Banned From MLB Trade Rumors

No Shohei Ohtani and the Phillies talk allowed. No mentioning who owns the Phillies baseball team and no discussion whatsoever that might lead someone to discover this blog.

This was the opening in a thread about the latest on Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani who will be posted this winter. I had previously noted in Phillies threads that exactly zero articles about Ohtani had ben authored by sports writers who cover the Phillies. When I saw this posted the morning of November 14, 2017 I took note of it.

Immediately the personal attacks began quickly - as within several minutes - the moderators jumped in to stop me from responding and advancing the discussion.

What is objectionable about this post that it would go into moderation? There certainly was something because this post went into moderation when I attempted to post it again, but other posts I made before and after the second attempt at posting went through fine. My guess is "John Middleton"was entered into the moderation filter.

Then the feces hit the fan. Attacks from new posters who had just made accounts flooded on demanding that something be done about me for exactly what I posted above in the screens and I complained about the censorship and received this response from Jeff Todd:

Sounds pretty nonchalant, however, that post is just for public consumption. Not even a half hour later I tried to make a post and it did not go through or go to moderation. My account was banned from posting entirely.

Here's some of what I recovered from a couple days back when something similar happened when the subject of Shohei Ohtani, the Phillies and the Orioles came up:

And the post that blew up the site and sent Jeff Todd and others at MLB Trade Rumors into a tizzy of deletions:

So MLBTradeRumors will not allow discussion about why the Phillies and Orioles have no interest whatsoever in the most talented Japanese player ever to be posted. They insist upon maintaining the fiction that all thirty MLB teams are trying to sign him.

Today after being censored and just before being banned I excoriated Jeff Todd for his sites blacklisting of this blog, pointing out that I had over the years made submissions for MLBTradeRumors blog roundup and been ignored. I have also had many posts in the past deleted when I used search terms in my post that would point someone doing so to this blog.

Everyone who writes about MLB professionally knows about me. People in MLB - beyond the Phillies - know about me yet I am totally blacklisted from the game. People who are grossly incompetent to speak about the Phillies are never the less invited onto national podcasts to discuss the Phillies. Those podcasters know about me and this blog but will not even have contact with me.

All the back and forth was removed by Jeff Todd as well. Some of it I pulled out of email notifications sent to my account:

It's not as if the years of online blacklisting and site banning in the comments have prevented everyone from finding this blog, a few have and even years after reading this blog they recall it later. There were others who yelled through their keyboard that they knew it was me too (calling me "Free_AEC" or just "Free"). I've never seen another baseball commenter noted and remembered by others like this, yet I am an untouchable with anyone who has any kind of professional relationship with MLB.

Here is another post by "Cat Mando" (someone who just popped up there) and my reply:

How much abuse, imprisonment, beatings, banning, public disrespect and being treated like a leper can one man accept?

Is The Phillies Rebuild a Bomb About To Explode?

After owning the first pick of the 2018 MLB Draft all season long, the Phillies gave it up with about three weeks left in the season, a remarkable achievement for a rebuilding team in this era of draft spending pools.

That wasn't enough for the team of MacPhail/Klentak though, they decided to fire their manager Pete Mackanin and the entire coaching staff as well even though the universal opinion of them is that they were doing a great job. Hitting coach Matt Stairs immediately found new employment with San Diego.

Shortly after Joe Girardi was dismissed by the Yankees the Phillies rushed to announce Gabe Kapler as their new manager. Girardi was immediately a fan favorite for the job and that had to be brought to an end quickly. John Middleton is not about to wrestle for control of the Phillies with a presence like Joe Girardi.

Here is an article about Gabe Kapler talking up the Phillies by Ryan Lawrence of PhillyVoice. A couple of one sentence quotes from Kapler:

“We’re going to hunt for value at the margins.”

Well, that certainly got the attention of John Middleton and Bill Giles in a big way. Clearly Kapler did his research well. Nobody can squeeze the head off a copper penny like the owners of the Phillies. Kapler even praised Phillies pitcher Luis Garcia, a guy who was stacking shelves in a warehouse for a living and was signed for nothing. Good job telling the bosses what they want to hear.

“This scouting department has done a tremendous job the last couple years”

Really? I share the exact opposite view. Last year the Phillies took a pitcher in the 2nd round who I immediately named “twiggy” and who is now on the shelf with T.J. surgery. I would have jumped the bones of Philly’s own Nolon Jones who ticked all the boxes for me.

This year I recommended to the Phillies  - in order - Jordon Adell, Keston Hiura and Mark Vientos. Again, in the second round Vientos was sitting there for the Phillies. So the Phillies could have had two of those three I flagged. The guy the Phillies took in the first round? I didn’t even look at video of him until after the Phillies picked him. The Phillies first round pick at the top of the first round was sorted out before the part where I look at video of the guy. He couldn’t make it that far with me.

Jon Heyman wrote an article about the Gabe Kapler hire and at the bottom there is a comment left. I too thought the same thing after reading the article, that the Dodgers F.O. was recommending Kapler so enthusiastically in hopes of getting him to move on.

Maybe the article is just slanted due to a small sample size of people who wanted to talk about Kapler. What is clear is that referring to Kapler as "verbose"could be taken as a sardonic comment.

However, more grimly, I could not help but be left with the impression that John Middleton would rather shoot his sister, his wife and his precious son Hollywood Johnny in the head before turning the gun on himself before he would sign Bryce Harper and Manny Machado in December 2018.

Yes Phillies fans, it sounds to me like you're about to be sodomized by John Middleton.....again. Maybe Gabe Kapler will lend Mr. Middleton his coconut oil before the attack from the rear begins?