Many of A.J. Preller's peers were enraged by his actions in 2016, when, under Preller's watch, the San Diego Padres generated two sets of medical records on each player and withheld relevant information in trade discussions. Major League Baseball rendered an unprecedented month-long suspension of Preller, and in the aftermath of that decision, some of his peers predicted the Padres general manager would get an earful of wrath at the annual general managers meetings, when the executives from all 30 teams get in the same room.
But the mob response to Preller never developed. Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke sternly to the group about cheating, and whether Manfred displayed enough emotion to satisfy Preller's peers, or there was a cooling of tempers, or because nobody summoned the courage to tell Preller what they thought to his face, the anger never translated into a group confrontation.
It might be that the same thing will happen with Houston Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, who has infuriated his peers with what they believe to be brazen disregard for the rules against electronic surveillance before offering an explanation that few -- if any -- believe.
"We were playing defense," Luhnow said. "We were not playing offense."
Officials from the Boston Red Sox and other American League teams chortled over those words in conversations with each other; one evaluator indicated he had heard from close to a dozen teams that they, too, had concerns about the Astros and what they perceived to be illicit behavior.
That Astros employee Kyle McLaughlin was confronted in Cleveland about his presence next to the Indians dugout and then did the same thing in Boston was a brazen disregard for the rules, in the eyes of rival officials -- as if protocol doesn't apply to Houston, even after the Astros were caught. "You talk about arrogant ..." mused one AL official, shaking his head.
One official noted that Luhnow's explanation that the Astros were merely trying to protect their interests from others who might break the rules echoed the excuse former St. Louis Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa gave for invading Houston's computer files.
In explaining the hacking, Correa said he suspected former St. Louis employees had taken some of the Cardinals' intellectual property when they moved to the Astros, and that he didn't intend to steal the Astros' information; rather, he argued, he was only trying to defend the Cardinals' interests. Correa was given a felony conviction and a 46-month sentence.
After the story about the Astros' photo-well machinations broke, Correa seemed to mock the organization from prison:
Guess who isn't surprised?
— Chris Correa (@chriscorrea) October 17, 2018
Only the Astros know for sure whether they have cheated, but some other teams are treating the aggressive dugout spying as confirmation that Houston has not been above board, and that the team has broken rules to win. After McLaughlin was removed from the camera well, the Astros mustered 14 runs in four games of the series against Boston, all losses.
"You notice how they did after they got busted in Boston?" asked one AL evaluator. The esteemed Scott Miller wrote about other concerns about how the Astros use their data.
As I wrote the other day, this sort of conversation about legitimacy, about credibility, is incredibly destructive for baseball. Only the Astros know for sure whether they've been cheating. Only the Astros know for sure if the offensive struggles were more about Nathan Eovaldi, David Price and Ryan Brasier and Jose Altuve's bad knee and Carlos Correa's back trouble.
But the Astros' behavior fuels those kinds of questions, and it's why a lot of officials in baseball would strongly support Manfred if he was to create a draconian system of rules and punishment designed to end any cheating -- and there is an expectation that this issue will be revisited at the GM meetings.
Paranoia over cheating has saturated the sport, with plenty of private accusations about teams other than the Astros, and whether or not some of this is imagined, it all needs to be corralled. And unless Manfred ramps up the penalties significantly -- as in years-long suspensions or bans, or enormous draft and international-market sanctions -- the possible benefits from cheating might outweigh the fear of the punishment. In the eyes of rival officials, the Astros' actions in recent weeks demonstrate that. Manfred had threatened teams with harsh penalties in the past, and was apparently ignored.
Will the many offended rival evaluators confront Luhnow when they all gather in the same room? Probably not. Preller knows that firsthand. But regardless of what is said, or not, the room will be filled with the growing anger over cheating.