The Athletic: The Astros stole signs electronically in 2017 part of a much broader issue for Major League Baseball
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
Major league baseball players have been using whatever technology they have to steal signs as long as there has been baseball.
I guess the 1954 Giants and the Shot Heard Round the World have been "tarnished" by them using illegal technology to steal signs. Whatever "tarnished" means.
I guess the 1954 Giants and the Shot Heard Round the World have been "tarnished" by them using illegal technology to steal signs. Whatever "tarnished" means.
Whether or not it is true, or whether or not it matters, the Altuve jersey thing is on the front page of ESPN.com. We've seen how these things go with the Pats controversies.
Yesterday baseball finally had its all-time Twitter moment and it wasn't a good one but there was this...
View: https://twitter.com/jquadddddd/status/1218021838443438081
View: https://twitter.com/jquadddddd/status/1218021838443438081
Well this is getting crazy and a good excuse to ret rid of TLR
View: https://twitter.com/sn_mlb/status/1218193147433488384
Ex-MLB pitcher Jack McDowell alleges that the White Sox used a camera to steal signs in the '80s under the direction of Tony La Russa.
"I'm going to whistle-blow this thing now because I'm getting tired of this crap," he told a radio station.
View: https://twitter.com/sn_mlb/status/1218193147433488384
Ex-MLB pitcher Jack McDowell alleges that the White Sox used a camera to steal signs in the '80s under the direction of Tony La Russa.
"I'm going to whistle-blow this thing now because I'm getting tired of this crap," he told a radio station.
Nice, thanks for the fact check.
I think we'll see more of the big cheating cleanse as this shakes out in the short term. What else is out there must scare Manfred.
You KNOW that some opposing team will show that Altuve shirt grab on their stadium screens when he comes to bat. Yankees won't do it but I'd love it if they did next time he faced Chapman.
LOL, not really that close, I was off by 3 years.
I'm sure the cheaters from that team apologized for their misdeeds and expressed remorse for their cheating that stains the game.
Oh wait, nope, no apologies, just "cheerful pride":
https://nypost.com/2002/07/29/51-giants-come-clean-admit-to-sign-stealing-scheme/
Do people who want the harshest punishments for today's sign stealers even know or care how long this has been going on, and how little outrage there has been until now?
I guess the question is what "this" means in terms of how long this has been going on. To me, the sign stealing the Astros did was likely on a level qualitatively different from what other organizations are doing right now. I'm inferring that from the fact that other MLB players seem genuinely angry about the Astros, in a way that doesn't sound to me like "oh, everybody does it, it's only that the Astros got caught". So I'm generally fine with a harsh punishment for the organization for running an operation on the scale the Astros did. (It's kind of how I felt when Michael Pineda was suspended for copious amounts of pine tar - yeah, everyone uses pine tar, but no one did to the level Pineda did, and he deserved a large suspension for that.) But I'm also cognizant that part of the Astros criticism may be driven by a reaction to the perceived cocky nature of the Astros front office and players, rather than the actual egregiousness of the offense.
With more talk of pitch tipping this past year than ever that I can remember - I wonder if this was what they were unknowingly talking about.
One buzzer for what pitch is coming and another buzzer for when he has to go home for supper.
A few thoughts here...
Sign stealing has been part of the game for generations. Now that we're in an age with higher video quality and higher technology these problems will not go away unless baseball allows for a change on how the signs are given. I am 100% an advocate of a wireless transmitter to communicate pitches, defenses, etc between the players on the field and the dugout. Have MLB govern it and tampering with another teams transmitter will result in penalties stiffer than what the Astros faced. Until something like that happens this problem WILL NOT go away. Hell, the Astros essentially proved the buzzer idea as a proof of concept.
I envision something like a buzzing in the hats or gloves of the people on the field. It could even be a digital display on the underside of the brim of the hats. If your run of the mill cam girl can have a vibrator linked to a mobile app, I don't think it's unreasonable for baseball to have a system of buzzers in the on field hats of its players.
The other thing here is the aspect of this that's getting the most attention is the trashcan banging. My understanding is that by itself, that doesn't break any rules. If the signs were stolen under legitimate means (say a runner on second base) and conveyed back to the dugout, then any sort of audible indicator would be allowed. Am I mistaken?
Sign stealing has been part of the game for generations. Now that we're in an age with higher video quality and higher technology these problems will not go away unless baseball allows for a change on how the signs are given. I am 100% an advocate of a wireless transmitter to communicate pitches, defenses, etc between the players on the field and the dugout. Have MLB govern it and tampering with another teams transmitter will result in penalties stiffer than what the Astros faced. Until something like that happens this problem WILL NOT go away. Hell, the Astros essentially proved the buzzer idea as a proof of concept.
I envision something like a buzzing in the hats or gloves of the people on the field. It could even be a digital display on the underside of the brim of the hats. If your run of the mill cam girl can have a vibrator linked to a mobile app, I don't think it's unreasonable for baseball to have a system of buzzers in the on field hats of its players.
The other thing here is the aspect of this that's getting the most attention is the trashcan banging. My understanding is that by itself, that doesn't break any rules. If the signs were stolen under legitimate means (say a runner on second base) and conveyed back to the dugout, then any sort of audible indicator would be allowed. Am I mistaken?
That sounds like a game I have no interest in watching. Might as well trade in the players for robots or simulate and watch games on MLB the Show.
ya, pretty much
Who doesn’t like the pitcher/catcher cross up every now and then?
Do you want WR’s to have earpieces so the QB can tell them which option to take on his route?
And this is the reason why it's probably not going to happen, "Purists" with their head in the sand over the actual problem.
I would argue that by digitizing the signs you would get a more pure game, you would get the pitchers best vs the hitters best and far less of a reliance on picking up signs. You'd also get a quicker paced game.
It's going to happen, electronic strike zone and electronic communication between pitchers and catchers both, it's just a question of how long it will take. Once those are both in, my personal love for baseball will go up a notch or two, hate shitty home plate umpiring and every kind of sign stealing (including the runner on second).
I really don't know what to think of this one, but I'm just putting it out there...
Apparently you can't lose if you bet on the Yankees...
Apparently you can't lose if you bet on the Yankees...
I'm sure this is just about marketing. They're not forking over millions, I saw a news story that mentioned it was "in the 5 figures."
With a Words with Friends curiosity, I checked my thesaurus to see if there were any euphemisms for "whistle-blower". There were not.
For the rest of Mike Fiers' life, every human on the face of the earth will associate him as a...ahem..."whistle-blower".
The harassment to him and his family for all of eternity could not have been worth it. .
For the rest of Mike Fiers' life, every human on the face of the earth will associate him as a...ahem..."whistle-blower".
The harassment to him and his family for all of eternity could not have been worth it. .
To me he’ll always be the guy perennially feuding with Giancarlo Stanton after hitting him in the face with a pitch and later being a dick about it.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-marlins/fl-sp-stanton-fiers-feud-20180605-story.html?outputType=amp
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-marlins/fl-sp-stanton-fiers-feud-20180605-story.html?outputType=amp
There certainly are synonyms for whistleblower. Unfortunately, folks like Jessica Mendoza have effectively chosen the most pejorative one to equate what Fiers did.
She could have gone with rat or snitch. And stop making me look up words.
He obviously studied Marshawn Lynch's press availabilities closely:
Q: <insert question here>
A: "I'm just here so I don't get fined."
Q: <insert other question here>
A: "I'm just here so I don't get fined."
Q: <insert yet another question here>
A: "I'm just here so I don't get fined."
Reading that article about him and Stanton, and Mendoza’s comments, it certainly seems that Fiers may not be very well liked.
Someone much more important doesn't like him much either. At least what he did.
https://weei.radio.com/blogs/weei/pedro-martinez-is-not-a-fan-of-what-mike-fiers-did
Yeah, I mean, this is descending further into “How dumb do you think we are?” territory.
The players may have avoided punishment, but they’re going to be hearing stuff like this for the rest of their careers. Whit Merriefield on Altuve and Astros sign stealing:
Yeah, they never intended to get caught. So everyone was cheating, everyone was changing their signs, and the Astros weren't doing it every game... they were just the poor guys who got caught and made an example of. Where was the apology?
This sort of flies in the face of the comments from Charles Nagy, who was the pitching coach for the Angels from 2015-17. According to Nagy, pretty much the whole league knew Houston had taken sign-stealing to a new level, but they couldn't figure out the logistics. They spent extra prep time coming up with systems for new signs and changing of signs before trips to Houston, and with pitchers being creatures of habit, some were reluctant to mess with their routines. You can write that off as lazy and put the blame on the pitcher/catcher/staff, but I thought the more interesting part was the psychological effect of pitching in Houston. Nagy said that when some pitchers struggled through a few at-bats they lost their confidence and composure because they were convinced the Astros knew what was coming regardless of what they did. Even if the Astros weren't stealing signs every game or eventually dropped the scheme completely as they claim, they already had such a reputation within the game that the rest of the league went into Houston believing the Astros already knew what was coming.
Verlander should have someone edit his speeches. Comes off as completely tone deaf.
View: https://twitter.com/JackCurryYES/status/1221253462085853187
View: https://twitter.com/JackCurryYES/status/1221253462085853187