added 11/18/2019 by Bob Hulsey
When you win 100 or more games three years in a row you are a juggernaught (sp) in the sport. Everyone is going (to) take pot shots and sometimes they land. Sometimes they don't.
At the beginning of their run, the Patriots were a breath of fresh air (this is in the early 2000s). They hadn't done it before and everyone was happy for them. The same was true of the Warriors in basketball. I think we might be more similar to them than the Patriots. We both drafted really well and had super teams for a couple of seasons. Like the Warriors, we've tripped up a couple of times in the finals that will likely tarnish the image long-term, but like the Warriors no one will question that we have been the best team in baseball overall over the past three seasons. People hate the Warriors. They will hate the Astros.
- Scott Barzilla, 11/14/2019
America is now adither about outrageous behavior they claim violates the accepted rules and is of questionable integrity, demanding punishment before allowing the official investigation to work itself out or determining what really went on.
It seems some upstart came from nowhere and defeated the overwhelming favorite and darling of the East Coast media, taking the crown in a stunning upset so there MUST have been cheating going on, right? It couldn't possibly be that the darling of the East Coast media just wasn't as good or didn't try as hard, right? Something nefarious must have happened and the East Coast media will not rest until the upstarts are exposed as frauds and their accomplishments smeared so that history can be rewritten to show their favorite as the true champion, denied their rightful glory by scoundrels who rigged the system and deserve a comeuppance just short of public execution.
But enough about politics. Let's talk baseball.
The Astros are now embroiled in a "cheating scandal" which calls into question their 2017 World Championship in which they defeated the East Coast media darling New York Yankees in a thrilling seven-game A.L.C.S. where each game was won by the home team.
It may surprise you to know that this is nothing new. Every time the Astros succeed, the East Coast media is there to accuse Houston of cheating. Back in 1965, when the Astrodome opened, the East Coast media claimed the Astros were manipulating the air conditioning to steer the path of fly balls.
In 1986, the Mets and the East Coast media claimed Astros pitcher Mike Scott was scuffing his pitches. When the Astros had their best players to date, Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell, up for Hall of Fame consideration, the East Coast media claimed they were steroid cheats.
In 2005, the talk was about Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens, two former Yankees who were innocent little angels while in pinstripes but became loathsome cheaters when they returned to Texas to play for the Astros.
Now the focus is about electronically stealing signs from a camera located beyond the center field wall which relayed pitch information to someone in the tunnel behind the Astros clubhouse where it was converted to audible cues so the Houston hitter could know what type of pitch was coming. This violated a new rule about electronic spying stemming from when the Boston Red Sox used Apple watches to catch signals from their dugout.
Former Astro Mike Fiers, now with the rival Oakland Athletics, claims he knew of this happening when he pitched for Houston in 2015-17, but never bothered to inform the league office. Former White Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar cites an incident late in the 2017 season when he heard loud banging noises after his catcher called for offspeed pitches while Evan Gattis was at bat. Some internet sleuth named "Jomboy" (short for "Pajama Boy"?) posted video purporting to catch a banging noise, allegedly from a metallic trash can in the Astros' clubhouse right after the Chicago catcher lays down his signs.
"A-HA, PROOF!," shouts the media. "We knew they weren't winning fairly."
Yet, I'm not convinced. The posted video lacks any audio from announcers so were they edited out? And if you can edit out audio, can't you also insert audio? I bet I could take video from the 1969 moon landing and, with little skill, dub in muffled farting noises and post it on YouTube. I'll bet I could rope in a lot of morons to think this really was the astronauts emitting bodily gasses while on the moon. The video "proof" is right there.
I'm also doubtful of how this can work in real time. If you'll notice, the alleged banging noises are split seconds after the signal was given. Could these be decoded and relayed that quickly? And how well can someone hear a noise while an audience of 20,000-30,000 are in the stands making all sorts of noise the player has taught himself to tune out. As Scott Barzilla also noted:
If I were to analyze this analytically you'd have to consider the hilarity of it before having an emotion one way or the other. So, in the matter of seconds, I have to be able to see clearly the sequence of signs the catcher is flashing, decipher which signal is the one they are using, find the trash can to beat emphatically, have the hitter actually hear those beats which could be problematic in an important game with a big crowd, and then have the hitter process that information in a matter of milliseconds before the pitch is thrown.
In the 2019 A.L.C.S., the Yankees accused the Astros of using the same system in Game One but whistling rather than banging on a trash can (I thought practically all waste recepticles in this day and age are made of hard plastic anyway - where did they get a metal trash can?). Mind you, this was a game the Astros lost, 7-0, and looked absolutely feeble at the plate all night in doing so.
Houston manager A.J. Hinch, when asked about the charge, called it "ridiculous". Were I Hinch, I would have had random players make loud whistles at random moments when the Astros batted for the rest of the series just to mess with them. There's no rule against whistling.
I think it is also relevant that Houston's results with this alleged sign stealing must not have worked very well. This was supposed to be done at home where they had this video system rigged. Yet, in 2017, they were 48-33 (.593) at home where they allegedly had the sign-stealing system but 53-28 (.654) away from home where they did not. Granted, they were 8-1 at home in the postseason (vs. 3-6 on the road), but that's not unusual with the loud support of home crowds. To believe the Astros cheated in the postseason is to believe that players could distinguish banging noises above the deafening roar of 40,000-plus rooters.
In 2018, the Astros were 46-35 (.568) at home and a ridiculous 57-24 (.704) on the road. In the postseason, they were 2-3 at home and 2-1 on the road. In 2019, the home advantaged flipped and they were 60-21 (.741) at home and 47-34 (.580) away from home but that trend did not translate to the postseason (5-5 at home, 5-3 on the road). In other words, the numbers don't support rampant cheating or perhaps that the cheating must not help.
The sign-stealing story seems to be spreading to new Mets manager Carlos Beltran, a player for the Astros in 2017, and current Red Sox manager Alex Cora, a bench coach for the Astros in 2017. Both deny any wrongdoing although they admit to working with players to help them read pitch-tipping and catcher-signally legitimately. Several former Astros players, coaches and executives have fanned out from the team since 2017. None of them had indicated a problem before the Fiers story emerged.
But back to Danny Farquhar in 2017. He sensed something was amiss, called time out, met with his catcher and changed the signs. He then struck Gattis out. Defeating all this modern espionage was just that easy!
We live in an age of constant monitoring and security breeches. This whole crisis gets put to bed as easily as teams regularly changing signs as if there was always a runner on second base. Easy, peazy!
Remember when the Cardinals hacked the Astros' vaunted Ground Zero data system? The Cards were definitely of bad intent but these Houston front office geniuses were clearly using an unencrypted database and using the same passwords they had while they were working for the Cardinals. That's like leaving your car unlocked with the engine running. The whole issue could have been easily avoided with some simple common sense.
Cameras are omnipresent in an MLB park. From smartphones to intrusive dugout cams (remember Yuli Gurriel's "slant eyes" gesture in the 2017 World Series was just a one-to-one dugout conversation caught on camera?), players are in a fish bowl from the moment they arrive at the ballpark to the minute they leave. How could anyone expect to have a secret tipping system without getting caught? Where is the video of people in the dugout banging on trash cans or whistling as if to relay a signal? If it happened regularly, surely there should be some.
Cameras and videotaping have also been around since the late 1970s. Batting champion Tony Gwynn had his every at bat recorded and studied. Pitchers and catchers constantly study their opponents to develop the best way to get them out. Coaches and players checking for pitch tipping have been around since the horse and buggy. None of this is new. As technology improves, teams must find better ways to relay signals. Denying advances in technology is the wrong way to proceed.
You can normally tell when someone has a weak argument when they throw out accusations that have no relevancy. The East Coast media is still butthurt that the Astros were able to trade three prospects at the final minute of the August trading period to acquire Justin Verlander from Detroit. Verlander, the Cy Young Award winner in 2019, has been ace-like ever since but he was a declining 10-8 pitcher with a 3.82 ERA before the trade and the trade was perfectly legal under the rules at the time. The media has since been able to badger MLB into eliminating the August trading period altogether.
Then there's the Roberto Osuna angle. Osuna was acquired from Toronto in 2018 at the trade deadline while still under a 75-game suspension for domestic violence. The East Coast media still loves to harp on this despite the fact that the Yankee closer, Aroldis Chapman, had his own suspension for domestic violence yet that didn't stop the Yankees from getting him.
Houston Assistant GM Brandon Taubman foolishly taunted female reporters during a clubhouse celebration and the Astros made matters worse by initially denying that it happened. Taubman was fired, the Astros publicly apologized and MLB is investigating. It should be pointed out that Osuna served his suspension, faced Canada's criminal justice system and has not had any further incidences but, according to the East Coast media, once a woman-beater, always a woman-beater unless he wears a Yankee uniform (Chapman) or a Red Sox uniform (Julio Lugo).
Nonetheless, a reliever who allegedly hits women has as much relevancy to electronic sign stealing as drunk driving is to jaywalking. Yet it is nearly impossible to see a story written that doesn't link the two.
Finally, there are reports surfacing that General Manager Jeff Luhnow is smug and arrogant. Guilty as charged. Back in September, he predicted the Astros would finish with the best record in baseball when there was two weeks left to play and the Astros trailed the Yankees and Dodgers in the overall standings. He proved to be right but it was still an unsporting thing to do. God forbid the Yankees media, organization and fans would ever come across as smug or arrogant!
Perhaps the real truth goes back to Scott's original comments. They are hated because they win, much like the Patriots and Warriors. For a short time, they are a feel-good story but became an object of scorn if they hang around too long. So the East Coast media is more than willing to pronounce them guilty before any real evidence turns up, demanding their titles be stripped and their achievements expunged. It's a behavior that seems all too familiar these days.