’t have this hit the media during a season or postseason play.
Oh that’s awfully nice of him after doing it to us twice. What a POS he must have something against the Dodgers
I have a question. The Sox just named a new manager, Ron Roenicke, who was brought in by Cora himself as his bench coach. Does anyone else see a problem here? This is Cora’s guy, his advisor. Do you think he was unaware of the cheating? When you’re caught cheating shouldn’t you make a clean break from your past ways?
Kind of weird. If everyone says you were one of the masterminds behind it; would you be warning others? Maybe he was told to comply or be shipped out. Sounds more and more like there was a lot of involvement from the GM on down. And he said he was innocent. No one better hire him. “What a wicked web we weave”.
Error in subhead. Change 2020 to 2019
Cora is bad for baseball. Joe Musgrove made some interesting comments. More players need to come out so MLB can punish every team involved in cheating the past few years. At least they took positive steps in 2019.
If the Senate can investage the MLB for Roids….isn’t this far worse in so many ways….then the players would have to face the music and look what that did to Mark and co….but ” I am not here to talk about the past”
They would decide not to hear evidence in order to protect the sport. They already did it with Trump to protect their pathetic dwindling party. Pretty soon they will become a third party as there are a growing number of independents
So….. today the Astros issued their individual rendition of “apology.” Some players appeared to have tears welling in their eyes as they professed regret and remorse and responsibility for their team’s actions. Listening to these players, you’d think that the sign stealing was simply something that uncontrollably happened to them rather than something they individually contributed to. As far as this baseball fan is concerned, its not enough. It feels long overdue and so contrived Each player needs to donate, to charitable organizations, that money acquired when they stole the 2017 World series and deal with the press as a whole. I do not envy these players, but I definitely do not feel sorry for a single one of them either.