All the Sh*t We Missed in Baseball’s Interminable Offseason | The Bandwagon
The Bandwagon is back, but everything is worse! Hannah Keyser takes you through all the terrible things - like the Astros cheating, the Red Sox cheating and the Mets’ entanglement with it all - that have happened in baseball and around the world in the 265 days since she told you to pick the Nationals in the World Series. What a simpler time that was…
Video Transcript
[SIREN]
HANNAH KEYSER: Sirens are in your head man. There's no sirens here.
I'm Hannah Keyser, and this is "The Bandwagon."
[CHEERING]
Season two! 265 days ago, we told you who to vote for in the 2019 fall classic, which had not yet taken place.
I'm bandwagoning.
[SNAP]
It's the nationals, and I can't wear a hat. We're in a stadium. I'm a baseball reporter.
Some [BLEEP] has happened since then. For instance, I favored the Nationals over the Astros in that world series, and not for the extremely obvious, overwhelming reason that you're already thinking of because it was a simpler time, when if somebody told you about the banging scheme, you would've assume they meant actual sex stuff. And your first question wouldn't be whether or not they were able to implement safe social distancing measures.
I promise we did not expense a bunch of not-cheap gear and set up a makeshift studio in my not-spacious apartment for the sake of gloating about how both right and righteous It was to choose the Nationals back then. But, you know, now that we're here, maybe we could just play the really fun Adam Eaton, Howie Kendrick GIF.
OK, fine. No time for that because we have a truly interminable, awful offseason to cover before baseball with an asterisk comes back. But maybe put an asterisk right there too in case it does not-- everything is worse. Over half a million people are dead from a horrific disease that forces their loved ones to grieve in isolation. Millions more are unemployed. I turned 30, and there wasn't even a party.
Because of all that unmitigated [BLEEP] that we have to wade through in 2020, we are going to recap this offseason season topic by topic, by using two sets of scales-- a yikes meter to measure how totally unfortunate and ultimately disastrous something was, and a fan scale, because we are still going to try to find a tiny little bit of heart in these stories that are fun and rootable. Let's get to it.
[ORGAN PLAYING]
- Yikes.
[HORN BLOWING]
- Astros stealing signs!
HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah, OK. So the big one. The story that spawned multiple books that are going to seem slightly silly when they're published next year. So when I attempt to tell us that the sports landscape is inexorably changed by a story that was immediately overshadowed by a literal plague. But this really was, like, the scandal that threatened to break baseball for a minute there. There is enough material in MLB's report alone to fill an entire episode of "The Bandwagon."
And that doesn't even address the fact that Rob Manfred credulously claimed that Jeff Luhnow didn't know a damn thing about his team's nefarious success, despite literally sitting in on a PowerPoint presentation about a program that became known internally as Code Breaker, or the team's "dark arts." Because that kind of psychotic self-confidence that causes an entire team to cheat for years on end is not super compatible with subtlety.
I'm going to give this a full five-out-of-five possible Yikes. What is there to buy into with baseball, if not the agreed upon publicly available rule book and a belief that the better team will always win. What the Astros did ruined that. Can you imagine if they had won last year?
But also, banging scheme? Rob Manfred wrote "banging scheme" self-seriously eight times in nine pages to describe a sign-stealing operation that combined high-tech illegal video feeds and a comically low-brow pounding on the closest waste receptacle, and it worked. Five Fans for the fact that baseball news dominated the winter. This controversy was exciting and cinematic, and probably the last time Twitter was any fun at all.
Next topic.
- Astros conspiracy theories.
HANNAH KEYSER: The Astros sign-stealing scandal was kind of all about how technology has seeped insidiously into sports and rotted the game from the inside out. But also for how a deftness with technology is really clutch for creating fascinating Twitter content, and potentially exposing a hell of a lot more about what the Astros were really up to that the officially sanctioned report could.
My personal favorite, Danny Farquhar seemingly catching on in September 2017 as sleuthed out by master sleuther-outer John Boy, who also found and cataloged an overwhelming amount of audio evidence for the banging, long before MLB confirmed anything.
- There's the change up. Bang, bang. Call for the change up. Bang, bang. And Farquhar steps off and says, can you hear it? They got [BLEEP] signs. We gotta change this.
HANNAH KEYSER: Sated by all that banging, John Boy and others turned their sleuthing to the wearable buzzers that the Astros were rumored to have worn well into the 2019 post-season when the official investigation supposedly found no cheating. And look, a lot of these gotcha moments show this suspicious bandage on Josh Reddick fall apart under the tiniest amount of scrutiny and now show how it's clearly confetti.
But a big old four Yikes no matter how you slice it because check out this one. After Jose Altuve hit the game-winning homerun in the ninth inning to send the Astros to the World Series, he demonstrably demurred against having his shirt removed, almost as if doing so would have revealed a buzzer that allowed him to sit on a slider for one of the best closers in the game.
At the time, he told Ken Rosenthal that he's just shy, and his wife doesn't like it when his professionally fit upper half is exposed like it is right here on Instagram, or right here on Instagram, or right here his deleted Instagram from earlier the same year, which is the only thing that a guy who is shy on TV would say. Thank you, I was going to call it out if nobody else did.
Once everyone knew they were cheaters, Carlos Correa offered a slightly more elaborate explanation about how his pal just has a terrible tattoo that he was too embarrassed to have associated with this historically successful moment. And then, in an effort to prove how airtight that alibi is, Altuve revealed to reporters a tattoo of his daughter's name? So yeah, four Yikes. Also, three and a half Fans.
- Red Sox sign stealing.
HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah, so shortly after the bombshell report that the 2017 world series-winning Astros had cheated, came the news that the 2018 world series-winning Red Sox had also cheated, which they did. But, like, way less egregiously. And in fact, the takeaway feels wholly different this time. The team had already fired manager Alex Cora for his role as the Astros bench coach in 2017. And did you take his cheating ways with him to Boston? Yeah, in a subtle everyone-is-doing-it kind of way. So no fans for this, and three Yikes, all of which are directed at the likelihood that at least one other team is doing something similar.
- What about the Mets?
HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah, so true to form, the Mets, who no one has accused of stealing signs or winning world series lately, got caught up in the sanctions portion of the sign stealing scandal this offseason, simply by virtue of having hired Carlos Beltran as manager shortly before MLB's report named him as a ringleader in the Astros 2017 banging scheme when he was a veteran player.
At first, this seemed like the rare instance in which the Mets misfortune had nothing to do with their own mismanagement, but in all of the time that MLB was openly investigating the 2017 Astros, no one with the Mets bothered to even ask their newest employee if he was guilty of defrauding the game. Three Yikes and one deeply beleaguered Mets fan for this future bar trivia answer about the manager who appeared in zero games.
- The Mookie Betts trade.
HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah, Mookie Betts is a talented, charismatic, most valuable, many times decorated, 27-year-old cornerstone of the Red Sox-- slightly tainted-- 2018 historically dominant team that cruised to 108 wins at a championship-- that was stolen. One of the most historic franchises in the sport of baseball traded away their franchise's marketable face for a couple of prospects and some future saving on their payroll.
And it certainly does cost less to not have Mookie Betts than it does to have Mookie Betts, or especially to keep Mookie Betts once he's allowed to demand his market value. But then again, no one made John Henry, estimated net worth $2.7 billion, buy a baseball team in the first place. And why even bother owning a baseball team if you don't want Mookie Betts to play for it?
A hardy [BLEEP] you and four Yikes directed at John Henry. No fans whatsoever to you. And frankly, if it wasn't already clear the 2020 was cursed to the core, the fact that the Red Sox won't have to feel the effects of this trade on their ticket sales or witness the full season dominance of the Dodgers with the addition of Betts is proof.
- Players being mad at the Astros.
HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah, they were very mad at the Astros. So rumors of the Astros sign stealing have been swirling around baseball for years. Don't let Rob Manfred tell you otherwise. But once the proof was public, players around the league were able to be pissed about it in public too. And, boy, were they.
- Altuve stole an MVP from Judge in '17. Everyone knows they stole the ring from us.
- A lot of the apology yesterday was a lot about 2017, 2017. It's, like, I'm pretty sure it was going on in 2018, 2019 too. If they didn't get caught, they'd still be doing it. And, you know, they're only doing this apology because they got caught.
HANNAH KEYSER: You guys, Mike Trout said that he lost some respect for them. And he does not agree with the punishment, which scaled to his usual level of spice, is practically a profanity-laden diatribe that goes on so long it crosses from revelatory into grandstanding. But enough about Trevor Bauer.
Hearing from guys on the Dodgers, Aaron Judge and Yu Darvish, who is frankly being way classier than he needs to be considering his history against the Astros, really helped to underscore the stakes of cheating in baseball, namely that it really can ruin someone's career.
I'm going to have to give this 2.5 Yikes for sewing discord within the labor union, but three and a half nostalgic Fans for it being the last baseball news cycle we got to enjoy before the pandemic.
- Unresolved labor fights.
HANNAH KEYSER: I think anyone who has paid attention to the sport the past few months has developed a coping mechanism that causes them to go catatonic as soon as they encounter the phrase pro rata. So rather than rehash the merits of the March agreement and whether or not anyone should leak to reporters-- they should-- we can cut the end result, which is that they literally did not come to an agreement.
The season we have now is going to be played both during a pandemic and also under the dark cloud of a looming labor grievance. I don't think both sides should have to set aside their differences just because there are more serious issues in the world. But I would like to say that it bodes really, really not great for the forthcoming CBA negotiation that they never got on the same page. Five Yikes for the future of baseball and one grudging and far from universal Fan because I actually kind of like covering the labor stuff.
- Mason Saunders.
HANNAH KEYSER: Yes, exactly. By which you mean Madison Bumgarner. In February, we learned that erstwhile Giants ace Madison Bumgarner has been competing for years as a rodeo roper under the alias Mason Saunders. This inevitably inspired not just the light, but some measure of controversy.
First, because it bolstered the rumor that he had gone to the Arizona Diamondbacks to be around his horses, which was in no way, whatsoever, dispelled by Madison Bumgarner saying the misconception that everyone had that I came here just to be around horses is [BLEEP]. And because, as you may remember, he missed three months in 2017 after a dirt bike accident. I'm sorry, "dirt bike" accident.
What if-- goes the conspiracy theory-- he was actually injured while roping. Well, frankly, then lying and saying he'd been riding a dirt bike would be a really, really dumb cover story. But obviously, the story is perfect, and I cannot wait to hear what Mason-- I'm sorry, Madison-- has been up to in quarantine. So five Fans and a reluctant Yikes because he really shouldn't be risking his health like that while under contract.
Do we want to do humble proposal now?
If it seems like the media is ambivalent about sports coming back, it's because we are. Or at least, I am. It's confusing, and stressful, and so unprecedented that the word has practically lost all meaning. I assure you that no one wins this year, no matter which way I advocate or what baseball does. Because the coronavirus pandemic has already killed thousands and it will continue to do so, whether or not baseball games go on. Months of nefarious neglect at the federal, state, and local level and government has put the country in such dire straits that so many decisions feel like riddles with only wrong answers.
No one should have to choose between skipping a year of their career and salary or exposing their infant daughters to an elevated but still invisible, incalculable, and, ultimately, inescapable risk. That's true for Buster Posey, and it's also true of people who aren't millionaires many times over. And frankly, it's not fair that the burden for saving sports in 2020 and insuring that anyone should even be able to ethically stomach enthusiasm for baseball's return has fallen to individual citizens. But it has.
This isn't about shame or infringing on personal liberties. It's about the opportunity that each person has right now to stem the tide of disease and death and also make it safe for professional sports to resume. Masks suck. They also work. Right now, baseball's opening day scheduled for next week, despite the rising tide of COVID cases. I don't think this is a very good idea, even though I really wish it was. Sports are an important part of society, but they're also something we have to earn back right now. So please, take this [BLEEP] seriously. Wear a mask.
There is actually a baseball season on the calendar. Opening day is next week. And assuming that they do not bag the entire season between now and filming another episode of this show, we will talk about all the baseball-y stuff, like, you know, where Gerrit Cole is pitching now. Whether or not I can remember who's managing the Red Sox. Did the Mets even find a new manager? We'll reveal all of that and more in the actual season preview next week.
- We just did a Season 2 premiere, y'all.
HANNAH KEYSER: Woo!
- Season 2!
HANNAH KEYSER: Are we having fun yet?