Marwin Gonzalez Addresses Media, Expresses Regret

[cardsfan]

The intern who developed an Excel app used for stealing signs that the Astros GM embraced has been promoted in the front office. I don't think Luhnow will ever get a job. Luhnow saying he didn't read long emails referencing this app is laughable. He should have said I never started out doing something like this. I lost my way.

 

It's hard to believe the owner isn't aware.

[Doctor Gast]

 

I mean, he's the first position player to apologize, so that's something. Bregman and Altuve's comments were disgusting and really made me dislike both of them even more.

 

I'm still convinced they used buzzers (and/or some other way of using codebreaker in real time to the hitter without using banging) but the commissioner's report did not mention that. 

 

I think the MLB is trying to sweep this under the rug as quickly as possible. I think there's a correlation between the release of the new playoff format and AJ Hinch's press conference where he didn't deny using buzzers as well. MLB wants so badly to make everyone think it was just the trashcans for that one season and for everyone to move on. 

It`s all common knowledge & the Commissioner didn`t want to do anything until someone let it slip in an interview & it became public & the Astros got caught. The same thing about the buzzers. I believe Boston & NYY were given a warning but nothing was done, they still probably did it last year. I wish some "remorseful" players from all the team which practiced this would come forward so those teams could be punished & all the victims could be justified. 

 Gonzalez probably advised the Twins when they played the Astros to change their signs more frequently because the Twins had good results against them last year

[DocBauer]

I don't dislike Marwin. I don't know the man but don't recall ever hearing anything bad about him until this event. I want to believe he is a good guy who got wrapped up in something bad around him. I believe in forgiveness and second chances for people. I want to believe he truly is remorseful and regrets it all.

 

But he was part of it for 3 years. He never said anything, that I can recall, after all of this broke until now. Why not?

 

I will root for him because he is on my favorite team. I will root for him hoping he really is that good guy. I will root for him because I believe in those second chances I mentioned.

 

I can only read the words, I wasn't there. And maybe I'm becoming a bit jaded as I get older, but I hear "sorry we got caught and are embarrassed now. Oh, and we're done."

 

I honestly hope there is more to it than that.

[Craig Arko]

It was probably someone else's idea to end the discussion. I can think of several possible interested parties.

[adjacent]

 

It`s all common knowledge & the Commissioner didn`t want to do anything until someone let it slip in an interview & it became public & the Astros got caught. The same thing about the buzzers. I believe Boston & NYY were given a warning but nothing was done, they still probably did it last year. I wish some "remorseful" players from all the team which practiced this would come forward so those teams could be punished & all the victims could be justified. 

 Gonzalez probably advised the Twins when they played the Astros to change their signs more frequently because the Twins had good results against them last year

You know, now I am getting paranoid about the games in Yankee stadium last year that the Yankees seemed to be on every pitch

[woolywoolhouse]

For the entirety of the 2020 season, every player from the 2017 Astros should have to have their home walk-up music replaced with a song from "Stomp" (the Broadway musical where the percussion is all trash can lids banging.)

[scottz]

 

You know, now I am getting paranoid about the games in Yankee stadium last year that the Yankees seemed to be on every pitch

I hate being paranoid, but I am in the same boat. I asked one of the Fangraphs writers in a chat yesterday about the possibility that this was still occurring last year in the playoffs. (It did not make the chat and therefore was unanswered.)

I tend to think the Yankees just beat us fair and square, but Berrios and Dobnak in particular didn't seem to get any chases at the bottom of the zone. I remember the announcers saying that they needed to change the Yankees eyes - that the Twins pitchers were only working down in the zone, so that is what I assume was happening. But who knows?

[Mike Sixel]

 

I don't dislike Marwin. I don't know the man but don't recall ever hearing anything bad about him until this event. I want to believe he is a good guy who got wrapped up in something bad around him. I believe in forgiveness and second chances for people. I want to believe he truly is remorseful and regrets it all.

But he was part of it for 3 years. He never said anything, that I can recall, after all of this broke until now. Why not?

I will root for him because he is on my favorite team. I will root for him hoping he really is that good guy. I will root for him because I believe in those second chances I mentioned.

I can only read the words, I wasn't there. And maybe I'm becoming a bit jaded as I get older, but I hear "sorry we got caught and are embarrassed now. Oh, and we're done."

I honestly hope there is more to it than that.

 

I won't root for him, just as I didn't root for AP. I hope he strikes out every AB and gets sent to the minors. Like all of them. 

[Homerhankie]

Most of have done worse, I know I had, let us forgive others, not burn them at the stake.

[bird]

 

Buy the book! Available soon in the Twins Pro Shop.

 

 

With a Forward by Commissioner Manfred.

 

I don't give a rat's tail about league punishment of players. I'd prefer the ballplaying cheaters to be subjected to the court of public opinion, but we know THAT's not gonna happen either. Nope. He's done talking. Grrr.

 

Until the commissioner is hired and reports to an independent outside Board of Directors instead of being employed directly by the people most in need of oversight, he's guarding the chicken coop like a good soldier. Us chickens will be cheated on by the game again, and soon.

[Monkeypaws]

I think auctioning off a World Series ring for charity would really say "I'm sorry."

[bird]

 

I don’t like that the players got away with it but have come to accept why it happened that way.

What bothers me even more are the indications that MLB knew about some of this stuff long ago and instead of doing something, sat still and hoped it would just go away.

 

 

 

What bothers me the most, once again, is that "MLB" was cheated on, once again, by one of their own. The players were complicit scumbags. Nothing new there either.

 

Teams will continue to be let off the hook. Not JUST by their puppet commish, but by the media and the fans.

 

Just like they were when some clubs, after agreeing to limits, thought it was okay to damage their fellow league members by paying a laughably tiny penalty as they spent tens of millions in IFA that they had agreed they would not spend.

 

The rationalization in defense of crooked owners and management was already in full gear here.

 

[bird]

 

It's not frivolous at all, there is inarguable evidence of wrongdoing and putting all of the evidence in public light and trying to hold the players accountable not only has value but seems pretty clearly the right thing to do. To me the ONLY reason not to do that is you want the story out of the news cycle asap.

 

If there was video evidence of players injecting themselves with steroids I would bet that even Selig wouldn't have given the players immunity. 

 

This whole thing is very sad and Marwin Gonzalez is the first Twins player that I have ever disliked. 

 

If Carl Pohlad supplies the syringes? His commish gets laryngitis real quick-like. But you're right, only after telling all of us it was all player-initiated and clubs were clueless.

[Squirrel]

I think auctioning off a World Series ring for charity would really say "I'm sorry."

Seth asked, ‘What more could he do?’ And this is a good answer. Some gesture like this could go a long way. I don’t know him so will take him at face value and believe he is truly sorry.

[h2oface]

 

I appreciate that he discussed it at all. However...

• "...he communicated through the Twins that it would be the last time he addressed the topic this season."

"I'm sorry. But now that it's behind us, let's all just move on. I'm remorseful. I'm just not *that* remorseful."

 

One thing in life to learn is...... you should punish yourself, but you shouldn't keep punishing yourself (or your children) for the same thing, over and over, once you have come clean. Once is enough. All the players got immunity (not their decision) so they would tell the truth in the investigation. Some will try to punish them all year from the stands, like they have never done anything that if the whole stadium knew about, they would be shamed as well. Plus, there will still be a goal to accomplish the same result in stealing signs in other ways. The penalty for doing it electronically aided is clear, but the goal and end result which is the same no matter how you do it will still try to be achieved all year long, every game. 

 

I also don't believe the Astros, Red Sox, and Yankees were/are the only teams doing it in some kind of aided way. Hell, nobody does anything....... until they get caught, eh?

 

Let's play ball.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I think the fact the Commissioner sent out a letter in September, 2017 to all teams is pretty clear proof they DID know, or suspect, what was happening. But at that point, what else would you have him do?

Investigate before it came to this point. If MLB reveals its own dirty deeds, it looks a lot better than... this.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

When someone apologizes, the person being apologized to, has 2 choices: 1) accept the apology or 2) don't accept it. I have tended to accept, rather than analyze,   apologies during my life and that works better for me. I, for one, accept Marwin's apology and am ready to move on.  If Cora or Bregman or Hinch or Beltran apologized, I would feel the same way. My father taught me that when I did something wrong, man up and admit it and apologize.  That's what Marwin did. It's very difficult to do that, especially when there is a close bond between a group who did something wrong. 

[wallyrichards]

I was wondering if or when Marwin would say something. I have no problem with excepting his apology. Evidently some are really upset with this latest scandal. Lets face it cheating in baseball is as old as the game its self. If it isn't fixing games its doctoring the ball, shooting steroids or stealing signs. It isn't just baseball. All sports have had some form of cheating even figure skating. Remember when Tanya Hardings boy friend took a wrench to Nancy Kerrigan? NHL has the curved hockey stick, NFL the deflated football and NBA lets there super stars get away with steps and don't get me started on college sports. Obviously I'm kind of joking around because what the Astros were doing was really bad but I give some credit to Marwin for owning up to it.  

[Mike Sixel]

One can accept the apology, but not root for him. Those two things are independent. I ask no further punishment, but I'm also not obligated to cheer for him. 

[Aichiman]

 

I'm guessing he's not too remorseful about the $21 million he cashed in on after his "career year". Ill gotten gains imo, bit of a fraud. 

This one cuts to the chase.  Let's put a dollar figure on Marwin's remorse.  As it stands now, it's zero.

[wallyrichards]

I hate it when people make baseless accusations. Somehow Marwin has become the biggest cheater of all. Evidently all you have to do is throw out a couple of trumped up stats, quote some other jack ass and you've made your case. The Astros won as a team, lost as a team and cheated as a team. 

[wallyrichards]

 

One can accept the apology, but not root for him. Those two things are independent. I ask no further punishment, but I'm also not obligated to cheer for him. 

 

lol until he hits a home run.

 

[Mike Sixel]

 

 

 

Nope. Trust me, I did not root for AP to run well, and I won't root for Marwin. I'll root for the Twins, but not him. Those two things are possible.

[Aerodeliria]

Everyone's remorseful once it's headline news. I hold nothing against Marwin at all. I just think it's easy to say one is remorseful after the fact. Maybe he felt compelled to say something for his teammates' sake?

 

My question has always been the same. What constitutes stealing signs? If I'm a coach and I figure out that cross arms twice then touch nose means "bunt," and I signal the 3rd baseman to move in, will I be in trouble? I doubt it. I am wondering how "stealing" is actually defined. How are the lines drawn? I have a feeling that it is quite subjective.

[sweetmusicviola16]

 

It's hard to believe the owner isn't aware.

The owner. He is the one that benefited the most. The 5mil fine is nothing. The draft picks his team lost are more than covered by the "fine". But I guess the other owners are OK with Crane's theft as they are the ones letting him get away with it. You don't own a business of this magnitude and not know whats going on.

 

This all leaves as bad of a taste for me as the 1994 play stoppage.

[Darius]

The sentiment in here that the immunity was justified is hogwash. You don’t pardon capital murder to get details because you’re too sleepy to do the legwork of an investigation. Not to mention, the easiest investigation in the history of investigations. Every square inch of a baseball stadium is likely under surveillance. A guy on Twitter broke it open in an afternoon after work. Mike Fiers knew the whole story and was singing like a canary to the media. Let’s get real, here. There were motives for the immunity beyond some ancillary details, which the commissioners office had no interest in from day 1 (see the “investigations” they performed).

 

Comparing Marwin to Polanco, Cruz, and Pineda is hogwash. The latter did their time. They paid their penance and earned their second chance. That’s how a justice system works. Marwin hasn’t earned anything. He was granted fraudulent immunity. He’s issuing fraudulent apologies at the order of the PR department. Another note on this topic: if Marwin would cheat to this degree, you don’t think he was also using PEDs intermittently in his career?

 

Fans should issue a raucous round boos in his first home at bat at Target Field. These men are a disgrace to baseball. Villains in every sense of the word.

 

I also think Marwin may have let a cat out of the bag a little here. His quote above: “people that were hurt by us doing this and other things.” And other things, huh? Like what? Too bad they already granted everyone on the planet immunity and we’ll never find out.

[sweetmusicviola16]

 

I think auctioning off a World Series ring for charity would really say "I'm sorry."

A fine and the forfeiture of these rings was in order for the players who got caught cheating. Manfred blew this one all the way around.

[Darius]

The owner. He is the one that benefited the most. The 5mil fine is nothing. The draft picks his team lost are more than covered by the "fine". But I guess the other owners are OK with Crane's theft as they are the ones letting him get away with it. You don't own a business of this magnitude and not know whats going on.

 

This all leaves as bad of a taste for me as the 1994 play stoppage.

Agreed.

 

The Commioner’s office efforts to not allow this to stain his legacy like Selig’s was by steroids is paying dividends. A lot of apologists out there.

 

This is right up there with Shoeless Joe and crew throwing the World Series, IMO.

[prouster]

Nope. Trust me, I did not root for AP to run well, and I won't root for Marwin. I'll root for the Twins, but not him. Those two things are possible.

I don’t see how beating your child with a switch and stealing signs during a baseball game are worthy of the same level of derision, but I guess it’s your choice how to feel.

[Homerhankie]

Forgive and move on