I believe JR posted Gattis’ interview/comments on it in one of threads here. It just goes to show you how weak Hinch was to stop it which is just unbelievable and makes one wonder that if Hinch COULDN’T stop it then just WHO was in control of it? Might that be Hinchs boss? Maybe that would explain why Beltrán thumbed his nose at Hinch because he knew it had a higher power blessing......
This is only tangentally related but it seems like MLB could circumvent sign stealing using technology if they really wanted to. I bet there is a pretty simple way to give pitchers ear pieces that can have signals sent to them from the catcher in a way no one could see. Of course there is the chance that transmission could be eavesdropped, but I think there are a lot better ways to do it than the various fingers in front of the catcher's groin that has been in practice for over a century.
Indeed. Another way MLB stays in the 19th century while the rest of us embrace the 21st already. That, and I could really do without seeing the "crotch cam" ever again.
Teams could use radio/digital frequencies and hire Native Americans to relay the signs using long lost languages.
See the NFL. Coaches always had to relay their play calls though different signals from the sidelines and the opposing team would try to break that code. Now they simply relay their play call through the helmet...no more play call stealing. Not sure how good this could work in an MLB game. The catcher would have to speak loud enough for the pitcher to hear but soft enough so the batter doesn't hear. Or would they allow someone from the dugout also be in the pitchers ear?
Or they could have some set up where the catcher taps a sensor somewhere on their uniform and it makes tones in the pitcher's ear. So nothing audible from the catcher is required. It could be in a place (maybe on the back of their thigh?) where they could easily hide it from anyone that could be looking. I don't know the details, but I'm saying I think there is a way they could set it up so that no one on the base paths or with video cameras could detect.
What if there was a coach calling pitches? Both the catcher and pitcher could wear earpieces. Pitcher could still shake off the call. It's tradition that catchers call the pitches, but does it have to be that way?
Actually some managers/pitching coaches do call pitches... Rays employ it in some situations. You’ll see the catcher look over to relay the signs. The wrist-device/push button device probably would work best... second being the head-set/ear-piece. Even if the batter could hear, they could come up with code-names for the pitches. The purpose of all of this is so that the runner at 2nd can’t relay the signs. They can still possibly relay location based on where the catcher sets up, but catchers now-a days try to fake that out as well.
Analytics guys will build an AI advanced algorithm to start pumping out which pitch sequence would be the most effective against a given hitter and situation to relay to the coaches. Pretty sure the Astros department would have been the first to come out with such an application if the league didn't gut them.
There's absolutely nothing to prevent them from doing that now. Watching the playoffs/WS, I actually think the next trend will be a concerted effort by batters to focus on beating the shift in these high-stakes type games. We can call it "shift-breaker"....
https://shows.cadence13.com/podcast/the-edge Ben Reiter’s Astros podcast series, ‘The Edge,’ explores what led to sign-stealing scandal Reiter is best known for the 2014 Sports Illustrated feature that looked at how the Astros were changing the game, a cover story that predicted Houston would win the World Series by 2017. The writer followed that up with 2018’s Astroball, a book that expanded upon what he initially reported, chronicling the methodology and key figures which changed the formula for baseball success. As first announced in February, Reiter is producing an audio docuseries on the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal, profiling the people and events that led to a culture that was willing to pursue an unethical advantage over the opposition in order to win. There’s also some personal stake for Reiter, who seeks to redeem himself for missing the Astros’ cheating scheme while documenting how they built a championship organization. That series, The Edge, debuted earlier this month. As of this writing, three episodes are available for download with new shows posted each Wednesday. The series will have six episodes altogether, each focusing on a different aspect of the circumstances which led to the 2017 scandal. (Maybe there would’ve been a bonus episode had the Astros advanced to the World Series. If they’d won, that would’ve seemed obligatory.)
Get the **** over this and stop making it a constant topic of conversation. Astros fans are just as bad as other fans who are just as bad as the media.
You mean the book he wrote that documented everything except the top-down organized scheme that cost 3 MLB managers and 1 GM their jobs? That's some quality investigative reporting, I'm sure that 4 years later he's now got all the details.
Well I guess if Astroball wasn't a fluff piece on how awesome the Astros front office was in constructing a dominate team, and instead he broke the Astros cheating scandal I wouldn't have liked the book as much.
Nah, I get it. I liked that book too. How did he not know, though, now that we're looking back at it all? And, frankly: we know it all now, there's basically nothing he can tell me. Just let it die.
Unless he's the first mediot with balls enough to out the other teams in writing. Wouldn't that be refreshing. But yeah, I doubt it.
Was re-watching spotlight... which came out before the athletic decided to break this story. What they should have tried to do was get the system... not go after the individual teams. Yes, the Astros case was big news... but relatively isolated. The Red Sox case, while also very damning and has received much ridicule, was eventually buried. Most do not believe the Red Sox low level staffer was the master-mind behind everything, and acted alone... and thus the story has fizzled. Then you have some letter about the Yankees somewhere under a sealed indictment, and nobody can comment on it whatsoever. And all along, MLB did no investigations or announced any real penalties till after an independent news source broke the original story. In the end, this will continue to fizzle rather than gain steam... and like many fans who are angry that the Astros got off relatively light, I do not think much will change in the future. Teams will still try to game the system, MLB will continue to turn a blind eye till they're exposed, there will be partial treatment towards protecting some of the more popular franchises with larger fan bases, and this will all end up somewhere between deflate-gate and steroids on the spectrum scale.