Following up: Red Sox punishment (or lack thereof), minor league woes

The coronavirus pandemic reduced the urgency of Major League Baseball concluding its investigation into the Boston Red Sox, but the league managed to release its findings on Wednesday, and baseball fans celebrated the world over, for J.T. Watkins finally got his comeuppance.

All over Boston, Red Sox fans are throwing their J.T. Watkins autographs in the trash, unless they have room to burn them. Parents in Boston are pacing their kitchens, trying to devise a strategy for telling their J.T. Watkins-idolizing children their hero is now a villain.

And whenever baseball resumes, the Red Sox’s projections will take a hit, because you won’t find J.T. Watkins anywhere on their ZiPS pages.

Granted, you won’t find J.T. Watkins on any other ZiPS pages, either. He’s the Red Sox’s video room operator. He just happens to be the only person newly punished in the league’s second round of sentencing. Alex Cora also received a suspension through the 2020 postseason, but that was for his conduct with the Astros. Plus, the Red Sox had already fired him in anticipation of a punishment of some kind.

Based on the precedent set by the sentencing of the Astros — no consequences for the owner or players — the league had few other targets. Dave Dombrowski was already fired last year, so he couldn’t have gotten Luhnowed. So here’s what they’re left with:

• Watkins banned through the 2020 postseason, and won’t be able to return as video replay operator in 2021.
• Loss of a second-round draft pick in 2020.

That’s it, and the league’s attempts to explain it away aren’t convincing. What the Astros did was worse — relaying every pitch possible from off the field, not from on the field with a runner on second — and they had a whistleblower in Mike Fiers, while the Red Sox supposedly lacked consistent, authoritative testimony.

However, this is the Red Sox’s second offense in three years (they were slapped on the wrist for their usage of Apple Watches in 2017), so it seems to odd to ignore previous incidents and praise the team for “commendable efforts toward instilling a culture of compliance” — especially when the same report says players weren’t aware what was and wasn’t legal. It’s also difficult to take the league at its word about Cora not knowing about the scheme, given that the league’s investigation into the Astros said the same thing about Houston manager A.J. Hinch, who later revealed that he was aware, just relatively powerless.

The league’s attempt to call this investigation a closed case could unravel in a Houston-like fashion. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich at The Athletic have already raised a bunch of questions, and they have little else to look into. However, if the Astros are any indication, there won’t be any further punishments, which makes the whole investigation a little counterproductive. These punishments don’t really look a detriment, and if they fail to meet that description, doesn’t that make them an accelerant by default?

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As bad as COVID-19 is for Major League Baseball, it’s exponentially worse for Minor League Baseball. It already had a fight on its hands with MLB threatening to contract upwards of 42 teams, and unlike its overlord, the minor leagues can’t salvage a season with fanless games, since fans contribute to the bulk of their proceeds.

So MiLB is in no position to fight, and thus Baseball America’s report passes the smell test:

When MLB and MiLB negotiators convene on a teleconference on Wednesday, multiple sources with knowledge of the negotiations say MiLB will indicate that it agrees to 120 affiliated teams in a new PBA.

Such a concession by MiLB could be a clear step toward a deal. MiLB has now agreed to find ways to come to agreement on almost all of MLB’s public demands. Now the open question is whether MLB will be willing to accept the concession as a foundation for a potential deal.

There’s still a lot of ground to cover, but among the most important unknowns is whether the uncertainty and instability will give Major League Baseball an opportunity to take control over the governance of the minors.

This probably means bad things for the Great Falls Voyagers, at least as an entity in affiliated ball. The other White Sox affiliates haven’t been on any previously leaked chopping block, which makes sense, given new stadiums and/or attendance numbers (Kannapolis lagged behind in both, but was ready to catch up this season).

All of the White Sox’s teams are hanging in there, although James Fegan said that WInston-Salem had to cut staff for the time being.

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