Former Houston Astros pitcher Mike Fiers stunned the baseball world in November when he revealed to The Athletic that the Astros used a camera in the outfield to steal signs in real time during the 2017 season, which ended with Houston celebrating a World Series victory.
The report led to an MLB investigation into the alleged cheating, which determined that the Astros used a system to steal signs during the 2017 postseason. MLB fined the Astros, docked the team multiple draft picks and suspended coach A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow for one year as punishment. Both Hinch and Luhnow were immediately fired following the release of the MLB report.
During an appearance on Golic and Wingo on Thursday morning, ESPN MLB analyst and New York Mets front office member Jessica Mendoza said Fiers’ decision to blow the lid off the Astros’ cheating scheme was “hard to swallow.”
“I get it, if you’re with the Oakland A’s and you’re on another team, I mean, heck yeah, you better be telling your teammates ‘look, hey, heads up. If you hear some noises when you’re pitching, this is what’s going on.’ For sure.
But to go public, yeah, it didn’t sit well with me. And honestly it made me sad for the sport that that’s how this all got found out. I mean this wasn’t something that MLB naturally investigated or that even other teams complained about because they naturally heard about and then investigations happened. It came from within. It was a player that was a part of it, that benefited from it during the regular season when he was a part of that team. And that, when I first heard about it, it hits you like any teammate would, right? It’s something that you don’t do. I totally get telling your future teammates, helping them win, letting people know – but to go public with it and call them out and start all of this? It’s hard to swallow.”
There are so many disappointing aspects to this take that it’s difficult to unpack, but most remarkably, according to Mendoza, it would have been better for Fiers to protect an organization that was cheating to win at the highest level, and take a chance that people within the league would catch on eventually.
Mendoza claims that Fiers benefited from the Astros’ cheating, but that ignores the fact that his career record in Houston has been forever tarnished by someone else’s decision to cheat. Fiers didn’t have a choice in the matter, and to argue that he betrayed his teammates, when it reality it was Fiers and other honest players who were betrayed by the club, is bizarre.
Mendoza also regrets that Fiers started “all of this,” referring to the fallout of the investigation that has affected multiple MLB teams, including the one she works for. We’ve already seen former Astros coach Alex Cora lose his job with the Red Sox, and according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, the Mets are “wavering” on new manager Carlos Beltran, who was involved in the Astros’ scheme, and some analysts are calling for the Mets to fire Beltran immediately.
