Front Page: Buzz on Baseball's Worst Scandal in Decades

[Mr. Brooks]

Yeah it's not comparable.

Knowing what pitch is coming is multiple times more of an advantage than PED's, it's not even close, IMO.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

Yeah it's not comparable.

Knowing what pitch is coming is multiple times more of an advantage than PED's, it's not even close, IMO.

per play, sure.... increased endurance can improve performance via improved ability to practice over longer periods more frequently.

 

I’m with you though, cheating increases WPA immensely

[DannySD]

MLB could (mostly) prevent it by announcing anyone caught doing it in the future will be banned for life. 

 

Juventus was stripped of two titles and relegated, along with their GM being banned for life. MLB can't relegate the Astros to AAA obviously, but they could give them a huge fine and prevent them from going to the postseason for a couple years, which would effectively force them to trade and rebuild. 

 

[cmoss84]

I totally believe that, as Barry Bonds didn't PED his way into plate discipline. He had that from day one, which is what made a roided-up Bonds so damned devastating as a player.

 

Now imagine what Barry Bonds would have looked like as a more nimble, more athletic, slightly weaker player who knows what pitch is coming. He already had great discipline, god only knows what he would have been like had he known what the pitcher was going to throw every time.

On the flipside...and a silver lining moment for myself...I took a second to reflect on how good Maddux, Pedro, Mussina etc. were. They were facing roided up batters who knew the pitch that was coming.

I played college ball and pitched ("pitched"). Those hitters were frightening. Cannot imagine the best hitter beefcakes knowing your every move. I'd pee on the mound.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

MLB could (mostly) prevent it by announcing anyone caught doing it in the future will be banned for life. 

 

Juventus was stripped of two titles and relegated, along with their GM being banned for life. MLB can't relegate the Astros to AAA obviously, but they could give them a huge fine and prevent them from going to the postseason for a couple years, which would effectively force them to trade and rebuild. 

Professional sports do not, and should not, operate like the jackassery that is the NCAA (literally the worst sports organization in the world, even surpassing FIFA and the NFL).

 

Lifetime bans aren't necessary and set a bar so high that any nuance is lost should later, more ambiguous, situations arise.

 

One year is fine as a first offense because, in the case of Lunhow and Hinch, it's going to end up being a lot more than that. Just like everyone who follows. If you get caught cheating, lose a year, and are fired, you're not going to hop right back into the same position you left. It's going to be a long, slow crawl back through the ranks, if you ever make it back at all.

 

And that's enough, isn't it? The point is to stop this behavior and if MLB can lop someone off at the knees for half of their career with a simple one year suspension, what more is needed?

 

If managers and GMs realize that if their team is caught cheating (even if they don't condone it, a la Hinch), they'll basically lose their career for a decade or more. What more do you need to do to stop that kind of behavior? Managers and GMs are now on notice that they're basically ****ed if they let this kind of thing happen under their watch, which is plenty enough to keep them in line because people in baseball love baseball and will do whatever it takes to stay there.

[Mr. Brooks]

Professional sports do not, and should not, operate like the jackassery that is the NCAA (literally the worst sports organization in the world, even surpassing FIFA and the NFL).

 

Lifetime bans aren't necessary and set a bar so high that any nuance is lost should later, more ambiguous, situations arise.

 

One year is fine as a first offense because, in the case of Lunhow and Hinch, it's going to end up being a lot more than that. Just like everyone who follows. If you get caught cheating, lose a year, and are fired, you're not going to hop right back into the same position you left. It's going to be a long, slow crawl back through the ranks, if you ever make it back at all.

 

And that's enough, isn't it? The point is to stop this behavior and if MLB can lop someone off at the knees for half of their career with a simple one year suspension, what more is needed?

 

If managers and GMs realize that if their team is caught cheating (even if they don't condone it, a la Hinch), they'll basically lose their career for a decade or more. What more do you need to do to stop that kind of behavior? Managers and GMs are now on notice that they're basically ****ed if they let this kind of thing happen under their watch, which is plenty enough to keep them in line because people in baseball love baseball and will do whatever it takes to stay there.

You are way more optimistic than I am that these two won't just slide right back in somewhere after a year.

 

And, none of this speaks to any punishment for the players. I personally don't understand why the players are getting off scot free.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

You are way more optimistic than I am that these two won't just slide right back in somewhere after a year.

And, none of this speaks to any punishment for the players. I personally don't understand why the players are getting off scot free.

I really dislike that the players are getting off with no punishment but acknowledge why it happened.

 

Thankfully, Manfred got out in front of this a few years ago by saying "teams and their management will be punished for the infractions of their players" or something of that ilk. At least he thought all of this out a bit because punishing players opens up a giant can of worms with the MLBPA.

 

Sure, Lunhow and Hinch will get back into baseball, but it won't be at the positions they previously held and it will be reluctantly. Ultimately, they may return to the positions they previously held but that will take years and each will have to start over at a much lower level, which is a pretty massive penalty.

 

Say you're senior management in a company. If you know that if you cheat and someone catches you, you will be unemployed for a year, then spend the next 5+ years slowly working your way back to seniority, all the while having the taint of what you did hanging over you, would you do it?

 

My guess is that the answer to the question is "hard no", especially given just how little advantage that cheating gave you in the first place.

[DannySD]

I'd be willing to bet the Pete Rose lifetime ban has prevented a whole bunch of managers from betting on baseball. I see your point because obviously things come up later and I think Rose should be forgiven at this point, but: effective. 

 

Professional sports do not, and should not, operate like the jackassery that is the NCAA (literally the worst sports organization in the world, even surpassing FIFA and the NFL).

 

Lifetime bans aren't necessary and set a bar so high that any nuance is lost should later, more ambiguous, situations arise.

 

[BrianTrottier]

 

I caught a bit of an interview with a player or former player, don't know who, on the SirusXM MLB channel the other day. He stated that the advantage gained by knowing which pitch was coming during half the games of a season is far greater than the advantage gained by using PED's.

That's interesting. Do you recall which player it was? That type of statement strikes me as possibly coming from the same place as "I played the game, so take your spin rates and launch angles and shove it." Does he really know that's the case, based only on his lived experience? Does he understand the effects different types of PEDs have on the human body? Without that understanding isn't he just prognosticating like the rest of us? Maybe he does, and I'm certainly no expert.

 

In any case, I was just doing some looking on baseball reference for 2017 home/road splits for Altuve, Bregman, and  Marwin (he put up 4+ wins that year and is on our team now, so why not?), plus Houston as a whole, and here are some home/road splits from 2017 listed in order of GP/AB/BA/OBP/SLG/OPS. It's not like this is a systematic analysis, but I think it's helpful to frame the problem.

 

Altuve home: 78 gp / 296 ab /.311 ba /.371 obp /.463 slg / .834 ops

Altuve away: 75/294/.381/.449/.633/1.081

Altuve's numbers were quite a bit better on the road that year than at home.

 

Bregman home: 76/266/.278/.343/.444/.787

Bregman away: 79/290/.290/.360/.503/.863

Bregman's numbers were also better on the road than at home.

 

Marwin home: 70/234/.282/.339/.543/.881

Marwin away: 64/221/.326/.416/.516/.932

Marwin also performed better on the road that season.

 

Collectively, the 2017 Astros as a team produced the following splits:

 

home: .279 avg/ .340 obp/ .472 slg/ .812 ops

away: .284 avg/ .351 obp/.483 slg/ .834 ops

Numbers weren't dramatically different, but their road performance had a slight edge over this home games.

 

I'm sure there were plenty of key moments where the cheating resulted in a favorable outcome for Houston than if it wasn't deployed, so don't take this as me saying that it had no impact. All I'm saying is that maybe it isn't so clear that this type of cheating is magnitudes more advantageous than PEDs. It's really hard to say what the exact impact of either was on terms of actual outcomes. We don't have counterfactuals to observe, so we have to rely on our own wits when thinking about what would've happened had the sign stealing (or PED use) not occurred.

 

But I feel pretty comfortable saying that Brady Anderson would not have hit 50 home runs (24% of his career total) in 1996 if he was not juicing. I don't feel comfortable saying that the Astros wouldn't be WS champs in 2017 if they had not stolen signs. It's probably less likely that they would have been, but who knows?

 

But the argument in the original article is that this scandal is the most impactful on the game in history. I think that it's too early to say that this has had a larger impact on the game than PEDs, though. Maybe this scandal will lead to a lot of fans turning away, which we know that the PED scandal did. We know guys like Ken Caminiti have died from their PED use. We know records were broken, and congressional hearings were held. People still get busted for PEDs, and the issue reaches into all levels of professional baseball. Can the same be said for using video feeds to steal signs (that's an honest question)? Finally, I am adamant that the codified racism of early MLB is the largest scandal in the history of the game. Neither PED use nor using technology for sign stealing touches that, IMO.

[Mr. Brooks]

That's interesting. Do you recall which player it was? That type of statement strikes me as possibly coming from the same place as "I played the game, so take your spin rates and launch angles and shove it." Does he really know that's the case, based only on his lived experience? Does he understand the effects different types of PEDs have on the human body? Without that understanding isn't he just prognosticating like the rest of us? Maybe he does, and I'm certainly no expert.

 

In any case, I was just doing some looking on baseball reference for 2017 home/road splits for Altuve, Bregman, and Marwin (he put up 4+ wins that year and is on our team now, so why not?), plus Houston as a whole, and here are some home/road splits from 2017 listed in order of GP/AB/BA/OBP/SLG/OPS. It's not like this is a systematic analysis, but I think it's helpful to frame the problem.

 

Altuve home: 78 gp / 296 ab /.311 ba /.371 obp /.463 slg / .834 ops

Altuve away: 75/294/.381/.449/.633/1.081

Altuve's numbers were quite a bit better on the road that year than at home.

 

Bregman home: 76/266/.278/.343/.444/.787

Bregman away: 79/290/.290/.360/.503/.863

Bregman's numbers were also better on the road than at home.

 

Marwin home: 70/234/.282/.339/.543/.881

Marwin away: 64/221/.326/.416/.516/.932

Marwin also performed better on the road that season.

 

Collectively, the 2017 Astros as a team produced the following splits:

 

home: .279 avg/ .340 obp/ .472 slg/ .812 ops

away: .284 avg/ .351 obp/.483 slg/ .834 ops

Numbers weren't dramatically different, but their road performance had a slight edge over this home games.

 

I'm sure there were plenty of key moments where the cheating resulted in a favorable outcome for Houston than if it wasn't deployed, so don't take this as me saying that it had no impact. All I'm saying is that maybe it isn't so clear that this type of cheating is magnitudes more advantageous than PEDs. It's really hard to say what the exact impact of either was on terms of actual outcomes. We don't have counterfactuals to observe, so we have to rely on our own wits when thinking about what would've happened had the sign stealing (or PED use) not occurred.

 

But I feel pretty comfortable saying that Brady Anderson would not have hit 50 home runs (24% of his career total) in 1996 if he was not juicing. I don't feel comfortable saying that the Astros wouldn't be WS champs in 2017 if they had not stolen signs. It's probably less likely that they would have been, but who knows?

 

But the argument in the original article is that this scandal is the most impactful on the game in history. I think that it's too early to say that this has had a larger impact on the game than PEDs, though. Maybe this scandal will lead to a lot of fans turning away, which we know that the PED scandal did. We know guys like Ken Caminiti have died from their PED use. We know records were broken, and congressional hearings were held. People still get busted for PEDs, and the issue reaches into all levels of professional baseball. Can the same be said for using video feeds to steal signs (that's an honest question)? Finally, I am adamant that the codified racism of early MLB is the largest scandal in the history of the game. Neither PED use nor using technology for sign stealing touches that, IMO.

What were their home/ road splits in the 2017 postseason?

I don't see why they'd bother doing it in the regular season.

[Nine of twelve]

 

That's interesting. Do you recall which player it was? That type of statement strikes me as possibly coming from the same place as "I played the game, so take your spin rates and launch angles and shove it." Does he really know that's the case, based only on his lived experience? Does he understand the effects different types of PEDs have on the human body? Without that understanding isn't he just prognosticating like the rest of us? Maybe he does, and I'm certainly no expert.

As I said in my previous post I don't know who it was. I had been flipping channels and I only caught about 5 minutes of the interview before I arrived at my destination and stopped listening. That said, I did not get any sense whatsoever of your guess that the player may have held disdain for metrics.

[jkcarew]

Sign-stealing is an advantage, we can be sure...or the players wouldn't attempt it. But how much of an advantage...and how effective is the process of steeling signs in actual practice...even in the case of video-aided steeling? We don't know. How often is the signal not relayed in time, or misunderstood? How often does the system work perfectly, and then the pitch is in the dirt or 6 inches outside? How often does the process need to reset due to the pitcher/catcher changing sequences, etc. etc? We don't really know. After all, Alex Wood was able to hold the Astros to 1 hit over 6 innings at Houston in game 4 of the 2017 series. Meanwhile, in games 2 and 7 at LA, the Astros lit up the likes of Brandon Morrow, Kenley Jansen and Yu Darvish without the electronics in place. Like most scandals in sports and society, the guilty parties will be remembered as much for the cover-ups, the denying, and the lies, lies, lies...as much as the act itself.

 

If the Black Sox, or Pete Rose, or Steroids would have occurred in the era of blogs, Twitter, and Instagram...absolute armageddon. To be sure, none of these things were good for baseball. But major-league baseball has never been perfect...or anywhere close. (And it's not like the NBA/NFL or any other sport or institution involving humans shines in comparison.) Will passionate fans ever agree on the punishments? No. But, I'm moving on already. If I can live with the record books showing Barry Bonds with 762 HR's, I can live with them showing the 2017 WS champions as the Houston Astros.

[BrianTrottier]

 

As I said in my previous post I don't know who it was. I had been flipping channels and I only caught about 5 minutes of the interview before I arrived at my destination and stopped listening. That said, I did not get any sense whatsoever of your guess that the player may have held disdain for metrics.

Probably no sense to it. It's just how it struck me in the moment..Maybe from other comments I've read here and elsewhere that were along the lines of "X player has said it's a bigger advantage to know the pitch beforehand than to take PEDs, so it's clearly a bigger advantage" which led me down a line of thought how some players have placed their personal experience over analytics in determining how the game should be played. Not that his thought literally signals a disdain for analytics, but maybe that it comes from a similar place. It was probably an ill thought out comment on my part.

[BrianTrottier]

 

What were their home/ road splits in the 2017 postseason?
I don't see why they'd bother doing it in the regular season.

That would be interesting for someone to look up, but you'd run into issues of small sample sizes. I don't think you'd be able to draw any conclusions either way..

[bird]

 

As a strong supporter of Clemens and Bonds making The Hall, I think both Beltran and Altuve's cases will be clearer since the two former names should be inducted by then. The Hall of Fame is a Museum. Not including the best players to ever play the game because of what they did or didn't do isn't something writers should be weighing in on, and we're seeing that trend towards reality. Pete, Joe, Barry, Roger...all in!

 

 

I'd like someone to give me one good reason why induction of these cheaters shouldn't be postponed until after they're dead. At least deny them THAT.

[bird]

Maybe I missed it, but when the local beat writers were "interviewing" players, did anyone ever ask the most important direct question of these pampered jerks?:

 

"Did you cheat?"

 

"Did you know cheating was going on?"

 

At least make them utter a pathetic "no comment".

 

I recall one wimpy reporter asking Altuve how he feels when someone calls him a cheater. Pretty much as if he's a victim. Gutless, and the failure to stand up for the fans in a time of moral outrage and instead cowtow to the athlete? Sickening.

[ND-Fan]

I think most people have no idea how far technology has come with small camera's that could be placed anywhere in ball park that could be used to zoom in catcher relaying signs thats transmitting to a burner cell phone that could be viewed and sent to player on the field alerting him to next pitch. also i have seen now they have drones as small as insect that can transmitt to again cell phone same results. Also now we get to the Twins new technology on exco video technology is possible by this to determine what a player is going to do or is not capable of doing based on this new technology. All these things may seem wonderfull to this new era of technocrats to find winning edge. The problem is in the average baseball fan it would be a form of cheating to win. So how do we control the technology from wrecking the game. Along with this money involved in the game is so large it can easily pay for all this new technology from ownership side or even the player side. When you are talking now contracts that are near half a billion dollars there is money to enhance outcome. This will be there until they kill the game and money disappears. Also now your adding gambling into baseball which means there is more money involved and another interested party who would like influence outcomes in the games or down to individual acts in game of baseball. Baseball as industry is going to really need to get on top of this in next year or I fear they may damage the game for ever.  Ownership started us down this path by hiring us analytics to put together a cheaper team to win and to use against players and agents in bargaining new contracts. There problem was they couldn't come together as collective group and divide spoils so we ended up with analytics or money ball now this path they have chosen may lead them to where they may kill the sport.

[Mr. Brooks]

I think most people have no idea how far technology has come with small camera's that could be placed anywhere in ball park that could be used to zoom in catcher relaying signs thats transmitting to a burner cell phone that could be viewed and sent to player on the field alerting him to next pitch. also i have seen now they have drones as small as insect that can transmitt to again cell phone same results. Also now we get to the Twins new technology on exco video technology is possible by this to determine what a player is going to do or is not capable of doing based on this new technology. All these things may seem wonderfull to this new era of technocrats to find winning edge. The problem is in the average baseball fan it would be a form of cheating to win. So how do we control the technology from wrecking the game. Along with this money involved in the game is so large it can easily pay for all this new technology from ownership side or even the player side. When you are talking now contracts that are near half a billion dollars there is money to enhance outcome. This will be there until they kill the game and money disappears. Also now your adding gambling into baseball which means there is more money involved and another interested party who would like influence outcomes in the games or down to individual acts in game of baseball. Baseball as industry is going to really need to get on top of this in next year or I fear they may damage the game for ever. Ownership started us down this path by hiring us analytics to put together a cheaper team to win and to use against players and agents in bargaining new contracts. There problem was they couldn't come together as collective group and divide spoils so we ended up with analytics or money ball now this path they have chosen may lead them to where they may kill the sport.

Using technology to attempt to analyze players better than your opponents is not a form of cheating.

[Vanimal46]

Maybe I missed it, but when the local beat writers were "interviewing" players, did anyone ever ask the most important direct question of these pampered jerks?:

 

"Did you cheat?"

 

"Did you know cheating was going on?"

 

At least make them utter a pathetic "no comment".

 

I recall one wimpy reporter asking Altuve how he feels when someone calls him a cheater. Pretty much as if he's a victim. Gutless, and the failure to stand up for the fans in a time of moral outrage and instead cowtow to the athlete? Sickening.

We love idolizing athletes in this country, don’t we?

[South Dakota Tom]

Just a question I've been pondering (maybe someone will direct me to more on this):  my sense is that any pitcher who routinely faced this obstacle is inherently better than his statistics would show.    If this is as widespread as suggested, are we going to see a deflation of offensive statistics this year (beyond the tweaks to the baseball itself) merely because a percentage of ballplayers no longer know what pitch is coming?

 

And won't folks point to any decrease by an individual player (or especially an entire team) to be "evidence" of their participation in this scheme?    Not to carry this too far, but won't that increase the pressure on the cheating teams to figure out a way to continue to cheat so as not to be perceived as "cheaters?"

[SwainZag]

 

What were their home/ road splits in the 2017 postseason?
I don't see why they'd bother doing it in the regular season.

 

2017 Astros Postseason hitting splits.

Alex Bregman: Road – .154 BA, .508 OPS; Home – .273 BA, .857 OPS.

Carlos Correa: Road – .211 BA, .626 OPS; Home – .371 BA, 1.164 OPS.

Jose Altuve: Road – .143 BA, .497 OPS; Home – .472 BA, 1.541 OPS.

Brian McCann: Road – .037 BA, .198 OPS; Home – .300 BA, .849 OPS.

Evan Gattis: Road – .200 BA, .533 OPS; Home – .300 BA, 1.014 OPS.

[#1ShaneMackFan]

 

2017 Astros Postseason hitting splits.

Alex Bregman: Road – .154 BA, .508 OPS; Home – .273 BA, .857 OPS.

Carlos Correa: Road – .211 BA, .626 OPS; Home – .371 BA, 1.164 OPS.

Jose Altuve: Road – .143 BA, .497 OPS; Home – .472 BA, 1.541 OPS.

Brian McCann: Road – .037 BA, .198 OPS; Home – .300 BA, .849 OPS.

Evan Gattis: Road – .200 BA, .533 OPS; Home – .300 BA, 1.014 OPS.

Wow. That is amazing.

[yarnivek1972]

I don't agree.

I think pro athletes cherish their championship rings more than just about anything else they own. (The ones fortunate enough to have one.)

 

You start taking those back, I think you catch their attention, IMO.

And do what with them? They really only have value to the players that have them as a whole. Their components have tangible value, but I can’t see a situation where they are turned in and melted down. Who is going to enforce that?

 

Everyone is going to know that the Astros title in 2017 and the Red Sox title in 2018 is extremely tainted. No one is going to forget it. Ever. It’s been more than 100 years and this post mentioned the “Black Sox” scandal. Taking down banners would be merely symbolic. It doesn’t really change anything IMO.

 

 

Finally, regarding the HOF mentioned in other posts: Clemens and Bonds aren’t getting in this year and they only have two more tries. I don’t think either make it. Beltran’s numbers aren’t good enough regardless of this scandal. He played in an era of some exceptional centerfielders. Ken Griffey was in his prime when Beltran came in and Mike Trout now. Beltran simply doesn’t stack up to the competition. I’m not even sure I’d put him ahead of Torii Hunter. Those two played basically their entire careers at the same time. Beltran was a little better offensively but Hunter’s defense was far superior.

[dex8425]

 

As I said in my previous post I don't know who it was. I had been flipping channels and I only caught about 5 minutes of the interview before I arrived at my destination and stopped listening. That said, I did not get any sense whatsoever of your guess that the player may have held disdain for metrics.

Matt Antonelli said on one of his youtube videos that knowing what pitch is coming is the biggest advantage you can have as a hitter. More advantageous than taking steroids. So there's one former mlb player who said that, though I'm sure he wasn't on the xm radio interview. 

 

He also mentioned the home/road astros splits from postseason 2017. 

[Melissa]

 

2017 Astros Postseason hitting splits.

Alex Bregman: Road – .154 BA, .508 OPS; Home – .273 BA, .857 OPS.

Carlos Correa: Road – .211 BA, .626 OPS; Home – .371 BA, 1.164 OPS.

Jose Altuve: Road – .143 BA, .497 OPS; Home – .472 BA, 1.541 OPS.

Brian McCann: Road – .037 BA, .198 OPS; Home – .300 BA, .849 OPS.

Evan Gattis: Road – .200 BA, .533 OPS; Home – .300 BA, 1.014 OPS.

Hard to ignore these data.