LOS ANGELES -- Saturday’s edition of FanFest, the traditional kickoff to the next season for the Dodgers, provided players their first opportunity as a group to address the 2017 sign-stealing scandal and the Houston Astros, who beat them in the World Series that year.
The word heard most often from Dodgers was “frustrating.” President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said he hasn’t heard from anybody with the Astros and he does not believe the Astros have shown sufficient remorse since an MLB investigation concluded the team violated rules forbidding the use of electronics to steal signs and relay them in real time to Astros batters.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, in addition to the frustration of what might have been, the scandal has shined a light on what he feels has been “unfair criticism some players took -- Clayton [Kershaw], Yu [Darvish], Kenley [Jansen]. Frustrating is kind of the floor.”
Third baseman Justin Turner said the Commissioner’s report, and the fallout of lost jobs and team penalties, confirms what the Dodgers claim they long suspected after receiving warnings from teams that played the Astros that year.
“We know how hard it is to win a championship,” Turner said. “It’s something you definitely have to earn, and the evidence in the Commissioner’s report makes it hard to believe it was earned. They found enough evidence to support three managers losing their jobs.”
Asked about the Los Angeles City Council’s demand that the 2017 title be awarded to the Dodgers, Turner said that would provide no satisfaction.
“I don’t think anyone in the organization wants that,” he said. “We want to be able to experience those things -- we want to be able to dog-pile and pop champagne in the clubhouse and spray all you guys, and we want to have our parade and we want to do it the right way. I don’t think anyone wants that trophy.”
Pitcher Ross Stripling, who grew up in Texas, cited the difficulties then-Dodgers reliever Brandon Morrow faced against the Astros after being dominant going into that series. Stripling said as far as he’s concerned, the Astros’ title has an asterisk by it, but he agreed with Turner that the Dodgers don’t want to be awarded something they didn’t win on the field.
Stripling said he understands the reasoning for granting involved players immunity from discipline in exchange for providing information on the scheme.
“All we can do as players is remind people that those players were going above the norm of what any other organization was doing and then, essentially, got away with it,” he said.
Utility player Chris Taylor said it doesn’t do any good to think about the what-ifs of the 2017 World Series. He said he’s tired of talking about it and tired of thinking about it.
Outfielder/second baseman Enrique Hernández, though, was blunt.
“They cheated. They got away with it. They got a ring out of it,” he said.
To date, former Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel is the only player from the 2017 team to issue an apology.
“Dallas Keuchel didn’t hit,” said Turner. “I don’t know why he was the one apologizing.”