The Athletic: The Astros stole signs electronically in 2017 part of a much broader issue for Major League Baseball

nvalvo

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This has probably been mentioned, but I keep thinking about the 2017 ALDS, where the Astros completely crushed Sale and Pomeranz in Houston: both of whom depend on deception and tunneling, but both of whom throw very straight fastballs, crushable if you guess right, or otherwise know it's coming. Altuve's first inning HR came on an 0-2 fastball. Boston pitching gave up 8 runs in both starts in Houston.

Then, Boston hires Alex Cora from Houston, and a very similar pitching staff somehow manages to hold Houston to 9 runs total in three games in MMP in the ALCS.

It's almost as if Cora knew what they were doing — he had very likely had a hand in it; it seems like a bench coach kind of duty — and took some sort of countermeasure to make their signs hard to steal.

edit: JA's post arrived while I was typing mine.
 

Marciano490

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More from The Athletic:

“ Major League Baseball’s investigation into the Astros and sign stealing is virtually certain to include interviews with three current managers — the Astros’ AJ Hinch, the Red Sox’s Alex Cora and the Mets’ Carlos Beltrán.

Hinch was the Astros’ manager in 2017, and sources said both Cora and Beltrán played a key role in devising the sign-stealing system the team used that season. The Astros stole signs electronically, according to pitcher Mike Fiers and three other sources inside the organization at the time, violating major league rules. ”
So.... do we think Cora brought sign stealing to the Sox?
 

HriniakPosterChild

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Since the beginning of time, the countermeasure for sign stealing is to let the hitter’s team “steal” the sign for a breaking ball, then throw a fastball up and in. Surprise!

How does that change just because the signs are stolen with a combination of a camera and whistling / banging / whatever?

If I were an Astros hitter, I’d be really careful digging in from now on.
 

drbretto

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I had my suspicions that Cora was up to something with the Astros and brought it to the Sox in 2018. Long before any of this came out. I thought it was just a talent for picking up on tipped pitches, but this makes sense. I have nothing but that uneasy feeling of course, no actual evidence. But my glass house sense is definitely keeping me from enjoying the Astros getting dragged here.
 

loshjott

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WaPost article on how the Nats guarded against sign stealing during the WS. Essentially every pitcher had their own set of signs and they also used the various "man on second" techniques the whole time.

Also contains this fact about the Astros: " In 2016, their hitters struck out 23.4 percent of the time, the fourth-highest rate in the game. In 2017, the year The Athletic report said the camera was installed, that rate dropped to 17.3 percent, the lowest in baseball. At home in 2017, the Astros struck out 16.7 percent of the time, as opposed to 17.9 percent on the road."
 

joe dokes

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Since the beginning of time, the countermeasure for sign stealing is to let the hitter’s team “steal” the sign for a breaking ball, then throw a fastball up and in. Surprise!
How does that change just because the signs are stolen with a combination of a camera and whistling / banging / whatever?
If I were an Astros hitter, I’d be really careful digging in from now on.
I was thinking about this also. Seems easy enough between innings for the catcher to say, "I'm signaling curve on the first pitch. Throw the curve. Same signal on the second pitch. Bring the chin music."
I suppose it might be different because the pitching team didn't know in real time that it was happening.
 

YTF

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I had my suspicions that Cora was up to something with the Astros and brought it to the Sox in 2018. Long before any of this came out. I thought it was just a talent for picking up on tipped pitches, but this makes sense. I have nothing but that uneasy feeling of course, no actual evidence. But my glass house sense is definitely keeping me from enjoying the Astros getting dragged here.
As a side note, is it just me or have we heard more and more frequently in the past season or two that many of the Sox pitchers woes were due to tipping their pitches? I think this is probably more wide spread than MLB might like to admit.
 

BaseballJones

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I was thinking about this also. Seems easy enough between innings for the catcher to say, "I'm signaling curve on the first pitch. Throw the curve. Same signal on the second pitch. Bring the chin music."
I suppose it might be different because the pitching team didn't know in real time that it was happening.
I think that's the key. We see these videos and hear the trash can banging and when it's deciphered for us it seems SO obvious. But it can't be as obvious in real time.

If you've ever seen "The Imitation Game", about Alan Turing and solving the German codes in WW2, you may recall that the very first thing Turing thought of when they knew they had cracked the code was: too bad we can't do anything about this.

When his colleagues were like, what? He replied with something along the lines of: "Well, if we suddenly have our ships adjust course, etc., in response to this information, the Germans will know we've broken their code and will switch to something else, so all this work will have been wasted. So we need to actually allow some of our ships to still run into German U-boat traps (which means they'll be sunk and thousands will die) but just apply this knowledge in specialized, strategic situations." That way the Germans would think that the Allies got lucky once in a while or whatever, not suspecting that their enigma coding had been broken.

I wonder if this is anything like that here. I mean if Houston did it EVERY time, it wouldn't be hard to figure out. But maybe in select moments, in particular situations or matchups, they went to this strategy.
 

cornwalls@6

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As several posters have alluded to, I think Manfred will be very careful about any punishment here. My guess is a moderate docking of a mid level draft pick(s) and a fine for the Astros, and a more broad based warning about absolute zero tolerance going forward for all clubs. Probably also a statement that there is no evidence that any of this had a significant impact on the outcome of any playoff series. He’s way smarter than the ginger hammer, and probably realizes that this has the potential to spread like a wild fire to many other clubs, including marquee franchises like the Red Sox, Mets, and others. He will also, IMO, do everything he can to squelch the idea that any of the last few World Series titles are tainted.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I had my suspicions that Cora was up to something with the Astros and brought it to the Sox in 2018. Long before any of this came out. I thought it was just a talent for picking up on tipped pitches, but this makes sense. I have nothing but that uneasy feeling of course, no actual evidence. But my glass house sense is definitely keeping me from enjoying the Astros getting dragged here.
I don't doubt that Cora knew what was going on in Houston, and very well could have been involved in it. I don't know that that means he brought the practices to Fenway though. I think it takes more than a willing manager/coach to get an operation like that running. It's probably a top-down operation with co-operation and approval from the front office. I buy Luhnow as a mastermind and/or a willing participant. I feel less so about Dombrowski getting behind rule-breaking like this.

I'm not keen on the electronics involved, but sign stealing is a long standing tradition in baseball. I'm having a hard time getting too worked up over this, especially since this seems to me to have been an open secret in the game. That clip of the White Sox game where Farquhar heard the banging as he came to the set position then immediately stepped off and called the catcher to the mound supports that idea. It's gamesmanship that's been in the game for over a century, it just has a 21st century twist. My guess is Manfred will crack down a bit on the electronic aspects, maybe institute some new rules and policies, but the sign stealing stuff will be largely overlooked.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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As a side note, is it just me or have we heard more and more frequently in the past season or two that many of the Sox pitchers woes were due to tipping their pitches? I think this is probably more wide spread than MLB might like to admit.
I think it is just that teams are looking for tipping more nowadays, and with so much video out there it is much easier to have a couple analytics guys study a few thousand pitches to see what they can pick up.
 

drbretto

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As a side note, is it just me or have we heard more and more frequently in the past season or two that many of the Sox pitchers woes were due to tipping their pitches? I think this is probably more wide spread than MLB might like to admit.
It's not just you. Sign stealing and pitch tipping was just gamesmanship back when you had to actually notice something on your own. Now, you can use machine learning to highlight what to look for as easy as pie.

All you need is a little machine learning magic, which is way, way easier in the last few years. Super accessible. All you'd need is to separate clips of as many pitches from the same angle as possible and someone to tell the machine it was x, y, or z pitch. Eventually, it will pick out any glaring differences for you.

You could also use it to predict pitch selection patterns. Kind of like this rock paper scissors app, which is like a "my first ml algorithm" project. All you'd need there is a fairly basic app and a guy with a tablet entering the last pitch thrown throughout the game. The algorithm wouldn't guarantee prediction, but it'd give you an advantage.

This is a whole new era.
 

lexrageorge

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It wouldn't have taken long for a scheme like this to become an open secret among clubhouses. Players change teams all the time, and it's not hard to imagine a former Astro's player telling their new team "Look out for this. I don't know how it all works, but they have some scheme for relaying pitch signs to the dugout."

There's evidence that multiple teams have tried various means to electronically eavesdrop. It is Manfred's interest to curtail the practice; but it's also in his interest to keep this as the relative molehill it actually is.

Pitch tipping is an entirely separate matter. There's absolutely nothing that can be done about pitch tipping aside from removing all video cameras from the ballpark, which isn't happening for obvious reasons.
 

drbretto

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It is definitely separate, but it's here just as an example of the new playing field we're in. There are a lot of ways to use tech to cheat besides just relaying messages.


There's evidence that multiple teams have tried various means to electronically eavesdrop. It is Manfred's interest to curtail the practice; but it's also in his interest to keep this as the relative molehill it actually is.

This is the thing. Right now, it's contained to the Astros and looks almost innocent by the numbers. A public slap on the wrist and hopefully it goes away, but I'm afraid if pressed to look much deeper, they're going to find a lot of stuff that could damage the integrity of the game. This might be a hornet's nest.
 

YTF

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It's not just you. Sign stealing and pitch tipping was just gamesmanship back when you had to actually notice something on your own. Now, you can use machine learning to highlight what to look for as easy as pie.

All you need is a little machine learning magic, which is way, way easier in the last few years. Super accessible. All you'd need is to separate clips of as many pitches from the same angle as possible and someone to tell the machine it was x, y, or z pitch. Eventually, it will pick out any glaring differences for you.

You could also use it to predict pitch selection patterns. Kind of like this rock paper scissors app, which is like a "my first ml algorithm" project. All you'd need there is a fairly basic app and a guy with a tablet entering the last pitch thrown throughout the game. The algorithm wouldn't guarantee prediction, but it'd give you an advantage.

This is a whole new era.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. I probably could have been clearer in meaning that the increased use of the term tipping is probably now being used as a blanket term that includes what might be an increasingly not so secret practice throughout the league.
 

YTF

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It is definitely separate, but it's here just as an example of the new playing field we're in. There are a lot of ways to use tech to cheat besides just relaying messages.





This is the thing. Right now, it's contained to the Astros and looks almost innocent by the numbers. A public slap on the wrist and hopefully it goes away, but I'm afraid if pressed to look much deeper, they're going to find a lot of stuff that could damage the integrity of the game. This might be a hornet's nest.
Root it out, expose it for "the good of the game", address it in a substantial way, learn from the experience and move forward.
 

joe dokes

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Root it out, expose it for "the good of the game", address it in a substantial way, learn from the experience and move forward.
Unlike Goodell, I dont think Manfred is "afraid" of the public reaction. He knows that people will be pissed both because he's too lenient and because he's too severe; and he knows that half the commentariat will skewer him because that's how the commentariat works.
Privately, though, I think Manfred will let Luhnow know he's on thin ice and will be held personally responsible for the next organizational fuckup.
 

JimD

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I'm not going to think any worse of Alex Cora unless it comes out that he had the Red Sox install a similar camera and monitor at Fenway. Maybe he was knee-deep in this scheme in 2017, maybe it was even his idea, but whoever did it, Hinch and Luhnow certainly had to know of it and were both Ok with electronic equipment being installed. Either they were complicit or looked the other way and neither absolves them or the Astros organization of wrongdoing.

Did people expect Cora to drop dime on the Astros when he got to Boston? That worked out real well for Eric Mangini.
 

nvalvo

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It's not just you. Sign stealing and pitch tipping was just gamesmanship back when you had to actually notice something on your own. Now, you can use machine learning to highlight what to look for as easy as pie.

All you need is a little machine learning magic, which is way, way easier in the last few years. Super accessible. All you'd need is to separate clips of as many pitches from the same angle as possible and someone to tell the machine it was x, y, or z pitch. Eventually, it will pick out any glaring differences for you.

You could also use it to predict pitch selection patterns. Kind of like this rock paper scissors app, which is like a "my first ml algorithm" project. All you'd need there is a fairly basic app and a guy with a tablet entering the last pitch thrown throughout the game. The algorithm wouldn't guarantee prediction, but it'd give you an advantage.

This is a whole new era.
Astros' job listing for a computer vision machine learning engineer.
 

E5 Yaz

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espn:
The initial stages of the investigation already have begun, sources said, with league personnel contacting people from both the Astros and Boston Red Soxorganizations on Wednesday. The league is attempting to cull tangible evidence from the widespread paranoia of front offices and teams around the game about others cheating and has indicated it will consider levying long suspensions against interviewees who are found to have lied, according to sources.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28078579/sources-mlb-contacts-astros-red-sox-sign-stealing-investigation-expands
 

Harry Hooper

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As long as MLB doesn't bring Mike Kensil back from China to oversee a new monitoring regime...
 

Van Everyman

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The Shank article about Boston coaches practically writes itself here.

Also, here’s MLB’s official statement:

View: https://twitter.com/peteabe/status/1195018513246633985?s=21


Agree that Manfred will tread carefully here but let’s not delude ourselves: the guy is going to be under enormous pressure to do something about this. No, he won’t be Goodell pontificating about his charge of protecting the integrity of the game and so forth.

But there will be ample video evidence that, whatever he concludes, that the Astros *did* gain a significant advantage in the postseason that year. There already is. Meanwhile, two of the guys involved leveraged their success there into plum managing jobs.

We all know what will happen if Manfred is too heavy-handed. But there’s real risk if he goes too lightly as well – particularly the next time it has to administer punishment. At a time when revenues are already a little wobbly, the last thing MLB needs is a reputation for arbitrary or capricious justice.
 

lexrageorge

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One possible set of outcomes:

Anything that happened in 2017 and even 2018 will be punished with fines and possibly loss of draft pick, depending upon the nature of the violations. Maybe not a first round pick, but something to let everyone know the league will take action.

Anything that happened in 2019 (aka, ignoring the memo), will be punished more severely. Thinking heavier fines, loss of multiple picks or bonus pool reduction, etc. Can't even rule out a short suspension for any coaches involved.

Anyone that is caught lying or being evasive to the investigators will get to enjoy a lengthy vacation.
 

E5 Yaz

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Trevor Plouffe
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According to @Carson_Smith39 and now confirmed by my source, the Astros had someone watching a live feed and then relaying the pitch calls via ear piece to the bullpen catcher. Hands up on fence for FB and hands down for offspeed.

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(I think im supposed to say that) I don’t have the footage in front of me but apparently you can see the Astros hitters looking toward right center before the pitch is thrown (where their bullpen is).
 

jon abbey

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Also worth noting that Mike Fiers’ worst two starts of the year by far this year came in HOU (along with one very good one).

Fiers in HOU in 2019: 10.1 innings, 17 ERs, 14.81 ERA.

Fiers everywhere else: 183.1 innings, 63 ERs, 3.09 ERA.
 

JimD

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I found this nugget in today's piece in The Athletic interesting:

Last month, the Nationals were able to acknowledge concern about Houston’s methods without being overwhelmed by them. In the days leading up to the World Series, the Nationals took a variety of precautions to shield their signs, according to people familiar with the situation. Their advance scouts were warned about Houston’s ability to crack the codes of their guests. “Everyone in the game was calling with little tidbits,” one Nationals official told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. “We were tipped off to all of it.”
I bet a lot of folks around baseball were more than happy to give the Nats a hand in taking down the Astros.
 

BigJimEd

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Doesn't sound like Houston was doing the same things as other teams.
And judging by that MLB statement, I wouldn't be surprised if they come down hard on the Astros.
 

lexrageorge

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Doesn't sound like Houston was doing the same things as other teams.
And judging by that MLB statement, I wouldn't be surprised if they come down hard on the Astros.
There is that "ignoring the memo" vibe, which is sort of what got Belichick in hot water during Spygate.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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others cheating and has indicated it will consider levying long suspensions against interviewees who are found to have lied, according to sources.
I'm sure any questions Manfred has for Cora will be regarding sign stealing after he was hired in Boston, so if Cora did and he's honest with Manfred then the Sox could end up on the shittiest end of this shitty stick since it'll be their second time getting caught in a sign stealing scheme.
 

lexrageorge

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I'm sure any questions Manfred has for Cora will be regarding sign stealing after he was hired in Boston, so if Cora did and he's honest with Manfred then the Sox could end up on the shittiest end of this shitty stick since it'll be their second time getting caught in a sign stealing scheme.
I get two reactions after reading this post:

First, Cora damn well better be honest or he and the team will get punished even more harshly. The cover up always gets punished way out of proportion to the crime.

Second, I do hope if Cora was involved in any scheme after coming here, he ended it after the MLB policy came out at the start of the season.
 

bosox188

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I found this nugget in today's piece in The Athletic interesting:



I bet a lot of folks around baseball were more than happy to give the Nats a hand in taking down the Astros.
See, I have a problem with this narrative. If the other teams were able to tell the Nats what to look out for, then how can those teams reasonably claim that they lost to Houston due to an unfair advantage gained via sign stealing? And with the number of claims that teams throughout the league have known "something was going on" since 2017, it would be pretty neglectful for a team not to do something to switch up its signs when they play Houston.

The pace of play argument due to constantly switching up signs I could understand, I just can't buy that it gave Houston a significant or unfair competitive advantage. The "technology" factor doesn't make it much worse in my mind either. As time goes on I would expect gamesmanship to become more sophisticated just as scouting has, stats have, the broadcasts, anything about the game. I think the appropriate response is a slap on the wrist in the guise of "this was clever of you but it's putting undue stress on the pace of play so now it's off-limits."
 

SemperFidelisSox

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Cora continuing the sign stealing process in ‘18 but stopping after the memo in ‘19 then calls into question everything the 2018 team accomplished, which would suck. We already have to deal with the rest of the country putting asterisks on half our Super Bowl titles.
 

bosox188

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Cora continuing the sign stealing process in ‘18 but stopping after the memo in ‘19 then calls into question everything the 2018 team accomplished, which would suck. We already have to deal with the rest of the country putting asterisks on half our Super Bowl titles.
I'm pretty confident that losing Sale, Price, and Eovaldi, while simultaneously having an atrocious bullpen, led to the demise of the 2019 Red Sox. Every post-WS Red Sox team sans 2007-2008 followed up with a hell of a WS hangover too.
 

54thMA

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Maybe MLB will drop the hammer on the Astros and vacate that 2017 WS win and give it to the Dodgers.

Probably the only way they're ever going to win one, I can see it now; the commissioner hands the trophy to Kershaw and in his excitement, he throws it to Roberts...……….and it gets hit out of the park for a three run home run.
 

steveluck7

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Bregman took to Twitter to congratulate Trout on his mvp.
hilarity predictably ensued

My favorite reply so far: I heard the Astros congratulated Trout yesterday. Almost like they knew it was coming
 

Plympton91

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See, I have a problem with this narrative. If the other teams were able to tell the Nats what to look out for, then how can those teams reasonably claim that they lost to Houston due to an unfair advantage gained via sign stealing? And with the number of claims that teams throughout the league have known "something was going on" since 2017, it would be pretty neglectful for a team not to do something to switch up its signs when they play Houston.

The pace of play argument due to constantly switching up signs I could understand, I just can't buy that it gave Houston a significant or unfair competitive advantage. The "technology" factor doesn't make it much worse in my mind either. As time goes on I would expect gamesmanship to become more sophisticated just as scouting has, stats have, the broadcasts, anything about the game. I think the appropriate response is a slap on the wrist in the guise of "this was clever of you but it's putting undue stress on the pace of play so now it's off-limits."
I think you’re not underestimating how good the machines are now. If you’re using a computer and high speed video in a way that cannot be countered in real time or in a way that isn’t simultaneously available to your opponent, then you’re cheating at a level above and beyond and cheating before.


For example, if the Astros have high speed cameras pointed at the mound and a technician looking for ways a pitcher is tipping pitches from one inning to the next, then you might as well be playing a different game.

Even if you’re making that feed available to the other team so their technician can look for ways Astro’s pitchers are tipping, I hate that. You’re turning the game into a test of computer skills rather than athletic skills. F the computers. Leaves them out of it.
 

JimD

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I'm sure any questions Manfred has for Cora will be regarding sign stealing after he was hired in Boston, so if Cora did and he's honest with Manfred then the Sox could end up on the shittiest end of this shitty stick since it'll be their second time getting caught in a sign stealing scheme.
The only way that happens is if proof comes out that Cora and the Sox implemented a similar scheme with cameras or other electronic devices. If that turns out to be true, having come in the wake of the previous Apple Watch nonsense, it would represent a nadir of stupidity that the organization would deserve a significant punishment for.

Cora also is at personal risk if it comes out that he lied to MLB during their previous investigation - hopefully he was smart enough not to do that.
 

Plympton91

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About the bullpen . . .
Yes, somewhere around mid-season, after the Red Sox were firmly ensconced outside the playoffs looking in, and Johnson, Thornburg, Velazquez were replaced by Taylor, Hernandez, Walden, the bullpen became a relative strength.
Actually, that’s conceding too much. The Red So has one reliever with an ERA under 3. And only 2 with ERAs below 3.75. They had, as I said all last winter, excellent depth for the 10th, 11th, and 12th spots on the roster—evidenced by the 4 or 5 guys who had ERAs in the high 3.00s and low 4.00s, but a complete lack of relief ace talent. Workman stepped up. Barnes and Brasier crashed and burned. The bullpen was a problem, not a strength.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2019.shtml
 
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