4 ms·

>But Manfred also did something that may simply have been stupid, may have been craven, and may have been corrupt: extending blanket immunity to the players bef

by slg 7y ago

>But Manfred also did something that may simply have been stupid, may have been craven, and may have been corrupt: extending blanket immunity to the players before launching a proper investigation Players would refuse to testify without immunity and without player testimony it would be incredibly difficult to find the details of the cheating scheme. It also isn't even clear if MLB has the legal authority to punish players for this type of rule violation. The player's union has stated that MLB does not have that authority and MLB did not wish to fight them on it with a potential labor dispute already pending over league finances when the current collective bargaining agreement expires soon. >Until and unless Commissioner Manfred lifts his ludicrous immunity offer and deals severely with the incriminated participating players as well as their management by banishing them all from the game, he will have thrown baseball back to where it was in 1919. I personally think offering immunity to get players to testify and then reversing course and using that testimony to punish those players would do much more harm to baseball than this scandal.

take_a_breath 7y ago
==I personally think offering immunity to get players to testify and then reversing course and using that testimony to punish those players would do much more harm to baseball than this scandal.== This could very well be true. As is, the MLB has created a precedent for cheating without ever having to face penalties.
- slg 7y ago
  I am on board if they create a new rule that applies punishments from this point forward. There should not be an ex post facto rule that is used to justify punishments that were eliminated as a possibility through both collective bargaining and the immunity deals.
jellicle 7y ago
Alternatively, if they started handing out lifetime bans to everyone fully or peripherally involved, you can expect the peripheral ones to come forward with all they know, hoping to avoid the ban.
- slg 7y ago
  You can’t just hand out lifetime bans without strong evidence of clear rule violations. A lifetime ban is stripping literally hundreds of millions of dollars from players. There would be years of legal battles if MLB tried to do it. The only way to get strong evidence of who cheated and how they cheated is through interviews and the players wouldn’t interview without immunity. MLB simply had no good options that would allow them to directly punish players.

by slg 7y ago

take_a_breath 7y ago

==I personally think offering immunity to get players to testify and then reversing course and using that testimony to punish those players would do much more harm to baseball than this scandal.== This could very well be true. As is, the MLB has created a precedent for cheating without ever having to face penalties.

slg 7y ago
I am on board if they create a new rule that applies punishments from this point forward. There should not be an ex post facto rule that is used to justify punishments that were eliminated as a possibility through both collective bargaining and the immunity deals.

jellicle 7y ago

Alternatively, if they started handing out lifetime bans to everyone fully or peripherally involved, you can expect the peripheral ones to come forward with all they know, hoping to avoid the ban.

slg 7y ago
You can’t just hand out lifetime bans without strong evidence of clear rule violations. A lifetime ban is stripping literally hundreds of millions of dollars from players. There would be years of legal battles if MLB tried to do it. The only way to get strong evidence of who cheated and how they cheated is through interviews and the players wouldn’t interview without immunity. MLB simply had no good options that would allow them to directly punish players.