On Tuesday, Astros owner Jim Crane met with the media and discussed that the team intends on rallying the players together for a statement and believes they will apologize for the sign-stealing situation. In the conclusion of the MLB investigation, no players were not suspended, fined or punished, it was those in higher positions in the club who were cited and penalized.
David Samson sat down on his podcast, "Nothing Personal with David Samson" to give his thoughts on how the meeting with the media was handled.
Crane met with the media when manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were fired and Samson said then he, "Didn't do a great job, wasn't very prepared."
The podcast host did not have much better things to say about his handling of the latest statements either. Cranes' "just off the top of his head" approach was not the move, according to Samson.
Samson mocks the naive optimism that the players will stand, as he jokes, "in solidarity, arm in arm" and apologize for something they were not punished for.
Summing it up in his own words, Samson recalls Cranes' thoughts noting the owner said, "And everything is gonna be great, because they'll say 'I'm sorry.'" Upon hearing all this, Samson has a simple question, "That's your plan Jim?"
Crane was asked why the wait until spring training for the player's to make this joint statement, and what happened next was where Samson really found trouble. "Jim Crane gave the perfect owner answer who doesn't know the first thing about the logistics of his team or about how to run a team. He said listen it's offseason how do we get everyone together. We can't possibly get everyone together," Samson said.
This only led to more questions, and Samson brought up the players getting together in Houston for FanFest just days earlier.
"Did we do an entire segment about how bad [Jose] Altuve and [Alex] Bregman were at FanFest? Did we not roast them for being ill prepared for saying the exact wrong thing?"
Despite efforts in whatever the media scrum was meant to accomplish, Samson says, "It's too late ... It's too late."
He notes that there was a time to gather the guys, but now it is nothing more than a distraction. "You had the chance to get your team together now. All you're adding is adding a distraction that your new yet unnamed manager is gonna have to deal with," Samson says.
