A’s Melvin, Chapman say game better thanks to Fiers’ actions
A’s starter Mike Fiers, the only publicly named whistleblower at the center of the Houston Astros cheating scandal, declined to discuss the topic Friday during a preFan Fest media session, but his teammates and manager were happy to stick up for him.
“My hat’s off to Fiers for putting his name on it,” Oakland closer Liam Hendriks said. “It shows a lot of courage to do that, knowing the backlash and repercussions. We’re just happy the game is being cleaned up.”
In November, Fiers told the Athletic website that his former Houston team was using technology, namely video feeds, to steal opposing signs during the 2017 season. Those comments along with similar allegations from unnamed players prompted an MLB investigation that led to severe penalties; Astros GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended for a year and subsequently fired, and the team will lose its top two draft picks the next two seasons.
Houston’s former bench coach Alex Cora was fired as Boston’s manager, and exAstros player Carlos Beltran and the Mets mutually decided he should step down as New York’s manager.
After providing MLB with testimony about the case, Fiers did not address the cheating scandal Friday, saying repeatedly that his focus is on preparing for the season.
“I’ll talk about baseball and my team moving forward,” Fiers said. “Baseball questions, please . ... It’s all about not being a distraction to this team.”
A’s manager Bob Melvin has supported Fiers throughout. On Friday, Melvin said he believes that Fiers eventually “will be revered for this in years to come. He’s put the game in a better place. This needed to happen because things were getting out of hand.”
Fiers has been criticized in some corners for making his allegations in the media rather than to baseball officials, but Melvin said that had happened and hadn’t worked.
“I read statements from some people saying, ‘OK, then report it to the league.’ Well, it was,” Melvin said. “This was the only way it was going to go down — if a player who was on their team came out in the open and reported it.”
Fiers had been telling teammates about his knowledge of the Astros cheating since he’d been acquired in 2018. Melvin said Oakland was “very aware” of the issues, and he said other teams were, too.
“They’d say, ‘You have to watch out for this, you have to watch out for that,’ ” Melvin said. “When you see teams (playing against Houston) giving multiple signs with no one on base, that’s a dead giveaway something is going on, and there’s no place for that. A line has been severely crossed.”
Third baseman Matt Chapman said that the allegations against the Astros “were no secret.”
“I don’t think there’s a place in the game for cheating and I think baseball is going to be better for this. It might be a dark time right now, but I’m thankful this will help the game get to where we need to go,” Chapman said. “I have Mike’s back, and I think what he did took courage. It’s not always easy to stand up and do the right thing and put your name out there like that. Anyone saying he’s a rat or a bad person is just wrong — the game is going to be better because of what Mike did.”
Do the A’s feel cheated out of a potential division title the past two years, given what MLB’s report described as systematic signstealing that gave hitters advance knowledge of what pitch they’d be thrown?
“There were times last year when we caught them in the standings and were even or close,” Melvin said. “There’s psychology involved — maybe if that wasn’t going on, it would have stayed that way. But you just don’t know. And you don’t want to go into a season dwelling too much on that because it takes away from what you want to do.”
“I think this season, with everything that’s going on with (Houston), it’s just another thing we have going for us,” Chapman said. “We don’t have a lot of question marks or drama, we just have a bunch of returning guys, which we haven’t had for a long time.”