2022NYC posted:The most surprising revelation for me was that Manfred's player immunity deal was moot because of the current CBA, the players could not be prosceuted/persecuted for the cheating. It was on MLBN, is that really true?
I wondered the same thing. Not to put too much stock in the labor law musings of baseball guys, but on MLB radio the past couple of days they have insisted that the current collective bargaining agreement would have made it almost impossible for MLB to win a grievance filed by a player who was disciplined for the sign-stealing scandal.
Supposedly the players didn't get notice of the Commissioner's ultimatum after the Red Sox were fined in 2017. It may be that the CBA specifies notice procedures and those weren't followed. But is it plausible to think any MLB player actually was unaware of the policy? Strange, too, to see the union taking a position that many (most?) of its members object to. (Although it the CBA would have prohibited punishment, then MLBPA couldn't have taken any other position.)
The players' reactions also makes it harder for me to believe the "everybody was doing it" rationalization. If Trout, Bellinger, et al. were also engaged in prohibited forms of sign-stealing, even if on some smaller scale than Houston, they'd be fools to keep the issue alive and to risk that someone would blow the whistle on them.