The Houston Astros have just about hit on every bad way to apologize for the sign-stealing scandal they embroiled themselves in, so the effects of genuine contrition will probably be muted at best from here on out.
That doesn't mean it's not worth doing, but remarkably, some of the parties involved are getting even worse. Astros owner Jim Crane, everybody.
And:
The players fared a little better in the locker room after the press conference ended, but as long as Crane and most of the implicated Houston front office members remain in place, the Astros are going to be baseball's villains for the foreseeable future.
I said a couple of podcasts ago that having a team most of the country rallies against can be good for baseball, the way the New England Patriots and Miami Heat made their opponents America's Team for a Week come playoff time. Before it gets to that point, the league has to prove that the scandal is entirely in the past, and with Rob Manfred trying to say the bare minimum at every turn -- even if subsequent reports start making him look complicit in protecting the upper ranks -- this toxic sludge will probably continue seeping.
Dallas Keuchel, the only member of the White Sox to play for the Astros over that time, seems to have struck what he feels is a logical balance between apologetic and assertive. Both at SoxFest and at Camelback Ranch on Thursday, Keuchel's expressions of remorse came with the disclaimer that other teams were probably doing something similar.
“We’re always going to be World Series champs because we were talented, and to me, we earned the right to be World Series champs,” Keuchel said. “Just because stuff came out about the 2017 Astros doesn’t mean other teams weren’t doing illegal stuff. It just means that we were the ones that were caught.”
You can shorten that down to "I'm sorry we were caught" if you're not in the forgiving mood. There's just not much more I would expect anybody in his position to say. I mean, Rosie Ruiz never admitted her medal wasn't legit, so I wouldn't expect people who had to play the games and throw and hit the pitches to say it was all a sham. Especially for the players like Keuchel who were only throwing them.
The only way it gets better for the Astros is if it gets worse for baseball, which is why Manfred wants to keep a lid on the whole thing. That hasn't yet proven to be an effective strategy.
Spare Parts
Jayson Stark had to work to get players, coaches and executives to talk about anything besides the Astros, but his preseason survey did touch upon the White Sox.
One sentiment voices something I've suspected ...
Yet we didn’t find much sentiment that [the White Sox] were now clearly better than the Twins or Indians. And one voter had so many doubts about every one of those additions, he said, flatly: “I don’t think this was as big an offseason as everyone seems to think.”
... that after seven consecutive losing seasons including one previous failed rebuild attempt thanks to a litany of disappointing acquisitions, the White Sox aren't going to scare anybody on paper alone.
The Luis Robert hype, on the other hand, is real. He won the balloting for most anticipated rookie, warts and all.
“Oh, he’s got some holes in his game,” said the exec who tried to vote for Robert three times. “I wonder if his approach at the plate will catch up to him at the big-league level, because you don’t have to throw him strikes … But the tools are outrageous. Out-rageous.”
FanGraphs is in the midst of its prospect week, and Eric Longenhagen has covered more than 150 prospects and post-prospects thus far. The Robert comment in Stark's poll brought Longenhagen's write-up to mind, because they both suggest that so many people in baseball have an intense desire for Robert's athleticism, motor and instincts to convert into Major League Baseball excitement.
Robert does have plate discipline issues. He chases a lot of breaking balls out of the zone and it took a lot of convincing from industry folks to move him this high on the list even though Robert has the surface-level traits that tend to make me irrationally excited.
Aside from the usual four, the only other member of the White Sox organization Longenhagen has covered is Carson Fulmer. It's still not good.
Along with confirming the White Sox's impending deal with Norge Carlos Vera, Jesse Sanchez throws in a few additional pieces of information. For one, Vera places No. 4 on the site's list of top international prospects, and he also mentions a couple of non-Oscar Colas prospects on the White Sox's radar.
Thursday marked the centennial of the founding of the Negro National League, when Rube Foster sought to establish a league that would generate a rising tide. The clubs would try to top each other on the field, but they wouldn't try to undercut each other off it, because a united, viable league of their own creation was the only way they could showcase their talents in the playing, coaching and executive ranks.
Shakeia Taylor took a moment to reflect on African-Americans' struggle to get a true foothold in leadership positions around baseball.
When Rube Foster created the Negro National League, he did so at a time when Black players weren’t considered good enough to play elsewhere. He envisioned a united league of teams that offered opportunities for Black players to work at all levels of the game. The Negro Leagues had Black players, managers, and executives. Foster himself had been a player, manager, and an owner. Once baseball re-integrated, his league was gutted to bring players to MLB. His dream was over and the Negro Leagues folded. Jackie Robinson’s arrival was supposed to be the beginning of the game equalizing, yet 73 years later, we are still waiting for baseball to move past Black men as just athletes. The last four African-American managers are Bo Porter, Ron Washington, Baker, and Roberts. Dusty is on a one-year deal. We don’t know who is to come after them should the present state of hiring practices continue.
The Indians keep reducing their margin for error, and Mike Clevinger's partially torn meniscus delivers a blow to what they have remaining. The team has not yet established a timetable for his recovery.
