It’s no secret that players across baseball have been unhappy with the Astros’ cheating scandal. The Dodgers have certainly not been an exception to that. Los Angeles players have become increasingly vocal about their displeasure with the entire situation, and Justin Turner turned to the media to voice his own concerns.
#Dodgers Justin Turner: "The more that comes out and the more that's been said the more frustrating it gets for us. … It's snowballing. I think it's pretty obvious whatever the commissioner thought he did, he didn't do it very well."
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) February 17, 2020
Turner was responding to the press conference Manfred held on Sunday to address the cheating scandal and how it was handled. He obviously did not agree with the commissioner’s sentiment that since there was no precedent, that he could not punish them as harshly as many people wanted.
Turner went on to tear down Manfred’s excuses literally one by one.
Listening to the commissioner’s interview yesterday talking about precedent, talking about there’s never been a precedent — that’s because it’s never happened before. It’s the first time in the game to my knowledge that this happened and he just set the precedent. He set a weak precedent.
In the press conference, Manfred downplayed the importance of taking away the World Series’ trophy from the Astros. In fact, he referred to the trophy as a piece of metal, which Turner was really unhappy about. Especially considering it was essentially stolen from the Dodgers in 2017.
I don’t know if the commissioner has won anything in his life. Maybe he hasn’t. But the reason every guy in this room is working out all offseason and showing up to camp early and putting in all the time and effort is specifically for that trophy — which is, by the way, called the Commissioner’s Trophy. For him to devalue it, the way he did yesterday just tells me how out of touch he is with the players in this game. At this point, the only thing devaluing that trophy is that it says ‘Commissioner’ on it.
Talk about going off. This whole situation seems to be getting worse by the minute, and it could not come at a worse time. Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement is set to expire after the 2021 season, and there are clearly issues in baseball.
Predicting a strike at this stage might be jumping the gun, but it’s not hard to read between the lines on where players stand right now.
