As a long time baseball fan, the "punishment" is a joke. This is one of the worst cheating scandals in baseball history and Rob Manfred (Commissioner of MLB) basically gave a slap on the wrist. Every team/player in the league would be willing to trade this "punishment" for a World Series title.
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
#62As a long time baseball fan, the "punishment" is a joke. This is one of the worst cheating scandals in baseball history and Rob Manfred (Commissioner of MLB) basically gave a slap on the wrist. Every team/player in the league would be willing to trade this "punishment" for a World Series title.
They really should have stripped away Astro's championship title, not sure what their justification was. Why would the Astros want to keep this championship title in their cabinet anyway? To remind themselves and their fans of what their team did that year?
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read an article today from 2018 that mentioned the Astros banging trash cans. Apparently MLB has known about these allegations for a while and didn't investigate. It took it coming out on social media for them to finally launch the investigation.
Can you link to the article?
Last paragraph: https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-red-sox-warned-indians-astr...
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Baseball Savant [1] might just blow your mind. It is far and away the best stats/data site provided by a pro sports league, likely anywhere on Earth. The search page offers about 40 ways to narrow a search, and once you've found what you are looking for it can generate a dozen or two different charts and graphics. On many of them, any circle representing a pitch is a clickable link that brings up the TV video of that…
Baseball Savant includes videos for every pitch through 2017 [1]. You can get there through the search page [2].
[1] https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=62a1c77c...
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
During a game, the catcher and the pitcher have to both know what pitch is being thrown so the catcher can catch it - it’s hard to catch breaking balls unless you know to expect one. So the game has evolved that the catcher normally “calls” games, eg decides what pitch the pitcher is going to throw. Catchers make careers on how well they call games. They are the smartest players on the field, and have to remember the…
To add to this, the Astros has basically installed cameras in their stadium that allowed the coaches and players in the dugout to know which sign the catcher has signalled (the dugouts are behind the catcher, so you cannot normally see the catchers sign from there). The dugout then used the drum banging method to convey that information to the batter.
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Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#66For the uninitiated, how do you steal signs by making a banging noise? What is a "sign", anyway? What electronics are involved? The article doesn't explain anything.
The catcher will signal a pitch with their hand between their legs. One finger for a fastball, two for a curve, something like that. The reason this communication is necessary is so the catcher sets up correctly to catch e.g. a breaking ball. What the Astros did was zoom in a camera from the outfield to see this and feed that video straight into the dugout. The person in the dugout with the feed would bang a garbage…
I thought they were better on the road that season? It's not clear sign stealing helps much oddly enough.
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#67I don't see this as an issue, unless expressively forbidden. The goal is to win, by all means necessary. Like war. I'm almost 60 now, but in my twenties I thought "why don't teams have people in the stands to do just this, steal the signs." I was a phreaker back then and always wanted to call the Twins dugout just to see if I could.
Sports is explicitly not like war. There's actual rulebooks, and regulators with the power to completely ban teams and players.
Re: How the internet helped crack the Astros' sign-stealing case
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The catcher will signal a pitch with their hand between their legs. One finger for a fastball, two for a curve, something like that. The reason this communication is necessary is so the catcher sets up correctly to catch e.g. a breaking ball. What the Astros did was zoom in a camera from the outfield to see this and feed that video straight into the dugout. The person in the dugout with the feed would bang a garbage…
I thought they were better on the road that season? It's not clear sign stealing helps much oddly enough.
In the commissioner's report, some players that were interviewed said that they felt the banging was more distracting than useful.