Joc Pederson recently discussed his thoughts on the Houston Astros cheating scandal that has shocked the sports world and the analysis continued on the Petros and Money Show with AM570 Dodger Talk host David Vassegh.
Here is the audio from the show, with their breakdown of the Astros scandal featuring Vassegh. The conversation starts at the ~29:44 mark.
Joc Pederson’s Initial Reaction
Pederson had his initial reaction last week at the Dodgers 15th annual Thanksgiving turkey hand out event at Dodger Stadium. Moreover, his gut feeling was something close to a gut punch.
“There is a lot that has come out. It is really unfortunate. It brings back a really bad feeling to your stomach like when we lost.”
With Vassegh, the outfielder expanded while resigning himself to the fact that “it’s over with” no matter what punishment comes down from baseball.
Say you strip [the Astros] of a World Series title and gave the Dodgers a World Series title then it was like… it’s not like there would be a parade, like, you wouldn’t really celeb — I don’t know… it’s over with.
They got away with something and that’s just the way it goes.
Pederson understandably was upset but did his best to keep it even keel. However, Dave Vassegh acknowledged that players from the 2017 team are absolutely upset.
“Talking to a lot of guys on that team,” Vassegh said, “they felt like that was their best team over the course of the two World Series that they played in. They felt like that was the World Series that they definitely should have won — not only is it tough for the guys that are still playing, but think about a guy like Andre Ethier.
That was his last chance to win a World Series… a lot of those teammates acknowledge the fact that ‘not only did you cheat to win that World Series, but also you took away opportunities from guys that never got that chance again.’”
Petros and Money Weigh In
On the Petros and Money Show, Matt “Money” Smith weighed in on what he believes to be somewhat of an attempt at Major League Baseball covering up the sign stealing earlier in 2019. Pederson shared his feelings on that topic as well.
“They know what’s going on. I think that’s why this year you saw an eight-second, minimum, delay on all feeds. Because of that. They knew what was going on, so they did something to try and protect it. With a delay, it wouldn’t have been possible to do what [the Astros] did — or were accused of doing.”
Overall
All in all, it seems dirty and where there is smoke, there is fire. At this point in time, there is just simply too much smoke to look past the possibility of large-scale cheating by the Houston Astros — now we wait for MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to levy punishment.
