This is exactly how I'm reacting to all facets of this trade today... in a bad place, making bad decisions, with alcohol involved.
Also, I need to open up MS Paint and update my avatar with a black stripe or something.
Alex Verdugo, new Red Sox star!
- Thread starter CaptainLaddie
- Start date
Also, I need to open up MS Paint and update my avatar with a black stripe or something.
This fucking sucks. I'm rooting for him to fall down a volcano. Here's hoping he gets flipped soon.
They traded Mookie's salary - it's not like they ID'd this kid and went after him. If we had a 4th OF ready to step in, and the Sox had any choice, they'd have likely gone after more pitching.
I don't understand the need to continue to give guys like this the benefit of the doubt.
This is why rape culture persists. Maybe it's time to stop trying to excuse bad behavior and hold people accountable for it. Best case scenario, Verdugo left an incapacitated young girl alone to be assaulted. I'm not saying to lock him up. I'm not saying to flog him in the public square. But, absent any public showing of remorse or good works, why does he get to go on to make millions of dollars with his face on TV 162+ times a year, and what message does that send to the next guy in his position?
We just saw Kobe be lauded nonstop. We just saw a bunch of guys with DV records hoist the Lombardi. Our teams, our institutions and our society are only going to be as good as we demand they be. If we keep giving money and fame and support to guys who are rapists or molesters or adjacent to any of that, then we're complicit.
And, comparing this situation to being at a party where a sexual assault takes place is absurd.
This is why rape culture persists. Maybe it's time to stop trying to excuse bad behavior and hold people accountable for it. Best case scenario, Verdugo left an incapacitated young girl alone to be assaulted. I'm not saying to lock him up. I'm not saying to flog him in the public square. But, absent any public showing of remorse or good works, why does he get to go on to make millions of dollars with his face on TV 162+ times a year, and what message does that send to the next guy in his position?
We just saw Kobe be lauded nonstop. We just saw a bunch of guys with DV records hoist the Lombardi. Our teams, our institutions and our society are only going to be as good as we demand they be. If we keep giving money and fame and support to guys who are rapists or molesters or adjacent to any of that, then we're complicit.
And, comparing this situation to being at a party where a sexual assault takes place is absurd.
The primary return for this trade was Competitive Balance Tax Payroll Relief, which is hard to fit on the back of a jersey, and very unlikely to become the face of the franchise.
Actually, best case scenario is that he got drunk and passed out on the bed missing the whole thing. Not good judgment, but hold him to what he actually did.
Per Kapler (FWIW) at: http://kaplifestyle.com/2019/02/02/my-statement/
How was he passed out in the bed in the room if he and the other two women left the room during the assault?
And how can Kapler claim no account mentioned a sexual assault when that’s exactly what was alleged?
And how can Kapler claim no account mentioned a sexual assault when that’s exactly what was alleged?
I can't speak to the truthfulness of the first, but it's Kapler's statement, and I doubt he'd have any reason to lie about the information he was operating on.
For the second, according to Sports Illustrated: https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/02/05/nick-francona-gabe-kapler-controversy-los-angeles-dodgers-assault-allegations
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The article in the original thread post was written by Jessica Quiroli: https://profile.typepad.com/highheelsonthefield
Perhaps she might do a followup? Or clairify about her sources/understanding of Verdugo's role if asked? (I'm thinking a redacted police report, like the one SI had, would be interesting to read.)
Also, none of the other published stories mention a player passing out. The timeline has the girl feeling sick, on the verge of passing out when one player (Verdugo) went into the bathroom with the other 2 girls (?), while Baldwin was cramming his hand down her pants. At some point after they came back to the bedroom was when the girl started vomiting and beaten while one of the players took a video. Was the other player passed out when the beatings were happening? I mean, best case scenario, Verdugo came out of the bathroom with the girls, passes out, and Baldwin alone was the guy recording the beating while Verdugo was unconscious and none the wiser. Seems like a stretch.
The frustrating thing about this incident is that we.....just don't know. We really don't know much at all. There's about a hundred different ways this could have happened, ranging from Verdugo being 100% involved in a sexual assault to having no idea at all (at the time) that it happened.
I think Kapler is likely the least credible person in this whole situation. Everything about the way he handled it seems awful, as do his general views on the subject.
I’m happy to re-evaluate if more information comes out, but right now it seems that best case scenario, Verdugo enabled a sexual assault.
For what it's worth, here is a vid of him doing an interview where he comes off pretty ok...and the follow up video extends that take..
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ulhm4aFx70&feature=youtu.be
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ulhm4aFx70&feature=youtu.be
I guess because we live in a place with due process, for now anyway. I remember being outrages at the farce of the OJ trial my father said, at one time simply the allegation a black man did something to a white women was a death sentence, and concluded "this is better."
Marciano are you advocating a lifetime ban for this player based on the evidence?
I for one am not in favor or permanent banishment, or punishment being handed down by the public square or by internet consensus. A day or two back everyone was an expert on Johnny Depp being innocent, and half of them were the same people that were sure he needed jail time. Nancy Grace made salary for an entire year off the Duke Lacrosse team. Not often, but often enough, the puzzle pieces don't fit together the way it seems. So we have due process. This Verdugo guy seems shaky, since the reports of "off the field issues" is plural and oft repeated. So my opinion of this guy is low, and as a guy Mookie was traded for, it's awful.
What was the precise situation when he left? There is no way of knowing. For sure nothing we know paints a flattering picture of the guy. But, there is just too much missing to be sure of Verduga's responsibility. But, it seems, in no small part due to Gabe Kapler, that evidence is not available. So in this entire mess we don't have enough to convict this guy, and again that may be because of the coverup. That Kapler is a manager, is the clear outrage here IMHO.
That's "best case"? I think that's probably the extreme of what happened, based on the information we have. There was no indication that he actually was involved physically in any of the assault that happened to that poor girl. So yeah, it's entirely possible that he enabled a sexual assault. Maybe even encouraged it somehow. But I don't think there's any evidence that he actually *participated* in it physically. So I would think your words there represent probably the worst-case limit of what involvement he may have had in that terrible incident. Unless there's a LOT more that we haven't heard.
Here's a link to another article: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2019/02/04/glendale-police-report-reveals-more-assault-claim-involving-dodgers-minor-league-players/2773271002/
Also this is interesting:
If you’re referencing OJ, I’d think women or assault victims would be the analogue to black men and the ones deserving more solicitude.
I don’t know how I’d handle this as sports czar. Obviously, I’d want more evidence than I need now as a fan. I’m not so sure lifetime bans would be the worst thing. I’d like to leave a door open for rehabilitation to entails actual outreach to survivors and associated charities.
But, what’s the world like if Kobe and Chapman and Hill and Osuna were banned for life? Do people act better seeing actual strict consequences for their actions? Maybe. Is that worth saying that those guys don’t get to make millions and be heroes anymore? Again, I’m not sure, but I think so.
"The girl then said one of the players laid down next to her and began fondling her inappropriately while the other three were in the bathroom. She said the player stopped when the three others returned, the report said."
We know from the other story that the player committing the sexual assault was Baldwin. So this story says that he did it while the others were in the bathroom.
Now did they go into the bathroom so that Baldwin could do that? Or did he do it when they went into the bathroom because that was his chance to do it? Seems like the latter, especially if he stopped when they returned.
The player could be a .300/25/10 guy in his prime if all breaks right. The person however needs a lot of work.
Pressured into drinking half a bottle of vodka then left alone counts as enabling for me. If you want to assume Baldwin was acting completely on his own and Verdugo had no clue what was going on, I suppose that’s possible. But, at some point, he’s a really, really, really passive observer under any reading.
I mean, I don't want to think our Mookie replacement is a douchebag -- and the quotes Romine posted suggest at least an outside possibility that Verdugo was not directly involved in, or cognizant at the time of, the egregiousness of what was happening in that room -- but I'm puzzled at bringing this interview in as character evidence. It's just a bunch of off-the-rack athlete bromides. Are you thinking that a guy capable of standing by while a teammate assaults an intoxicated girl would twirl his moustache and snarl at the camera or something?
I see him as kinda a J.D. Drew hitter. If he can do even a bit better than that, its at least some decent value.
And the WaPo article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/told-of-girls-assault-at-spring-training-hotel-gabe-kapler-dodgers-didnt-alert-police/2019/02/01/45da0208-2624-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html
Some new details, but nothing significantly different that I can see. Apparently the "3 in the bathroom" comes from the police report. And the girl herself was passing out at the time. (Cuts both ways re: Verdugo being passed out theory.)
So for sources we have:
1) the police report (essentially a victim statement),
2) the emails between the grandmother and Kapler, and
3) Kapler's statement.
All three of those might have some heavy torque. But I'd rather read the first two than read the reporting on them. Not in the least because the focus of the reporting is not what Verdugo did or did not do.
The dating on the articles is:
WaPo article: 2/1/2019
AZcentral article: 2/4/2019
Quiroli's article: 2/14/2019
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However from the WaPo article, the most potentially interesting bit for vetting Verdugo is this:
Some new details, but nothing significantly different that I can see. Apparently the "3 in the bathroom" comes from the police report. And the girl herself was passing out at the time. (Cuts both ways re: Verdugo being passed out theory.)
So for sources we have:
1) the police report (essentially a victim statement),
2) the emails between the grandmother and Kapler, and
3) Kapler's statement.
All three of those might have some heavy torque. But I'd rather read the first two than read the reporting on them. Not in the least because the focus of the reporting is not what Verdugo did or did not do.
The dating on the articles is:
WaPo article: 2/1/2019
AZcentral article: 2/4/2019
Quiroli's article: 2/14/2019
***
However from the WaPo article, the most potentially interesting bit for vetting Verdugo is this:
I don't know if the "dating one of the Dodgers players" is factually accurate or applies to Verdugo. But it's a thread I'd follow up on.
Well putting the two stories on this incident that have posted, yes, it does appear that Baldwin sexually assaulted her while the others weren't there, and he stopped immediately when they returned. So there's literally (as in, the literal wording of the reports) no reason to think that Verdugo was directly involved in the sexual assault. It was Baldwin doing it, not any of the other guys, from the reports.
And he (Verdugo) might not even have been a passive observer. Again, the reports were that Baldwin did this *when the other guys weren't there*, and he stopped as soon as they got back in the room. So it's entirely possible (I'm not saying it's anything remotely approaching certainty) that they had no clue what he did until well after it happened.
Ok. But Verdugo was there when she was being pressured to consume a bunch of vodka and then left her alone with Baldwin when or right before she passed out. That, to me, is enabling.
And, maybe he was trying to break up the fight when she was being attacked by the other women, while Baldwin was videotaping it and uploading it to social media.
It’s a really fine line to walk where Verdugo comes out of this blameless.
If he's a J.D. Drew kind of hitter (and not a sociopath), the Sox will have knocked this trade out of the park. If he's even close to that good, it will be "decent value" and then some.
Yeah totally get that. And I'm not saying I think he's blameless. I don't think he really considered her age, which is understandable as we have all known girls that are 17 that look 25 and how many college aged guys are going to ask THAT question? Not many, even though they probably should. And yeah, pressuring anyone to drink is a really bad idea. But to me it's a stretch to think that he would assume that Baldwin was going to sexually assault her. I mean, yeah, it's possible. But that wouldn't even come CLOSE to holding up in court, right? Not that this has to be a court of law - I'm 100% convinced that Kobe raped that girl even though he was never convicted of it. I'm just saying that you have to make a LOT of assumptions in order to think that Verdugo was complicit in the sexual assault here.
Not saying he was blameless. He made several bad judgment calls here at BEST. And at worst, yeah, he was actually involved in the assault. But there is just not any literal evidence that he was. Reading the reports, he wasn't in the room when it happened, and as soon as he returned, it had stopped.
As for the fight part...I have no idea what to think about that. That's another horrible piece to the story.
Long story short...as I've said already in this thread... we just don't know. We really don't. With Kobe, we have her story, we have her blood on his clothes, we have the physical evidence of traumatic penetration, we have Kobe's admission afterward that he realized that for her it was non-consensual. I mean, that's a LOT.
In this case, all the evidence points to Verdugo not even being in the room when the sexual assault happened. So you have to make a lot of assumptions to assign guilt to him here. Baldwin was clearly the criminal here. (and yes maybe with Verdugo enabling it)
The thing that I wish would happen is this: he comes out and says, "Yeah, I was in that room. I was stupid. I was drunk. I was young and heady with the idea that I was special because I could hit a baseball. I don't know what Baldwin did because I was in the bathroom doing other stupid shit, but I know what the girl said, I offered (according to Kapler this is true) to apologize, and now 5 years later, I look back and see the harm that was done to this young woman, to this girl, that we took advantage of a kid who had a terrible life experience to that point, and I want people to see now that this is an issue. I regret that night. I regret it and I want to be a better person than I was that night. I want to help clubs see that their "men" (again, as Kapler put it) don't always know the right thing to do and they need to spend more time helping us figure it out. We're put on a pedestal from a young age, and we think we're immortal and special and that our actions have no consequences. But they do. They had consequences on that young woman."
The issue, RR, is that he WAS there, he DOES know what happened for the entire time he wasn't in the bathroom, and he DOES know what Baldwin was accused of. He is guilty of being there, participating in some way in dumbassery that led to an exploited kid being further exploited and sexually assaulted. Maybe he didn't know she was a runaway 17 year old with a wretched history, but he found that out and he sure as hell knows it now. So, where is the contrition now? Where is the attempt to make a difference now? He should fucking OWN his part in it, whatever it was, because that is what human beings should do. He could make a crappy situation better, he really could. And the Red Sox could have decided to be maybe the 1st club that says, you know what? We don't want this kid unless he clears that night up, owns it and participates in activities now that will help make a positive difference in lives of other people in similar situations to that girl. But they didn't because it's a business first and foremost; money is more important than humanity. And he won't ever own up tp his part that night because - why should he? No one holds him responsible for his part in it. He had a part in it. The whole thing just disgusts me, to be honest.
The issue, RR, is that he WAS there, he DOES know what happened for the entire time he wasn't in the bathroom, and he DOES know what Baldwin was accused of. He is guilty of being there, participating in some way in dumbassery that led to an exploited kid being further exploited and sexually assaulted. Maybe he didn't know she was a runaway 17 year old with a wretched history, but he found that out and he sure as hell knows it now. So, where is the contrition now? Where is the attempt to make a difference now? He should fucking OWN his part in it, whatever it was, because that is what human beings should do. He could make a crappy situation better, he really could. And the Red Sox could have decided to be maybe the 1st club that says, you know what? We don't want this kid unless he clears that night up, owns it and participates in activities now that will help make a positive difference in lives of other people in similar situations to that girl. But they didn't because it's a business first and foremost; money is more important than humanity. And he won't ever own up tp his part that night because - why should he? No one holds him responsible for his part in it. He had a part in it. The whole thing just disgusts me, to be honest.
I’d be ecstatic if he turns into a J.D. Drew type hitter. .873 career OPS? Sign me up.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/onbase_plus_slugging_career.shtml
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One thing that is very clear from that video is that fans of teams playing against the Red Sox are going to absolutely despise this guy. So he's got that going for him, I guess - the question is whether fans of the Sox will also despise him.
I’m not talking about a court of law. I’m talking about who I feel comfortable rooting for on the flagship franchise of my hometown.
I think this is a case where a little common sense comes in handy. Would you leave someone shitfaced alone on a bed with the dude who’s been pressuring her to drink all night (assuming Verdugo wasn’t the one pressuring her).
You add the facts that the players seemed to have a preexisting relationship with the other two women who seem like wannabe traffickers and the whole thing looks predatory.
Yeah, no doubt.
Last year he had 3.1 WAR in 106 games. Would have been fifth on the Sox under Mookie, XB, Devers and JDM (just barely).
Can we at least concede that Teenagers have a pretty unimpeachable record of making poor decisions where alcohol is involved? I actively dislike Verdugo and doubt that he lasts the season here, but there’s a non-zero chance that he was just a drunk and oblivious 18 year old that night.
Sorry, my post was toned in a way to be conservative. I was thinking of the 2007 version of the Drewdawg, and my hope was he could be that level at least.
This is the crux of it. We’re not in a court of law, and we’re not, I don’t think, even seriously discussing league penalties. We’re discussing whether it was right/smart/ appropriate for the Red Sox to willingly bring someone with these clouds in his past into the organization. Whatever his level of involvement in the incident was, there’s more than enough suspicion for a reasonable person to think the Red Sox should not have acquired him, and to feel very queasy and conflicted about rooting for him.
I have no sympathy at all for Verdugo, and I hope this isn't construed that way, but I couldn't imagine a worse situation for anyone to come into. Even if he had a choir boy with an impeccable work ethic reputation he'd still be under the microscope as one who was traded for Mookie Betts. Now the most generous description of him would be as an immature jerk with a lazy streak. Judging from the past four pages of this thread he's going to be reviled by a good portion of the fanbase. Previous posters were correct that this isn't a court of law, but the best move the Red Sox could make right now may be to trade/sell/release Verdugo and issue a mea culpa.
I also wonder how much heat Chaim Bloom's going to feel for this. The equipment truck probably isn't even in Fort Myers yet and he's already spent whatever goodwill/slack he may have had coming. He may have been under orders from Henry et. al. to get under the luxury tax threshold, but he engineered this deal.
I also wonder how much heat Chaim Bloom's going to feel for this. The equipment truck probably isn't even in Fort Myers yet and he's already spent whatever goodwill/slack he may have had coming. He may have been under orders from Henry et. al. to get under the luxury tax threshold, but he engineered this deal.
Sure. We’ve all been drunk and high. How many times have you gotten into an analogous situation?
Are we counting violence? Because in my pre-21 years there were an awful lot of fights that I got into during barroom crawls. And to clarify way back then I was (almost) strictly gay (I did briefly date a 37 year old woman with great season tickets to the Sox, and I definitely would have slept with her to keep getting free seats had she not freaked out when learning that I was 19), so not a lot of teenaged girls around for me to get into trouble with.
The only remotely analogous situation I found myself in was one Friday night in Charlie’s Deli when a 22 year old Narcissus club girl who was thoroughly blotto sat at my table and passed out into her bowl of chowder (literally, I had to clean her off) as I was trying to make my way through my homework.
But since I was dead sober at the time it doesn’t really count. On the other hand, after I cleaned her off, walked/carried her back to her place, deposited her on her couch, and returned to Charlie’s Deli to finish my homework two guys that had been there when she passed out thanked me for taking her home because they’d been too buzzed to drive her.
The only remotely analogous situation I found myself in was one Friday night in Charlie’s Deli when a 22 year old Narcissus club girl who was thoroughly blotto sat at my table and passed out into her bowl of chowder (literally, I had to clean her off) as I was trying to make my way through my homework.
But since I was dead sober at the time it doesn’t really count. On the other hand, after I cleaned her off, walked/carried her back to her place, deposited her on her couch, and returned to Charlie’s Deli to finish my homework two guys that had been there when she passed out thanked me for taking her home because they’d been too buzzed to drive her.
This just seems like an incredibly, incredibly risky move for the Red Sox to trade for this guy in the same transaction where they are shipping out such a unanimously unimpeachable guy like Mookie Betts. They have to know what this media market is like. Has Dan Shaughnessy posted yet?
The answer for me is zero. But . . .
I can imagine 18 year old me if confronted with a difficult, even obviously wrong, situation shutting down and not knowing quite what to do in the moment. I'd like to think not. And maybe 18 year old me would surprise me. But it's tough for 50 something me to honestly answer that question about 18 year old me.
Of course, all that assumes that he was just a passerby who had no active involvement and got caught up in a situation he didn't anticipate. Which seems dubious or at least questionable. I do feel fairly confident that 18 year old me would not have associated with women that looked to pick up runaways and beat them up, or with guys that assault passed out girls. I don't know the first thing about spring training dynamics and roommate situations and who gravitates towards whom, and all that stuff.
I legitimately hope there's a good explanation here. I'm skeptical there is. It doesn't seem to pass the common sense test, at least if the snippets of information we've been given are correct. But if the question is whether I could imagine a set of facts in which I could at least understand inaction by an 18 year old, it is possible.
I get all that. I just think there’s way too many unknowns here. Keep in mind that I’ve shared recently that my daughter was raped in college last year so I’m not too keen on giving guys the benefit of the doubt here. I’m really just trying to see this situation as clearly as possible.
No question Verdugo is, at a Barr minimum, guilty of some pretty terrible judgment. Whether he’s guilty of more than that...I haven’t seen the evidence for that. The real bad guy here is Baldwin. And maybe Verdugo too... it’s just that there’s no real evidence of it, to me.
And Baldwin should have his nuts smashed with a hammer for his actions.