How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
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Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#2Jomboy Media is worth checking out, even if you don’t follow or care about baseball. His breakdowns are fun to watch.
For example: https://youtu.be/W1pJRRJntUo
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#3I think the best part about the whole thing is that there are so many memes accompanying the investigation.
I'm not sure however, that the internet really helped crack the case. Th article shows that the internet came to similar conclusions as the real MLB investigation.
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#4I think the best part about the whole thing is that there are so many memes accompanying the investigation. I'm not sure however, that the internet really helped crack the case. Th article shows that the internet came to similar conclusions as the real MLB investigation.
I'm fascinated by the shift in internet culture to allow this. In the early 2010s MLB would have done their best to remove unauthorized clips from the web. It would have always been done as 'copyright violation'. But, the shift democratizes the content itself - and makes it available for critique/analysis/comedy.
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#5I think the best part about the whole thing is that there are so many memes accompanying the investigation. I'm not sure however, that the internet really helped crack the case. Th article shows that the internet came to similar conclusions as the real MLB investigation.
The research done by ordinary people (not league or club personnel) created a situation where the league had to respond. Without that, I don’t think an investigation would have taken place.
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#6I assume there are some baseball fans here on HN ...
This is, in my opinion, a watershed moment here for how Baseball is going to deal with technology. After the Moneyball "revolution" lots of people, both in the game and casual fans, talked about how technology would again "revolutionize" the sport[0]. Things like player evaluations and injury prediction + prevention were what was mostly talked about (this was back in ~2014-2015 or so). There really hasn't been much talk about this since then, as far as I can tell, or it's been kept as a trade secret by teams. What's happened with this Astros scandal is something else entirely. This was not the future of the game we wanted, and there will need to be a philosophical discussion had in short order about what we're going to allow in the future (what they did was not).
Complicating all of this is that Houston winning the last game of the season in 2017 was largely viewed as a "victory" for the stats nerds over the traditionalists[1], and was predicted in 2014[2]. So the idea that the "technology" they used to do this wasn't just learning things other teams couldn't about their own players, but essentially a gimmick to steal signs not only casts a shadow on the integrity of the game but also calls into question the methodology itself to a certain extent - though to be honest I think the argument is pretty much over at this point on stats vs traditionalists.
[0]https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/07/08/billy-beane-technology-wil...
[1]https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/10/24/houston-astros-sports-illu...
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#7I’m waiting for machine learning to predict play calls for baseball and football. It shouldn’t be too hard if it hasn’t already been done. Based on the offensive coordinator and things like field position, etc it should be easy to make predictions as to what that human would make based on past choices.
I wonder if that would be considered cheating though If they only used past performance and not real time signal stealing.
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#8I assume there are some baseball fans here on HN ... This is, in my opinion, a watershed moment here for how Baseball is going to deal with technology. After the Moneyball "revolution" lots of people, both in the game and casual fans, talked about how technology would again "revolutionize" the sport[0]. Things like player evaluations and injury prediction + prevention were what was mostly talked about (this was back…
> casts a shadow on the integrity of the game
MLB. FIFA. OOC. ... let me know when you can see a difference, lol.
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#9I’m waiting for machine learning to predict play calls for baseball and football. It shouldn’t be too hard if it hasn’t already been done. Based on the offensive coordinator and things like field position, etc it should be easy to make predictions as to what that human would make based on past choices. I wonder if that would be considered cheating though If they only used past performance and not real time signal ste…
It is possible today to do this.
The question is ... should we?
I'm old school about this game and my answer is emphatically "no".
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#10I’m waiting for machine learning to predict play calls for baseball and football. It shouldn’t be too hard if it hasn’t already been done. Based on the offensive coordinator and things like field position, etc it should be easy to make predictions as to what that human would make based on past choices. I wonder if that would be considered cheating though If they only used past performance and not real time signal ste…
They will start training on coach body language, things like steps, leaning over, covering his mouth, head movement...
I'm sure coaches have some kind of tell when they get excited about calling a play-action deep ball after the run game got 3 straight first downs.