Altuve ‘stole’ Judge’s MVP crown
BELLINGER GOES BALLISTIC ON ASTROS
TAMPA — Sorry Jim Crane, but nobody with the Yankees is buying it. Brian Cashman said Friday that Crane’s Astros definitely had an unfair advantage in the 2017 American League Championship Series against the Bombers by stealing signs and relaying them in real-time to the hitters.
“I definitely think it had an effect on things without question,” the Yankees GM said. “The Houston Astros were dealing with a distinct advantage more so than their opponents. That’s a fact.
“So I don’t think anybody can disagree with that, even though they may try.”
Crane, the Astros owner, had tried to disagree on Thursday.
MLB investigated, fined and punished the club for illegally using electronics to steal opposing catchers’ signs and relay them in real-time to hitters. MLB confirmed the system was in place in the 2017 playoffs. MLB fined the team, took away their first two draft picks for the next two years. Astros GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were banned from the game for a year and fired by Crane.
But the Astros players were given immunity and the franchise continues to claim they did not have an advantage in the 2017 playoffs or in the last two years.
“Listen, the Yankees had had a few comments out there. Our opinion is, that this didn’t impact the game,” Crane said Thursday. “We had a good team. We won the World Series, and we’ll leave it at that.”
Unsurprisingly, no one in baseball wanted to leave it at that. Players are angry, feel cheated and are saying so publicly.
Friday in Arizona the Dodgers, who lost the 2017 World Series to the Astros, seemed even more upset after the Astros “apologies.”
“I thought the apologies were whatever,” National League MVP Cody Bellinger told reporters. “I thought (owner) Jim Crane’s was weak. I thought [commissioner Rob] Manfred’s punishment was weak, giving [the players] immunity. Those guys were cheating for three years. I think what people don’t realize is [Jose] Altuve stole an MVP from [Aaron] Judge in ’17. Everyone knows they stole the ring from us. But it’s over.”
No one really believes it is over.
Carlos Correa came out and strongly denied the allegations that the Astros were cheating in the 2019 ALCS against the Yankees. Specifically he said that Altuve was wearing an electronic buzzer under his uniform to tip him to the pitch when he hit the walk-off homer against Aroldis Chapman to send the Astros back to the World Series.
MLB said they investigated the buzzer rumors and found no evidence of it.
“I have no idea what’s going on over in other environments,” Cashman said when asked about the buzzers. “Just not in a position to know what did or didn’t happen.”
MLB’s report, which exonerated the Astros front office and called it a “player driven” scheme has already been undermined by reports that it was dreamed up by a front office intern.
Allegations that Carlos Beltran, then a player with the Astros, was an intimidating ringleader and enforcer in the scam, had holes punched into it by Astros players Thursday. Cashman, who signed Beltran as a player in 2014 and hired him as a special assistant in 2018, said those descriptions are not representative of the man he knows.
“The Carlos Beltran that I know is a good person, a great player, obviously, kind of a gentle giant, obviously a very physically strong, imposing athlete, but with a warm, gentle side to him to that was a great teammate,” Cashman said. “That was someone easy to communicate with. From a front office’s standpoint, I thought how he represented himself in the press was high standards as well, and clearly, someone that I can say is a friend, despite the stories of come out now.
Cashman said he had asked Beltran and others about their suspicions of the Astros, but no one offered any evidence. While Beltran was playing or working for the Yankees, Cashman emphasized he was not part of anything nefarious.
“Carlos Beltran was part of our organization last year and didn’t have any, you know, influence on … we did things right,” Cashman said.
It was current A’s and former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers who finally confirmed longheld suspicions in baseball about the Astros to the Athletic in November. Cashman said he believes MLB is doing all it can to keep the competition fair going forward.
“I think, at this stage, for the best of our industry, I’ll acknowledge that we had many conversations with Major League Baseball over the last number of years about suspicions, but having suspicions and being able to prove it are two different things,” Cashman said, “and then even with baseball trying to prove or, evaluate and then coming out with a finding, it’s not easy, and if it wasn’t for Mike Fiers, no one maybe ever would have known.
“This is a warning to anybody that’s doing anything in any arena that’s wrong, that the truth usually always comes out. And so, you have to keep that in mind. And if people are doing stuff that are wrong or against the rules or whatever, there are no secrets, it usually comes out eventually, that story does get told. There’s a big price to be paid for it.”