Tag: Rob Manfred

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred continues to be an absolute joke

Rob Manfred is making a mockery of the game of baseball. Again.

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Rob Manfred, the man who didn’t suspend any of the Houston Astros players for cheating their way to a World Series title, has turned MLB into a joke once again and this time things could get really messy for the league and the game that so many love.

In case you missed it, MLB announced that umps will be randomly searching pitchers during games for foreign sticky substances. It started two nights ago with Mets ace Jacob deGrom being the first pitcher to get searched while he made his way to the dugout after the first inning. deGrom could only smile as the process went on but fans in the stands let everyone know how they felt about it with a chorus of loud boos.

Last night, however, is when things got really out of control and made the game look silly.

Nationals ace Max Scherzer was searched three different times during his five innings of work against the Phillies. On the third time he was absolutely livid and almost ripped off his belt as umpires came up to him on the mound.

Things later escalated when he stared down the Phillies bench as he walked off the mound after the fifth inning. Phillies manager Joe Girardi exploded out of his dugout and looked like he wanted to fight Scherzer. Girardi was ejected from the game after that wild scene. It was nuts. All of it.

I mean, what. A. Mess.

But it didn’t stop there!

Later Tuesday night Oakland A’s reliever Sergio Romo angrily pulled down his pants when an ump asked to search him for foreign sticky substances. Pulled down his pants!

Pitchers are rightfully furious with Manfred for these new rules he has implemented in the middle of the season and for this new search process that is totally absurd. The league should have waited until after the season to figure out ways to deal with this but that’s now how Manfred works – he’s not too into deep thinking and being understanding of how abrupt changes can hurt his game.

Scherzer, meanwhile, ripped Manfred after Tuesday night’s game, saying: “These are [Rob] Manfred rules. Go ask him what he wants to do with this. I’ve said enough. Go ask Alec Bohm how he feels about 95 (miles per hour) at his face.”

And you know what? Good on these pitchers for making a mockery of the search process. I hope it only goes on and gets even more ridiculous because Manfred deserves to be embarrassed on a nightly basis by his players. Maybe that will lead to some change for the game and the person who is in charge of it.

And I’m not the only one who feels this way about Manfred. Far from it. Do a Twitter search with his name and you’ll see lots and lots of people ripping him and blaming him for making the game look stupid. It’s always wild when everyone on Twitter agrees on a topic and this is one of those topics that’s bringing everyone together.

Hopefully all of this will lead to a new boss of baseball because the current one continues to be an absolute joke.

Quick hits: NBA fans go nuts over Deandre Ayton’s game-winner… New NBA mock draft… Harlem Globetrotters want to be NBA expansion team… And more. 

(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

– The Suns won Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals on a ridiculously awesome buzzer-beater and NBA fans loved it.

– The NBA lottery was held last night and Bryan Kalbrosky has a new mock draft now that the draft order has been set.

– The Harlem Globetrotters want to be considered for an NBA expansion team.

– Boogie Cousins was not happy with Devin Booker after the Game 2 buzzer-beater.

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Nick Castellanos clobbered a dinger after a fan told him to picture Rob Manfred’s face on the ball

Nick Castellanos is not over that questionable suspension MLB gave him.

You may recall that, earlier this year, Cincinnati Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos was suspended two games for supposedly inciting a dug-out clearing incident (by having the audacity to celebrate scoring a run.)

The decision was heavy-handed and pointless, even by Major League Baseball’s established standards. Castellanos had been put on base by taking a 92-mile-per-hour fastball to the ribs and later scored on a passed ball, which meant the player trying to tag him out was the pitcher who beaned him. Castellanos dared to get excited in his vicinity, and that was an affront to some sacred rule, leading to a scuffle … and then the suspension?

Well, Castellanos isn’t over it, in case you were wondering.

This came during what would eventually be a 6-5 extra-inning win by the Reds over the Rockies. Manfred, by the way, is MLB commissioner.

Look at the look on Castellanos’ face! The pettiness. It is so good.

I’d say that Castellanos found an elegant way to get his point across without actually being the one to deliver the point, but considering the fact that he got blamed the last time around despite not really being the one to start the fracas, this could go any which way. ‘Thou shalt not bump fists with those who would slander the commish’ is probably one of the unwritten rules.

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Mets GM revealed terrible idea to hold a symbolic protest: ‘He just doesn’t get it’

He didn’t know he was being recorded.

Update: Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen and team COO Jeff Wilpon now say it was Wilpon’s idea to orchestrate a team protest, not Commissioner Rob Manfred’s. We have updated the article to reflect this change. 

When it comes to baseball’s leadership, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was made just about every wrong decision. From not punishing the Astros players for cheating to his complete lack of awareness on social and racial injustice, Manfred has been an embarrassment.

On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Bucks responded to the police shooting of Jacob Blake by refusing to play their playoff game against the Magic. The NBA postponed games for Wednesday and Thursday. And in baseball, three Wednesday games were postponed due to player protests. The New York Mets did play on Wednesday, but Dom Smith kneeled during the national anthem and gave a tearful postgame press conference on racial injustice.

Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen — unaware that the Mets’ press conference stream was still live — detailed an especially tone-deaf idea that he believed was from Manfred on Thursday.

He said:

“Baseball’s trying to come up with a solution, saying, ‘You know what would be super powerful?’ — three of us here, can’t leave this room. They’re saying, ‘It would be really great if you had them all just take the field and then leave the field. And then they come back and play at 8:10.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ Rob (Manfred). ‘This job of scheduling is gonna be a nightmare, there’s so much at stake. And I said, ‘That’s not happening. They’re not playing.’ But that’s Rob’s instinct. Exactly what you and I were talking about — that leadership level, he doesn’t get it. He just doesn’t get it.”

Van Wagenen saw what he believed was Manfred prioritizing a staged “powerful” social moment (and avoiding interruptions to the schedule) over actually trying to hear out what the players were protesting about. MLB and baseball owners have influence in their communities. Baseball players have a platform. There should have been a dialogue.

But instead, it sure seemed like — according to Van Wagenen — that Manfred cared more about the theatrics of a protest than the message.

Update: Van Wagenen released a statement to clarify and apologize for his remarks, saying it was Jeff Wilpon’s idea, not Manfred’s. The Wilpons have also released statements.

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Rob Manfred places blame on players for COVID issues, says season is on: ‘I am not a quitter’

“The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now.”

ESPN’s Karl Ravech spoke to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred this weekend, and shared a stunning quote to his Twitter account following the conversation.

In the quote, Manfred appears to place blame on the players themselves for the rash of positive COVID-19 tests that have led to postponed games across the league, before defiantly doubling down on his commitment to keep the season going despite the positive tests.

“We are playing,” Manfred said, according to Ravech. “The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable.”

This MLB season has been, to put it simply, a mess. After negotiations for the season dragged on for weeks (with the players’ union alleging that MLB was simply trying to limit the number of games for cost-saving purposes) the two sides settled on a 60-game season with little margin for error.

With the NBA, MLS, and NWSL playing in remote bubbles, MLB went the other way, playing games in home stadiums with teams traveling to and from. They had a testing plan in place, but with so many games in such a tight window, and tests taking long to process, it was less than a week before the league had its first major outbreak with the Marlins.

The league has since had more positive tests, and it appears that Manfred is now going to try and place the blame for these outbreaks on the players themselves … as opposed to the league.

Considering the NBA, MLS, and NWSL are all showing how it can be done, it seems like a pretty bold strategy of Manfred to try and put this on the players, and not on the league’s strategy (or lack thereof) itself.

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MLB’s failure with the Marlins’ coronavirus outbreak is proving to be a huge mess

The MLB season is spiraling out of control.

When MLB released its plans to proceed with a 60-game season that involved teams traveling, the possibility of a team-wide coronavirus outbreak had to be something the league considered.

The risks of playing outside a bubble in a global pandemic should have put MLB on alert to have immediate plans in place in the case of an outbreak. But it hasn’t even taken a full week to get to this scenario, and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred hasn’t been prepared to deal with it at all.

With at least 17 players and staff members of the Miami Marlins testing positive for the coronavirus, MLB is essentially trying to figure things out on the fly. The Marlins situation went from the team deciding over group text to play on Sunday despite positive cases within the clubhouse to MLB postponing the Marlins’ games for a couple days … to MLB pausing the Marlins’ season.

And this entire situation has put multiple teams in limbo. It’s not a situation that can be dismissed as “just the Marlins.”

The full scope of this mess is almost difficult to keep track of. But let’s give it a shot.

First, the Philadelphia Phillies played an entire series against the Marlins as the contagion spread within that visiting clubhouse. The Phillies had their Monday and Tuesday games against the Yankees postponed as the Phillies underwent testing. And thus far, no Phillies players have tested positive. But when it comes to the coronavirus, the incubation period can be anywhere from two to 10 days. An infected Phillies player could theoretically be testing negative right now.

So, when can the Phillies get back to play? It can’t be before Friday. It might have to be longer.

But the Marlins were supposed to play the Orioles this week, and the Phillies were supposed to play the Yankees. So rather than have four teams just take a week off from the already-abbreviated season, MLB may be looking at re-drawing the schedule to have the Yankees and Orioles play Wednesday and Thursday.

And, then, maybe (MAYBE!) if the Phillies continue to test negative through the week, they will play the Blue Jays for their weekend series starting Friday. This series would be in Philadelphia, but the Blue Jays — who weren’t allowed to play in Canada because *points at the previous eight paragraphs* — would be the designated home team. And that’s only if the Phillies avoid a potential team-wide outbreak.

There is also the Washington Nationals who are scheduled to play the Marlins this weekend. But that won’t be happening because MLB decided to postpone the Marlins’ games through Monday. So, the Nationals have the weekend off.

Basically, the MLB schedule looks something like this now.

All this really shows is how delicate the experiment of an MLB season is. The league is juggling health and safety with team schedules and hoping everything works out for the best … all while lacking daily rapid tests.

Manfred said on Monday that he wouldn’t put this outbreak in the “nightmare category.”

If we’re not there yet, I’d hate to see what qualifies as a nightmare. This season isn’t even a week old, and it’s been chaos.

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Rob Manfred went on MLB Network and showed everyone he has no clue what he’s doing

Rob Manfred continues to be bad at his job.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has long been terrible at his job, and that dates back to well before the coronavirus shut down the sports world back in March.

Remember when he called the World Series trophy just “a piece of metal” back in February when talking about the cheating Houston Astros and their 2017 title? That seems like forever ago and that issue now seems so tame compared to what’s going on with the game now.

What’s going on now is that the Miami Marlins have had a coronavirus outbreak that includes up to 13 members of the franchise. Four players were pulled before Sundays’ game against the Phillies in Philadelphia because of positive tests. Manfred could have and should have stepped in and called that game off, which is something a more intelligent commissioner would have done (hello, Adam Silver). But no, that game went on which is completely ridiculous.

Well, tonight Manfred went on MLB Network and took some questions from Tom Verducci and basically showed the world he has no clue on how to keep players safe.

He even said the Marlins could be back and playing on Wednesday depending how tests go.

For real.

Here’s that part of the interview:

And here’s the entire interview in which he spells out that MLB’s “protocols are adequate to keep players safe,” which sure doesn’t seem to be the case:

This doesn’t feel like it’s going to go well for baseball and if it doesn’t Rob Manfred should get the blame and should lose his job.

Now that would be a good day for baseball.

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Baseball fans are rightly upset at MLB for having so many night games in 60-game season

Come on, MLB.

Major League Baseball has shown us time again the past few months that it can screw up anything that appears like something that couldn’t be screwed up.

The owners are a bunch of sketchy billionaires who don’t seem to care all that much about the game.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has proven that he’s the worst commissioner in sports, which is saying a lot because Roger Goodell is still the boss of football.

Well, on Monday MLB again showed us how little it cares about fans as the 60-game season schedules were released and the majority of the weekday games are going to be played – wait for it – at night.

This is stupid because most people are still working from home and baseball games all day long would be a great thing to pass the time. Kids could watch games and even see the end of games, which would help a sport that struggles to be picked up by kids.

But nope, a ton of night games will be a thing, which is dumber than dumb. Just look at the first two days of games – July 23 and July 24 – in which 15 games will be played but only one will start in the afternoon (Braves vs. Mets at 4:10 pm ET). I mean, come on, MLB.

Fans were upset:

2020 MLB rule changes and World Series futures odds

Looking at rule changes for the shortened 2020 MLB season and the updated World Series betting odds.

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The 2020 MLB season is tentatively scheduled to begin Thursday, July 23, with the New York Yankees visiting the reigning World Series champion Washington Nationals at Nationals Park. If both clubs pitch their aces, the matchup would feature Gerrit Cole, who signed as a free-agent with the Yankees (record-breaking $324 million deal for nine years) and the Nationals’ Max Scherzer – they faced off last season in Game 1 of the World Series when Cole was with the Houston Astros.

The schedule for the abbreviated 60-game season won’t be finalized for a few weeks, but the Yankees and Nationals are expected to be part of a small lineup of games one day ahead of Opening Day for everyone else (Friday, July 24). Below, we’ll highlight key rules changes for the 2020 season, and look at the updated 2020 World Series futures odds at BetMGM.

2020 rule changes

  • Sixty-game regular-season schedule: 10 games against each division opponent, and a total of 20 games vs. the corresponding division in the other league (i.e. AL East vs. NL East) – though it’s unclear if it will be four games against each team or more weighted vs. the “geographic rival” (i.e. Yankees-New York Mets, Los Angeles Angels-Los Angeles Dodgers).
  • Rosters will be expanded to a total of 60 players with 30 on the active roster and an additional 30 on a taxi squad. After the first two weeks of the season, active rosters will drop to 28 players, and then to 26 players two weeks later through the end of the regular season. The trade deadline will be Aug. 31.
  • Both leagues will use the designated hitter.
  • In extra innings, teams will begin each half-inning with a runner on second base. The runner will be the batting team’s final out of the prior inning.
  • No scheduled doubleheaders.
  • Any game suspended at any point after the first pitch due to weather or COVID-19 reasons will be picked up at the point of the stoppage at a later date.

2020 MLB World Series betting odds

2020 World Series odds provided by BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Tuesday, June 30 at 5 p.m. ET.

  • Los Angeles Dodgers +350 (was +375)
  • New York Yankees +350 (unchanged)
  • Houston Astros +800 (unchanged)
  • Atlanta Braves +1200 (was +1400)
  • Minnesota Twins +1600 (unchanged)
  • Tampa Bay Rays +2000 (unchanged)
  • Washington Nationals +2000 (was +1600)

Looking to place a bet on the 2020 World Series? Place your legal sports wagers online at BetMGM. Bet now!

  • Chicago Cubs +2500 (unchanged)
  • Chicago White Sox +2500 (was +3500)
  • Cincinnati Reds +2500 (was +3000)
  • Cleveland Indians +2500 (unchanged)
  • New York Mets +2500 (unchanged)
  • Oakland Athletics +2500 (unchanged)
  • Philadelphia Phillies +2500 (unchanged)
  • St. Louis Cardinals +2500 (unchanged)
  • Boston Red Sox +3500 (was +4000)
  • Los Angeles Angels +4000 (was +3500)
  • Milwaukee Brewers +4000 (unchanged)
  • Arizona Diamondbacks +5000 (unchanged)
  • San Diego Padres +5000 (unchanged)
  • Texas Rangers +8000 (unchanged)
  • Toronto Blue Jays +10000 (was +15000)
  • Pittsburgh Pirates +15000 (was +50000)
  • San Francisco Giants +15000 (was +50000)
  • Colorado Rockies +20000 (was +22000)
  • Kansas City Royals +50000 (unchanged)
  • Miami Marlins +50000 (unchanged)
  • Seattle Mariners +50000 (unchanged)
  • Baltimore Orioles +100000 (unchanged)
  • Detroit Tigers +100000 (was +50000)

Get some action on the 2020 World Series and 60-game MLB season by signing up and betting at BetMGM. If you’re looking for more sports betting picks and tips, access all of our content at SportsbookWire.com.

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Rob Manfred mandates shortened MLB season, here’s how it will look

What I’m Hearing: No deal was ever struck. Which is why Rob Manfred used his emergency powers to mandate a shortened MLB season. Bob Nightengale explains what this baseball will look like.

What I’m Hearing: No deal was ever struck. Which is why Rob Manfred used his emergency powers to mandate a shortened MLB season. Bob Nightengale explains what this baseball will look like.