Dodgers

Dodgers: Andrew Friedman Talks Astros Punishment, LA City Council Efforts

The 2020 year has started off with quite a bang (like, on a trashcan) with the Houston Astros cheating scandal rocking the world of baseball. Dodgers President of Baseball Operations, Andrew Friedman, met with the media at Dodger Stadium today to answer questions about that and what’s to come this 2020 season.

There was a sense of I told you so from the scrum as we all know that Friedman has let us know that the Dodgers did their absolute best to prevent sign stealing in 2017. With the way Friedman thinks about the game through numbers and analysis, I’m sure he could go back and plug in different variables in those critical moments of 2017 to see how the Dodgers could have come back with the World Series trophy.

The overarching narrative for Friedman could be summed up as this…

I haven’t spent much time thinking about it because it doesn’t do me any good — whenever I find myself kind of wandering and thinking about it… it’s just frustrating because there’s absolutely nothing I can do. It was in the commissioner’s office’s hands and I think they handled it well and it’s something that, from my standpoint, it’s just wasted energy and effort at this point because it’s taking away from something we can do to make ourselves better in 2020.

Still, when digging into the question of whether the commissioner’s punishment was sufficient in his eyes, especially knowing that Astros players got off scot-free, Friedman was a straight forward as he could be, given the fact that major league baseball is watching what the Dodgers say.

I think it’s a tricky situation. Would they have gotten to the bottom of it the way they did without it? I doubt it. I know that investigative group is extremely talented, and they got to a lot more information than anyone else had. I think that this point is to make it a deterrent to anyone going forward and that’s the point.

The president of baseball operations did note that he has not personally heard any apologies from anyone on that 2017 Astros team and feels that players have not shown enough remorse for their actions.

Moreover, on the idea of perhaps embracing technology and having teams protect their signs better, Friedman was open to a few sides of the argument.

As long as there’s a level playing field for all 30 teams, I really don’t care what it is. And when it’s not a level playing field is when I have an issue with it, so whether that’s all hands on deck and whatever goes, or take away all technology, I’m not sure what the right answer is.

Finally, Friedman did express some appreciation for the efforts put forth by the Los Angeles City Council in an attempt to get the Dodgers awarded the 2017 World Series trophy, even if the club wouldn’t actually want it.

As baseball continues to unpack the trickle-down effect of the Astros sign stealing scandal — and eventually what the commissioner’s office determines in its investigation into the Boston Red Sox — this story will not go away any time soon. Clubs head to spring training in less than four weeks where everyone will face questions from media once again.

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