Carlos Beltran has SO much to lose here. Credibility, his job, HOF Status, all sorts of things that are a part of his legacy. But the MLB must take this seriously so there is never question within an organization to cheat. Baseball is all about one word...INTEGRITY. Play the game the right way and it will reward you. Sad to see someone of this caliber with his hands tied, out of control of his destiny. Pro Sports Outlook lays this out pretty smoothly in their Best In Sports segment.
https://prosportsoutlook.com/the-best-in-sports-january-16-2020/
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It could be said that cheating in baseball is a time-honored tradition as players try to get an edge: corked bats, doctored balls, sign stealing. MLB catches up, makes new rules, and players go back to the drawing board.
Cheating, or not, the player still has to produce. What caught my attention in an NYT article: "In 2017, the Astros hit .279 at home with 115 home runs and a .472 slugging average. On the road, where a pitch-stealing scam was more difficult to pull off, the Astros hit .284 with 123 home runs and a .483 slugging average. That was not a one-off. In 2018, the Astros hit .248 at home with 92 home runs; on the road, the Astros hit .262 with 113 home runs.”
This is not the same performance disconnect as shown in the stats of Bonds, Sosa, McGuire, et al.
As the steroids era has passed (It has, hasn't it?), so will this episode.
Baseball has far more important issues with which to deal...
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Astonishing incompetence and buffoonery by the disgraceful owners of the Mets, but not at all surprising. They’ve cut corners for years, cheapest and most unprofessional owners in baseball. No doubt they hired Beltran for a pittance because he was so eager for the spotlight as a manager, while they could have hired any of the experienced, title-winning ex-managers presently available, but they would have expected appropriate compensation. Cheapskate despicable owners, good riddance to them too!
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Beltran MAY have Hall of Fame numbers, BUT he has lost one of the other important qualifiers - integrity. Cheaters are not welcome in an institution that has integrity as a prerequisite for entry.
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MLB is very much to blame. When I was playing the only tech in the dugout was the phone to the bullpen. Banish all tech during the game including in the clubhouse. Lock it away. It’s poison.
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Beltram was mentioned once, tangentially, in the report. He was and is the best at LEGALLY identifying when a pitcher is tipping his pitches.
If he is penalized to this degree it's time to impose the same penalty on every Houston player in 2017 that they gave to the manager.
Falling for this has just turned 2020 from an exciting year for Mets fans into the same old same old.
I'd not accept his resignation. If you must follow this path then hire Joe McEwing, not one of the many retreads that are making the rounds.
The scandal broke a couple of weeks after Beltran was hired. Did the Mets then ask him if he was involved ? They say no. That’s incompetence. Beltran was asked by the media if he was involved. He said no. That’s lying. Fault on both sides. I like him. I love the Mets. But they are losing it. This disaster. Steve Cohen taking over. That’s two strikes. One more and you’re out.
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As this episode sadly shows, Mets GM Bodie Van Wagenen has lost his credibility as well.
His first major move was mortgaging the Mets’ future in the reckless trade with Seattle: out with the team’s top prospects and in with Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano.
His latest big play was his reckless hiring of Carlos Beltran. Van Wagenen is being paid for his baseball knowledge and his ability to analyze if a person is a good fit with the organization.
There had been talk about the Astros cheating for years. So what happened? Did Van Wagenen miss it or ignore it? Either is a huge gaffe.
The Mets need to know which it was, and then plan for their future, hopefully with someone who hasn’t lost his credibility.
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@Carlos
Beltran's hiring was hardly reckless. As Kepner writes, at the time of his hiring Beltran was one of the most respected and lauded players in baseball.
It would have been reasonable to assume he had knowledge of Astros sign stealing--which was commonly known. There would be no reason to believe he was one of the schemes architect.
At the time it was a good pick. Beltran turned out to be dishonest. He managed though to fool everyone, not just Van Wagenen. You're right about trading for Cano. That was dumb.
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@Carlos Brodie is also college buddies with Hinch and was also his agent. Its hard for me to believe that he had no inkling of what was going on in Houston.
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@Laurence Bachmann I watched beltran during his rental w the Giants. No leadership skills in evidence.
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Van Wagenen is disingenuous to say "there were mistakes he [Beltran] made." Putting in the wrong batter to pinch hit or pulling a pitcher from the game too early is a mistake.
Systemic cheating and lying about it is a character flaw--a total lack of integrity. Beltran has shown us he is immoral and deceitful--winning is all that matters. To keep him as the manager would have been an outrage and disgraced the entire organization
Good riddance.
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The poor Mets. Once again the team that could not shoot straight. This newest blunder goes right back to ownership, which did not do their due diligence when vetting Beltran's resume.
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I don’t agree that players involved in this should automatically be held blameless as if they were innocent children led into a life of crime by the adults in team management. These are grown men who should have known better but chose to take shortcuts to fame and glory.
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Leo “the lip” and Herman Franks are smiling in their respective graves. A telescope hidden in center field at Polo Grounds in 1951 hurt the Dodgers.
Could a telescope in 1951 be considered similar to today’s “electronic device?”
Did Bobby Thompson know? Probably.
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Probably indeed, to the everlasting regret of my Uncle Ralph.
Steve Branca.
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"Someday, Beltran may have his own plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y., for a sterling playing career that ended with a World Series title in 2017"
really?
let the cheating continue....
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As this scandal continues, I have heard the same pablum from NY, to Houston, to Boston. And that is- Cora/Beltran are great men with integrity who made a little mistake- blah, blah. No, what these men did (and would continue to do if they weren't caught) was to engage in the compartmentalization of their lives. Yes, they were wonderful teammates, fathers, children, husbands, but in their other role as players, they cheated and essentially threw others under the bus. This reminds me of the similar comparisons with Mafia hechmen (no I am not comparing baseball cheating with killing others, but stay with me) when neighbors, and family members say "he was a great husband and father, he shoveled snow for the old lady across the street." Yes, but on the other hand at 'work' he executed others, or beat up people, extorted money, etc. This is the nature of 'compartmentalization. One part of your life, usually the private side, is moral and upstanding, but the work side of your life is ruthless and exploitative. If one has integrity it must manifest itself on both sides of the ledger.
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Lance Armstrong had to give up his Tour de France honors and pay back many of his sponsors.
Many Olympic gold medal winners have to give back their medals.
Although it was the athletes who created and maintained the cheating, only the managers were penalized.
I suggest the cheating athletes give back the rings, give back the bonuses for winning the series, and be suspended for a season. Replace the World Series banner in Boston with a black banner.
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If cheating costs you a medal at the Olympics, it should also cost you a title in baseball.
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This case is pathetic.
One team, involving a cheating scandal, that has been going on in baseball in some form or another since the game started, that may have affected only potentially 30 teams for one year and major league base goes on a draconian execution spree.
What about PEDs? It ruined the game for 20 yrs., made stats, records a joke, hurt players who did not take them and major league baseball has still not done anything about it.
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The primary players involved should have been suspended for the year by MLB, the same as the manager and GM and the bench coach. Consign the franchise to the trenches once more as punishment. Sign stealing aside, I think anyone who knows the game will admit that this is a talent-blessed club. Even with foreknowledge you only have a fraction of a second to deliver and your mechanics and instincts must produce at a superior major league level. That’s what makes the infractions so devastating. Give those guys an edge and they can’t lose...until, that is, they come up against the Washington Nationals’ pitching staff.
The clubhouse needs to pay.
The owner? Talk about a free pass. If MLB won’t suspend his players, then he needs to get straight.
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I've been a Carlos Beltran fan since the days he started his MLB career here in Kansas City, and I wish he had been given a chance to make his job with the Mets work. When he was involved with the Astros in 2017, he was participating in the game from an entirely different perspective than as a member of management. When you are involved in a sport as a member of a team, the resulting groupthink communally seeks an athletic advantage, and brings a squad to a collective decision that no single individual would ever think of making. One of management's jobs is to override this thinking when it goes too far, which is why A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora are unemployed at the moment. But, Carlos Beltran should have been given a chance to demonstrate that he understands the difference between being a teammate and a manager, seeing as the Mets had enough trust in him to hire him in the first place.
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@David Godinez
Carlos Beltran is the only player called out in the MLB report. That is because he was one of the principle architects and planners of the program.
He didn't just go along--he initiated and orchestrated. That is a whole different level of participation and it makes him deserving of disgrace.
Beltran is a very talented baseball authority. Unfortunately he's a lying, deceitful cheat who flushed his reputation down the toilet. Who wants that to be the face of your organization?
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Since catchers nowadays hardly call pitches these days ( it comes from the dugout), why doesn't baseball try having signals sent to the pitcher's hat like in football?
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I like reading Tyler's pieces - always on the money except this one where Mr. Kepner is not asking the 800 pound question.
Why did Beltrán wait till Commissioners report to step down?
Why did he not fess up to the Mets to begin with?
Like - a question - are there any skeletons?
So, forget getting his name printed in Commissioner's report - he showed no leadership by telling the Mets in the first place.
This item caught my attention:
"..The cheating scandal crumbled that foundation — not forever, but for now...."
How can it be not for ever?
I wish the Commissioner had named other players.
I am an Astros fan of many years - though my heart belongs to the Dodgers.
I think the Commissioner should have lowered the boom on all players.
Readers may recall I have advocated that Astros on their own lower the World Series banner and not exhibit the trophy.
It's a poisoned chalice.
And they should trade those unnamed players or dump them in "interests of (Astros) baseball."
And I hope the Commissioner gives both Cora and Beltrán the Pete Rose death penalty.
Life is complicated and hard it is - baseball makes it tolerable.
But these shenanigans now make life even harder for the fans.
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Cora and Beltran but not *your* manager?
Well the tips of the iceberg have been cleaved off the sport. They are still floating out there ready to adhere to another place in the institution. Is that it? The slaps on the wrist, albeit severe, were delivered. If you really want to end this problem. Ban all these folks, and anyone else found guilty, for life from any aspect of baseball. The players, apparently behind it all, will still collect the big money. The fans will still pay a huge amount to go watch cheaters. The penultimate cheater, Pete Rose, was banned for life. Why give these guys a break? And develop a better system for pitching signs so this ends here. If I was part of a battery, I would meet on the mound to determine the pitches for every hitter. And when the umpire comes to break it up, turn to him and say "Got a better idea to protect the pitches?"
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As long as there is betting on sports, there will be cheaters. Whether it is football pressures, buying referees, spying, or simply stealing play-books. This greed and the fortunes to be made are just too much for the associations to overcome. Add to that the unscrupulousness of the owners and their associations, the recruitment and the injuries, Sports today are insane and a waste of time. Their big message isn't team spirit, it's cheating.
Beltran’s lying about his key role in the sign-stealing scheme “was not in itself disqualifying” to be the Mets’ manager? That’s pathetic. But then, our manager in the Oval Office has lied about 15,000 times more than Beltran, and that hasn’t disqualified him — so far.
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The Mets should have hired Eduardo Perez the first time around. They should definitely hire him now.
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The real sad thing about all of this is that it is much ado about nothing.
You don't want your signs stolen? (*)
Update your signs - just like real people need to update their passwords to avoid Internet hacking.
(*) They've been stolen since the dawn of the game. It's part of the arms race of baseball and, really, no different than Sabremetrics. Should those teams that adopted Sabremetrics early be punished because it's unfair that other teams didn't? No, of course not. It's all part of an intelligence arms race. If you want to win, one component is to attempt to decipher what the other team is going to do. One method is knowing the other team's signs. Another is Sabremetrics...
@VJR
This is definetly something. A good catcher, with real time camera's, can break down any sign system. Sign stealing has been part of the game forever. 100% correct. But never with real time camera's. Never. You had to get to second base, make sure you didn't get picked off,figure out the code on just a few pitches and you had to worry that if the other team caught you you would get drilled in the head on your next at bat. The Astros scheme was way more advanced then the legal way to steal signs. Your argument is similar to someone who would make the argument that old princess phone is no different then the smart phone. after all you can talk on both of them.
@VJR Point taken, but I still think taking the arms race to real-time cameras and signaling systems (e.g., buzzers) is going too far in what should be a human game. The league should have drawn a clear line for teams that this was not acceptable - not cricket.
But, you have a point that (a) it may have been better known that everyone is letting on that teams such as the Astros used cameras to steal signals, which case (b) smart teams should have been changing signals, showing false signals, having signals come from the dugout not the catcher, or whatever to foul up the stealing scheme. Maybe some did.
Odd banging on a trash can is a heckuva way to implement a secret sign stealing scheme! No opposing players, managers, or coaches heard that? No umpires?
But it IS illegal. You need to advocate for making it legal, not rationalising it.
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Sad times. Yes cheating is clear, but much has been written
about other characteristics of not just Beltran, but A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora. Their teammates truly cared about them.
New managers for all three teams will arrive. But I wonder
how long this stigma will hurt for theirs wives, children,
and those close to them. I do believe it is not over yet,
other names will surface. Baseball is a wonderful game,
the human heart is another matter.
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Can't we employ a bit of existing technology to allow the pitcher and catcher to communicate with each other without visible signals? Seems like a simple solution to avoid future problems.
MLB seems more interested in fair play, discipline and accountability than NFL.
In football, wealthy players, coaches and owners get fined. In baseball, players, coaches and GMs get fired.
Is this because NFL owners really own their commissioner? Is there more balance in MLB between players and owners? Is MLB more woke as to cheating, optics and public opinion?
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2006 NLCS Game 7, Shea Stadium, bottom of the ninth inning, two outs, two strikes...
The St Louis Cardinals' Adam Wainwright fans Carlos Beltran with a curveball.
Game over, series over, season over.
We Met fans have had a problem with Carlos Beltran for a long time.
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Couldn’t agree more. I never found him to be a savvy player. He was always looking for the a long ball to hit and every pitcher knew it. Glad he’s gone.
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@Socrates
Conflating striking out in a game winning situation with implementing a scheme to systematically cheat over the course of a season makes no sense. They're not remotely comparable.
Wainwright was, at the time, the NLs premier closer. He was renowned for an incredible fastball. Beltran was, as any seasoned player would, looking for Wainwright to throw his best pitch. He got fooled. We all did. It not only wasn't Wainwright's money pitch it was a WICKED curve. You try to hit it. Sometimes you just get beat. You tip your hat and go home.
Beltran has given us plenty to despise. Not that though.
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@Socrates
This incident is the perfect example to those who try to argue that knowing the pitch in advance is no big deal.. Beltran thought that the pitch would be a fastball. If he had known that a curveball was coming the results would have been different.
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While I guess it is good that this came to light, I do wonder why the players largely got a pass on this. I would think a punishment along the lines of what was doled out after the “Black Sox” scandal would send the right message to those who might consider doing something similar.
The lion has no teeth.
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@Billsen
I agree with you in principle.
Practicality though makes it impossible. First, it would be crippling to fire the whole team--the 25 players who participated. Secondly, they're unionized and entitled to arbitration which would drag this out for years. Third, the defense would be "the manager made me do it",--a Nuremberg defense that is morally flawed but legally might stand up.
All in all I think holding managers and GMs responsible is the best possible imperfect solution. Even though it is nothing close to accountability.
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@Billsen I agree. Players were complicit as they were in on the 'bang' 'bang' approach to take advantage of the situation. It's all on video.
@Laurence Bachmann
Your points are well taken, but I have to agree with Billsen in more than just principle. Though it would make 25 minor leaguers happy, it would be unfortunate that firing all the cheaters involved would hurt many innocent people, especially the fans and those with incomes dependent on the game, but it would be the last time this would ever happen.
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It's great to hear that we hold people in sports to a higher ethical standard than our politicians or clergyman for that matter.
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@erwin my thoughts exactly, we protect our sports credibility to assure a level playing field with thorough investigations including witnesses, and careful video review and are quick to dismiss football players with bad attitudes-- yet the elephant in the room is the moral cesspool in DC- maybe if we gambled on political races?
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Every political race is a gamble - of the most terrifying kind.
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@erwin that's because we care more (about sports) :)
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Kind of amazed to read that as a player Beltran was renowned for his ability to steal signs legally.
I’ll forever remember him as the guy who struck out looking at a 12-6 curveball from Adam Wainwright to end game 7 of the NLCS between the Mets and the Cards at Shea in 2006.
Cliff Floyd had struck out earlier in the inning and everyone could see that Wainwright’s devastating yakker meant you had to go to the plate with a plan to swing early, because once you fell behind in the count the curveball would finish you off.
Beltran fell behind in the count and the rest was history.
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@Ned Ludd
You can't steal a sign when you're at the plate. The catcher is behind you. There's no opportunity to do so. He was just fooled by a curve from a fastball pitcher. Happens to the best hitters all the time.
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Carlos Beltran was always on another team's roster when my team, the Atlanta Braves, faced him. He always made me fear that we might be about to give up some runs. Now he's embroiled in the sign stealing scandal and on record as being less than forthcoming when asked about it. Not a good look.
And then there's Brian McCann, a player I've followed ever since he was first called up from the minors in 2005. He was on the Houston Astros' World Series winning team and behind the plate when they won it. Even if all he is guilty of is looking the other way, it's not a good look.
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Odds are Beltran will land on his feet. Perhaps it will be at other level of coaching level immediately just to keep him involved and give his a chance to prove he can generate success without stealing and cheating devices. It is noteworthy that not only Mets but the Red Sox and Astros - two World Series caliber teams are also in search of new team managers. That also leaves Mets at a disadvantage recruiting because many prospective managers would prefer a current WS contender no matter the cloud over ball field and taint on management/ownership over the Mets and Wilpons.
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