[Abraham] Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones are now Hall of Famers.
Manny Ramirez falls off the BBWAA ballot after 10 years.
So trash cans and cheating to win a WS isn’t as bad as roids.
I mean if you’re looking at how it affects their careers, Beltran did do something bad. But he did it in his final season, after he’d hit 400+ homers and cemented a HOF case.
Whereas Manny was caught twice during his career for injecting steroids into his body, and we don’t know when he started
I agree that on the surface it seems hypocritical (and maybe it is!), but it can definitely be justified
C’mon, Manny didn’t take steroids, he was just trying to get pregnant.
Explain Bonds then.
There was a moral panic over steroids in baseball that took over national media. It’s why the big roiders are out while Gaylord Perry’s plaque references his spitballs. How the voters treated Beltrán is much closer to the kid gloves which MLB has historically used to treat cheaters. The roids are the exception.
And don’t forget greenies. A-OK
And steroids are actually ok because Selig is in for turning a blind eye to them.
If greenies are good enough for Hammerin’ Hank!
While not a perfect match, you can reasonably use Beltran as an example to justify putting Bonds in the HOF, where he’d done enough to belong in the HOF prior to being embroiled in controversy.
If you chop Bonds’ 20 year career in half, you can argue that he’s had two HOF careers back to back.
The first half of his career alone (the skinny head Pirates era) should be enough to elect him to the HOF.
It’s his fat head Giants era that’s been making the voters pause.
If you chopped Bonds career into thirds he had 3 HOF careers. I honestly don’t think people know how nuts Barry Bonds is. He’s a top 5 player all time and he isn’t 5.
I’m sure you’ve heard this but sure:
Bonds was a very very good player, but the last 8-ish years of his career (during which he had his most major accomplishments) were cheated.
if instead of taking steroids, he’d retired at 36, he probably would’ve been a HOFer. But unlike Beltran, his actual legacy is impacted disproportionately by what he did after cheating
I feel like Bonds’ steroids thing gets treated so weirdly compared to everyone else. It’s as if for sure he cheated each of the last 8 years of his career whereas when ppl bring up Manny or ARod it’s well they got busted twice so ofc they can’t get in.
Feels like the goalposts have moved from cheating is bad we won’t let cheaters in to, well he only cheated a lil at the end so what’s the big deal?
I wonder if he had been “merely” great – rather than claiming the two most coveted records in baseball, potentially for all time – if he’d be in the Hall already. It’s not just the steroids, it’s where the asterisks go.
Yea this is actually a very good point. Electing him in the hall does force the MLB to kinda retroactively give him his flowers as the HR king which I can’t imagine anyone is eager to do
Cheaters dont belong. Beltran tainted his legacy and shouldn’t be in the hall. Ditto Manny, Arod, Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, and the rest of them.
I would like it to be one or the other and I find it really frustrating we are just going to be in this grey spot now.
Like say as a thought exercise, someone gets busted for sports betting at the end of their career. Can you say they shouldn’t be let in if their resume is good enough? Especially if they didn’t bet on their team? Feels hard to make that case now with Beltran’s inclusion
Well with all the charges against Pete now, thank goodness they didn’t let him in
I agree but if it weren’t that he had other valid reasons to be left off, we would be having a completely different discussion rn. It’s not out of the question that a similar thing happens again with the way betting is.
Say Goldy bet on a random pirates game this year with us. Does that hold him out atp? It would have before.
I think if someone gets busted for betting on baseball, they should never be allowed in the Hall of Fame no matter what
Bonds should be in the hall. Thats a super common belief here in this sub.
We actually do know when Manny started. Watch the doc on the Florida anti-aging clinics that were the center of guys in Miami getting them. Including A Rod.
The source explains exactly when and why Manny approached him and started.
Interesting, I’ll need to check that out then!
There’s a difference; steroids saved baseball and the asstros having trash cans and getting away it tarnished baseball. As well as those ahem..Apple Watches
Edit: and Andruw Jones punched his wife in the face. But steroids bad! 😂
Yankees fans throwing stones in glass houses again.
Don’t let them forget that Carlos told the Astros that they were behind the times when he set up the system
You are correct
Judging by baseball Hall of Fame history that’s the case considering Leo Durocher, Gaylord Perry, and Whitey Ford are all hall of famers that seems to be the case. Whether or not you agree is one thing but they have elected cheaters before
Plus Max Scherzer will likely waltz right into Cooperstown after a suspension for “cheating” (sticky stuff), as he should. Cheating is a sliding scale.
Yeah blatantly cheating never stopped people before.
Unless the method of cheating is steroids, apparently.
Connie Mack was famous as a catcher for faking the sound of foul tips to get batters out.
Connie Mack. The guy who famously wore a suit to manage games and was so straight-laced he wouldn’t swear or even refer to some players by their nicknames.
Manny was caught twice move on
Unsurprising, Peoples opinions on PED users and Trashtros are going to depend wildly on if they’re fans of specific PED users and Trashtros.
My problem with blocking the PED users stems entirely from the fact that Bud Selig is in the Hall. He knew about the problem and turned a blind eye to it in an effort to grow the game.
We should take him out, not put ped users in.
That’s fine with me.
I would’ve put Manny in over Beltran - dude was the scariest bat in the league for a long-ass time
i don’t like the astros. the sign stealing remains, to me, not a big deal. i’m sure they weren’t the only ones doing it. people have been stealing signs for like 100 years. who cares
So you’re allowed to cheat once but not twice?
We have cheaters in the Hall as is, we’re just drawing arbitrary lines in the sand on this issue
The funniest part of everyone losing their minds about the Trashstros is that the trash can part of it was perfectly legal. In fact, 95% of what the Astros were doing - which has so enraged this sub - was not against the rules.
If it was legal they wouldnt hav hid the operations down the tunnel or managers fired.
Honestly I think the worst thing to result from the Trash Can saga is that 17⁄18 combined to make the Dodgers what they are today.
At least that’s one theory I’ve seen
And teams have been stealing signs and communicating the for decades - it’s simply not a big deal at all and the continued hate for the Astros is simply unhinged.
Finally, we are starting to turn this around. The Astros were the real victims all along.
Or beating your wife
This sport is so crazy. The biggest names I knew growing up are basically ignored/black balled by MLB. No other sport does this
On the flipside, we’re getting our boy Chase Utley into the Hall soon
Straight from the mouths of toothless commissioners
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It is most certainly not the greatest cheating scheme since the Black Sox. It also isn’t as bad as steroids because being on steroids has the chance to permanently damage people’s bodies.
Stealing signs and banging trash cans to communicate those signs does not cause permanent harm to people’s bodies. When sports organizations engage in systematic PED use they create an environment that encourages athletes to put more strain on their bodies to compete.
Don’t get it twisted though the trashcan banging was cheating and it was bad, but it wasn’t the worst since the Black Sox and it wasn’t worse than steroids.
Correct. Full stop.
Probably because the whole “cheating to win a WS” thing is an invention of the fans.
MLB never had any evidence they did that. Manfred simply said he believed they used it in the playoffs more of less because “why wouldn’t they,” but none of the players ever told the investigation team that they did that.
I’ll get downvoted, which I accept. This sub is devolving into a hivemind where opposing opinions aren’t welcome.
The cheaters said they didn’t cheat when it mattered most? Well, given their track record of being really upstanding fellows, I’m inclined to believe them.
Bruh. You are in the flimsiest glass house in the league lol.
Bruh. You obviously don’t have anything relevant to say lol.
The Red Sox didn’t cheat during the playoffs. Still wrong but Houston was worse.
Neither did the Astros. Whoops never mind I misremembered, I was thinking of 2019.
Even if youre right, cheating in the regular seasons and the benefits that came with it are part of it.
….obviously?
I’d have an easier time accepting Manny not making it because of cheating if another cheater, who enabled others to cheat, didn’t make it in the same year.
And Andy Pettitte, who is in the Mitchell Report, probably getting in a couple years.
Career 3.85 ERA by the way.
That’s not really fair to Pettitte.
Pettitte pitched in the absolute peak of the steroid era, in the American League, when the league ERA was around 5. He also had horrible defenders behind him.
Put him in today’s environment and he looks more like Max Fried.
Pettitte admired to using steroids. Either steroid users are barred or they are not.
Pettitte admitted to using HGH up to 2004.
HGH wasnt illegal until 2005.
I don’t think he’s a HOF but “admitted to using steroids” is a bad argument against him.
He admitted to using something legal until it stopped being legal.
Well that’s convenient he stopped using right before it was officially banned
That’s not the implication.
The implication is that he stopped using because it became banned.
And I actually have no say as to whether or not he actually stopped using.
I’m saying what he admitted to wasn’t steroid use.
Using that defense when i get busted for drug possesion “Well i only did meth until i found out it wasn’t legal”
It’s not that he found out it wasn’t legal, it’s that it was legal and then stopped being legal.
A better analogy is someone in the 20s who drank alcohol right up until prohibition
That’s a dumb standard. There was a time when PEDs were unregulated and a time when they were. Pettitte, Bonds, and Clemens used at a time when they were unregulated. Manny and ARod used at a time when they were. It’s perfectly fine to draw a line between those two.
So Pettitte did steroids when they were ok is on track to make the hall. Clemens also did steroids when they were ok put up objectionally better numbers put got snubbed. Something isn’t adding up here.
Well I agree that Pettitte going into the HOF while Bonds and Clemens are out (with little chance of getting in) is very dumb - as you say, they all used when PEDs were unregulated. Pettitte is a borderline HOFer while both Bonds and Clemens have decent GOAT arguments at their positions.
I understand why this might happen though: Bonds and Clemens faced a different voting electorate than Pettitte. Every year there are younger, more progressive thinking voters, while the curmudgeonly old generation of baseball writers stops voting. I think if Bonds and Clemens had started their time on the ballot when Pettitte did, they would likely both be in now.
His era+ was in the 110 range for most of that time which is what you’d expect out of a good number 3 pitcher. Fried is way better than him. Imagine having to cheat to throw 90mph like Andy did
He has a career ERA+ of 117. He had a few elite seasons but he’s overall merely above average, even if you ignore his roid usage
He was on the gas with the others.
His own long time teammate Ortiz got in. Kind of unfair he’s getting punished and the former isn’t.
3 cheaters, the most significant of which wont be in
Good job writers
Sorry, I’m out of the loop on Andruw’s cheating allegations. Or is this a cheeky reference to his DA charge?
No. He has had multiple accusations of ped use, though out of fairness to him, nothing concrete. Hes not near as bad of a case as Beltran
Yeah so if you weren’t doing roids in the 90’s you weren’t going anywhere.
I mean personally i dont think doing peds should exclude you at all, but the hypocrisy of which players they hold accountable bothers me.
Also doing roids doesnt make you instantly better. You still have to be good.
The part everyone glosses over.
It seems the most credible accusations are that he stopped stealing bases and focused on power? Not surprising of a change in approach given the state of baseball then rewarding power hitters ( and now). He debuted at 19 and then started gaining power as he reached his prime. Seems normal. He’s also renowned for having a drastic dropoff mid career in his early thirties that seems to be the sweet spot for ped users. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised of any names from that era using, but I don’t think his career trajectory makes sense for accusations.
If you’re gonna cheat, use a trash can and not steroids kids.
I mean, unironically I’d rather my local kids be stealing signs with a camera than shooting up steroids.
Of course you would
You wouldn’t lol?
Personally I’d teach my kids not to do either but somehow that’s not an option.
Take it up with the op and drop the unnecessary sanctimony.
Or be David Ortiz!
Manny deserves to be in.
I understand not voting for him. I’d vote for him because i think he’s funny. Maybe I don’t deserve a vote lol
🗑️
Carlos Beltrán getting in is absolute madness. I’d rather have Manny play at 50% or bonds play at 10% than have Carlos play at his peak. What a joke.
Steroids
Carlos Beltrán did steroids too…
I fw Barry, I’m just saying the guys had definitive steroid marks on their careers. Beltran never quite got the same smoke as that.
Manny will get in via veterans committee almost for sure, right?
I know I know, PED but I’m sure this has nothing at all to do with him being a meanie to reporters either.
Depends on the committee makeup but we haven’t seen them really budge on the big names yet
Andruw Jones really beat the odds huh?
he beat someone at least
This is a beautiful setup, seriously. Well done.
https://www.thehotline.org
who is Andrew Jones?
Autocorrect comes for us all
he is the Still Tippin’ guy
Drew Jones’ dad
I sure hope the cheaters plaque doesn’t get vandalized
Eww
BWAAA: We refuse to elect Curt Schilling because he’s a pos.
Also BWAAA: Welcome Andruw Jones!
There’s some pretty big differences there, both optically and in reality. Schilling told them not to vote for him for one.
I was looking forward to hearing what Manny sounded like in his HOF speech
Manny definitely needs to be in.
https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/baseball/versus-finder.fcgi?player_id2=beltra001car&player_id1=ramire002man&request=1&utm_source=br&utm_id=ramirma02&utm_campaign=2023_01_wdgt_player_comparison&utm_medium=sr_xsite
About fucking time, cowards.
If there’s 1 million Beltrán fans I am one of them, if there’s 100 Beltrán fans I am one of them, if there’s one Beltrán fan then that fan is me. If the world is against Carlos Beltrán then I am against the world.
💥🗑️💥🗑️
Beltrán’s -.7 war in 2017 really put him over the edge
💍💍💍💍
*️⃣