The Biggest SNITCH In Baseball

In 2017, the Houston Astros emerged as the best team in baseball. They went on to win 101 games, beat the Red Sox in the first round of the playoffs, beat the Yankees in the second round of the playoffs, and then the Dodgers in the World Series, outlasting them in 7 games to win it all for the first time in franchise history. The hitting was incredible that season for Houston, with George Springer winning the World Series MVP award along with Jose Altuve winning the American League MVP award, and the pitching was great too. 2015 American League Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel was amazing, Charlie Morton was nasty, Justin Verlander was as elite as it gets after getting traded late in the season, the bullpen was solid, and just top to bottom, you could of course see why the Astros won the World Series that year and were built to be good for a while. With that said, not everybody on the 25 man roster was great. As far as the starting rotation went, there was one outlier, the ugly duckling. Everybody else I named were of course great, Brad Peacock, Lance McCollers Jr, and Colin McHugh were also solid, and then you had Mike Fiers. Was he good? Not as much. Mike Fiers had actually been solid in the past, including his time with the Astros in 2015 and 2016, going as far as to throw a no hitter in 2015 after being traded to Houston from Milwaukee. 2016 wasn't great for Fiers, but he was serviceable enough to stay in the rotation for a playoffless Astros team, but 2017 was of course a different story as far as the success went. The team's success didn't exactly mirror Fiers' results on the mound though. In 2017, Mike Fiers pitched to an ERA north of 5 in a little over 150 innings pitched, giving up 32 home runs. He just was not good. It didn't end up mattering in the end for the team or really hurt them, obviously, but when you have a really bad season on a really good team full of stars like the AL MVP, Carlos Correa, George Springer, Justin Verlander, you're clearly gonna fly under the radar and not really be noticed, and that's just how it was. Following the season, Fiers would leave and sign with the Tigers, and he'd actually put up a really good 2018 season, pitching a good first half in Detroit before getting traded to the Oakland A's. While he was in Detroit though, there was a little bit of drama between Fiers and Giancarlo Stanton, who was now on the Yankees. But this drama actually stemmed back all the way to 2014 when Fiers was on the Brewers and Stanton was on the Marlins. It was a meaningless game between two non-playoff teams in September taking place in Milwaukee, and Mike Fiers was on the mound pitching. It was the 5th inning, Stanton came up to the plate with runners on, and Fiers would hit Stanton in the face with a fastball. It was horrifying, and Fiers was visibly shaken up over what he just clearly accidentally did. Stanton was of course taken out of the game and actually to a hospital, with Reed Johnson coming in to finish the at-bat, only to get hit by the first pitch he saw from Fiers. The Marlins bench at this point was furious, shouting at Fiers from the dugout, and in response, Fiers screamed back and challenged them to come out. The benches cleared, two Marlins were ejected for blowing up on the umpires, and it was just an overall mess of a situation. But it didn't end there between those two. About 4 years later, now with both Fiers and Stanton on new teams, Fiers would hit Stanton again, this time on his left forearm. It was clearly unintentional, but you can totally understand why Stanton would be upset, as he'd have some stuff to say to Fiers. And later in the game, Stanton got his revenge, hitting a 456 foot home run off of Fiers, and he most definitely made sure to enjoy it. After the game, Stanton had this to say. Come up and in like that, and yeah it does. Wasn't trying to hit me in that situation, but with the history like it, what happened, and you know, don't hit me. Yeah I did. Why not? What was the message and the point? Get the point. While Fiers had this to say. The way he handled it, I think it was kind of childish. I mean, you know, anybody knows watching this game that I'm not throwing at him, so he's going to act how he's going to act, but it kind of shows his character, because obviously I wasn't throwing at him. I understand the history, and I understand that it was a bad moment for him a while ago, so I understand he's upset, but I just think the way he handled it after is a little childish. Nothing has since happened between the two. Fiers, like I said, went on to get traded to Oakland, and 2019 featured one of Mike Fiers' best years at the big league level, as he'd throw over 180 innings with a 3.90 ERA, winning 15 games for the A's and even throwing a no hitter at one point against the Cincinnati Reds, his second of his career, which actually happened to be the 300th no hitter in baseball history. Yeah, he may have had some help from pine tar or some kind of sticky goo substance, but still impressive. The A's would make the postseason that year, Fiers never actually got to pitch since the A's would go one and done in the wild card game, and then just about the biggest thing in Mike Fiers' career went down. In November of 2019, Fiers revealed to journalists and MLB insiders Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellick of The Athletic that in 2017, the Houston Astros cheated by using a video camera in center field to steal signs from the opposing teams. This launched an investigation by Major League Baseball, and much more of course was found, with it being found to be true, and the Astros were penalized. Astros manager A.J. Hinch was suspended along with general manager Jeff Luhnhau and Red Sox manager Alex Cora for his role as the team's bench coach during the whole scandal. Cora ended up signing back with Boston after the suspension was over, Hinch got the Tigers manager job, yet does have to suffer there as they've been painfully bad so I guess that's more punishment, and Jeff Luhnhau is now out of baseball looking to do other things. Astros players became public enemy number one by not just the fans, but other players as well throughout the league, as the frustration resulted in a benches clearing incident between the Astros and Dodgers, the team they cheated against to win it all in 2017. They were booed throughout the 2021 season, but by this point I feel like most of the hate has drifted away and people are kind of over it. Carlos Correa is on the Twins now, George Springer is on the Blue Jays, the Astros just won the World Series again, this time without any cheating allegations attached, so yeah it's kind of all done. But there was a while where the Astros were the enemies of baseball, and it all started because of Mike Fiers, and what he did, although many praised him and called it a heroic move, many others actually had an issue with it. In recent years, we as fans have come to realize that the Astros were not the only team doing something illegal to steal signs. Plenty of teams were doing it around the league, but the Astros were likely doing the absolute most and worst with it, plus they won, so that doesn't really help their case either. But like I said, some people, former along with current players and analysts, actually had an issue with what Fiers did and when he did it. Immediately following the scandal dropping, Red Sox legend David Ortiz had some harsh and negative things to say about Mike Fiers, saying quote, while it was going on, end quote. Ortiz's former teammate, another Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez, called Fiers a bad teammate, adding on quote, End quote. ESPN analyst Jessica Mendoza had some criticisms for Fiers as well, watch. I mean, this wasn't something that MLB naturally investigated or that even other teams complained about because they naturally heard about and then investigations happened, but it came from within. It was a player that was a part of it, that benefited from it during the regular season when he was a part of that team. And that, when I first heard about it, it's just, it hits you like any teammate would, right? It's something that you don't do. I totally get telling your future teammates, helping them win, letting people know, but to go public with it and call them out and start all of this, it's, it's hard to swallow. And then you of course have what the Astros players, Fiers' former teammates, thought of him. A former anonymous Astros player called him a freaking punk ass bitch. A current one at the time said that he should give back his ring and his World Series share. And Carlos Correa, he was the most outspoken of the Astros players amidst the scandal drama and he didn't hold back on Fiers either, defending Jose Altuve and saying quote, You guys are going to find out because I'm sure somebody is going to ask him and he's going to tell everybody. If he's man enough to tell the truth and tell his story and break this story, he should be man enough to say that the MVP of 2017 did not use it. End quote. Astros fans, as you can imagine, absolutely despise Fiers. He is public enemy number one in Houston, probably forever, and it doesn't necessarily help his case either when he was caught talking to underage girls. So, I wouldn't say Fiers has the best reputation even outside of Houston, but especially in Houston. I won't get too deep into this whole thing, but Fiers was caught messaging underage girls on social media and it's pretty much a big meme at this point among some baseball fans. If you look up Mike Fiers minor on Twitter, you'll see a bunch of tweets making fun of him. Breaking the Astros scandal is the most relevant thing Fiers has done since November of 2019 because in 2020, he was bad, and in 2021, after re-signing with the A's for another year, injuries limited him to just 9 and a third innings, and in those 9 and a third innings, Fiers gave up 8 earned runs on 15 hits, 4 of which were home runs. He has never been seen on a major league field again. In 2022, Fiers played in Mexico before getting his contract purchased by a team in China, and they got released not too long afterward because of a failed physical. At this point, Mike Fiers is probably never going to throw another pitch for a big league team ever again, considering he's had multiple injury issues over the last couple years, along with the fact that he's turning 38 this year, and he's just probably not someone any team wants to commit any money to, considering he hasn't shown any success since 2019, and again, the injury concerns. It's crazy to think that someone who threw two no-hitters throughout his career will forever be known for two things, and neither of them are the no-hitters. One of them is for hitting a player in the face with a fastball, and the other is for snitching on the 2017 Astros for cheating and kickstarting the whole investigation and drama that preceded. Now, I don't even necessarily mean snitch as a derogatory term. You can think of Fiers and his decision to rat out the Astros however you want. I do think what he did was good to reveal illegal stuff that was going on behind the scenes there, although I feel he should have done it at the time in 2017 rather than wait, but at the end of the day, it's pretty clear that Mike Fiers will forever be known as someone who not threw two no-hitters, but who ratted out the biggest scandal in baseball history, and he will forever have a ton of enemies for it. If you made it this far, make sure to like and subscribe if you haven't yet. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.