*Everyone's favorite YouTube jacknut Jomboy had himself a flawed theory and, since he had a lot of funny Ejection Videos and isolated some trash can banging, everyone went ALL IN.
Noted Imbecile Jomboy claimed that there were a couple of tweets from Carlos Beltran's niece saying that Altuve was wearing a buzzer on his shoulder when he hit the Pennant-Winning Walk-Off (and he had five different anonymous parties corroborating it).
Plot Twist: It was not Carlos Beltran's niece. In fact, there's some chatter that the initial tweets came from a player's burner account. Oh, and also that Mike Trout takes HGH and MLB has known this for two years. Sure, let's burn everything down and go back to the days of barnstorming. Of course Altuve denied it.
Jomboy got a taste of the big time when everyone legitimized his spending hours upon hours of watching the Astros beat the Yankees. And now he can just tweet whatever InfoWars douchebaggery he wants to make himself feel better and get instant validation. A great recipe!
*Joel Sherman got a quote from MLB:
MLB explored wearable devices during the investigation but found no evidence to substantiate it.
*Marc Carig said the Astros started the biggest scandal in sports since Steroids.
*Tom Verducci: Baseball is in an ethical crisis.
*Josh Reddick became the first player to speak out about the Astros' Winter of Discontent, saying:
We're not talking much about it...We've got to keep our focus on winning. It's as simple as that. We keep our focus on winning and everything will work itself out.
*The Astros interviewed Buck Showalter on Wednesday, John Gibbons yesterday, and will interview Will Venable today. McTaggart:
A source told MLB.com the Astros would like to have a manager in place by Feb. 1 before the club turns its attention to finding a new general manager.
Dan Connolly writes that Buck Showalter is a perfect candidate:
...Two of Showalter's best attributes are the two things that the Astros probably need the most right now: He brings immediate accountability and credibility, and he's a maestro at getting a team to believe that it is them against the world.
Dusty Baker said he's interested, hasn't been contacted, but "there's a few questions" he'd want to ask.
*George Springer avoided an arbitration hearing with the Astros when he agreed to a $21m deal for 2020.
*Dean Deetz, who was DFAd last week, was assigned to Round Rock.
*The 2017 Astros are here to wreck all the franchises: Carlos Beltran stepped down before ever managing a game. His statement was strong to quite strong.
*File this under, "I Thought This Happened Two Years Ago:" Carlos Gomez retired.
*Alyssa Nakken is about to become the first woman to be on an MLB coaching staff.
*GQ: Why is Putin's power play so shocking?
*A Musical Selection: