Major League Baseball tried to make a statement with the recent disciplinary actions: cheating of any sort will absolutely not be tolerated… especially when pressured by many people to do an actual investigation.
In case you live under a pile of rocks (I don’t judge), the Houston Astros were disciplined for electronically stealing signs from the opposing battery via a video room and monitors during the 2017 season. The punishment includes a one-year suspension without pay for both Manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow (both of whom ended up fired by the organization hours after the suspension was announced), the loss of their 2020 and 2021 first and second-round draft picks, and a fine of $5 million dollars.
From the fallout, other organizations have been impacted due to direct links with the 2017 Houston Astros. The Boston Red Sox have parted ways with their manager Alex Cora, who was a former bench coach on the 2017 Houston team, and the New York Mets reportedly wanted to distance themselves from their new managerial hire Carlos Beltran, asking the former Astro to step down. But this seems to be only the tip of the iceberg with mysterious sources on social media coming forth and fingering others as guilty.
A Twitter account (@SO_blessed1) claiming to be the niece of Carlos Beltran, later proven false, now believed to be a player’s burner account, brought forth allegations against Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, alleging that the two wore “buzzers” during the 2019 postseason, tipping them off as to what pitch might be incoming.
Later, the now deactivated account, would include young Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres as a player who also used a buzzer-like device. While the stirring accusations seem to be growing in legitimacy, the account is seen as credible by many, as the unknown user previously predicted the outcome of other in-house events of other teams: namely the event of Carlos Beltran being asked to step down by the Mets days before the news broke (though this was something that was widely accepted as immanent in baseball circles).
After an uproar from fans, MLB released another statement: “MLB explored wearable devices during the investigation but found no evidence to substantiate it.” With surmounting evidence against players and other teams seemingly rising to the surface everyday from both fan and player sources, it will be interesting to see if MLB will be pressured into another investigation against the Astros and/or other teams or will try to let additional findings go by the wayside.
So what do you think of the penalty against the Astros now? At first glance, earlier in the week you might have thought MLB dropped the hammer, but as more time passes it seems in reality commissioner Rob Manfred only dropped a plastic spoon. If nothing more comes of the additional claims against the Astros and others, the penalties overall seem weak considering the club went to the World Series twice, won a ring, and profited greatly from their postseason success across the organization, top to bottom. So if frail, what was MLB trying to achieve through these retributions?
By targeting the top, MLB hopes future coaches and GMs will notify their players to stop cheating when caught and as a result will remove the source(s) before the culture grows, like what A.J. Hinch reportedly tried to do in the Astros clubhouse by calling meetings and smashing monitors used to steal signs when the manager first discovered the use of video technology.
So basically coaches and GMs will definitely never cheat ever again and the game will be played correctly happily ever after. Especially since the Astros are the only team in the universe to use technology to steal signs in baseball, right..?
In 1900, the Philadelphia Phillies had a backup catcher by the name of Morgan Murphy who played 11 games that season. Murphy spent the majority of the 138 game season in the clubhouse – which at the time was in the outfield – and would use opera glasses to look at the opposing the catcher’s signals. The backup catcher would then use a telegraph system wired to the third-base coach’s box to notify the third-base coach what was coming. From there, the coach would relay the pitch to his batter, most likely by a verbal or sound cue. Sounds like I’m making this up right? Well, later that season Cincinnati Reds shortstop Tommy Corcoran would find a wire, which upon investigation, would lead directly back to the telegraph system and Murphy in the Phillies’ clubhouse. Soon after, Murphy was let go by the organization.
A little more than fifty years later, in 1951, New Yorks Giants manager Leo “The Spymaster” Durocher employed an elaborate sign-stealing scheme in a successful attempt to overcome a 13.5 game deficit to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Durocher would use his coach Herman Franks in the manager’s office of the Giants’ clubhouse beyond center-field at the Polo Grounds to steal opposing catchers’ signals using a telescope. Frank would relay signs through an electrical-buzzer system where then pitchers in the Giants’ bullpen in right-center would flash the signs to Giants’ hitters in the box. Sound familiar..?
Sign stealing schemes have been going on since before the World Series, as a championship, even existed. Please be aware of this: there are countless instances, analogous to those above, including a recent case with the Boston Red Sox utilizing Apple Watches to steal and relay signs in 2017. It really makes you think about all of the times teams throughout history didn’t get caught when you begin to dig up how many teams that did. Just ask “Black Jack” McDowell…
Major League Baseball has a problem. It is not just one or even a few, but many teams are stealing signs, by means that many would consider illicit, more often than a drunk college student on a Saturday evening bender. Teams do not need to earn that runner on second to decode and decipher signs in the (old school?) way anymore – there is technology virtually everywhere for that.
So how do we fix teams from stealing signs, because surely teams, coaches, and players will continue to do whatever means necessary if livelihoods are at stake and future generations can be set up for life? The punishments handed to the Astros are simply too small compared to the rewards garnered, particularly if the group reaping the benefits are to get away with the crime.
Should MLB employ ear pieces to catchers and pitchers so they can speak about that girl six rows up behind the opposing team’s dugout?
Is MLB going to install a light system at home plate and the pitcher’s mound so the battery can play Lite-Brite™ with each other and send signals to one another?
Probably not, that is pretty stupid.
How about MLB getting rid of all the electronics in the dugouts, in the clubhouses, in the bullpens, in the tunnels, and practically everywhere the players can go during the game while having more officials monitor what goes on behind the scenes?
Logically this seems like the best solution, but it would not work. Not only is regulating all devices impractical, but to do so would mean to sacrifice player privacy, which as many know is sacred. Not to mention having hired officials for 162 games would sound pretty expensive to Major League Baseball (that’s multiple officials monitoring numerous areas for more than 2,430 games a year, not including the postseason, and assuming they never become compromised).
Playing devil’s advocate, perhaps MLB should let everyone steal signs anyway they can? I mean, this isn’t allowing steroid use where a man can ruin his health, his relationships, and his life by injecting artificial chemicals into his body in order to become a momentary superhuman. This is different. This is allowing an element, a part of the actual game going on today, to come out of the shadows for the public to see.
Consider this: if organizations are allowed to steal signs anyway they want, using technology during the game, would the focus not shift from actually stealing signs to ways to prevent them from being stolen? Would organizations not develop a greater sense of urgency to protect themselves so as to put their destiny back into their own hands and prevent their pitcher from being susceptible?
As reported by the Washington Post, the Nationals did just that with suspicions the Astros were stealing signs by unconventional means during the 2019 World Series. Let it be clear, although assertions are being made by players and many online as previously noted, those suspicions are entirely unsubstantiated as fact by any official source.
The Nats, though, planned ahead and would use a complex system, not unlike what is sometimes used in high school and college baseball, to relay signs as a caution to rumors heard around the league. Each pitcher would have their own special set of signs that were placed onto laminated cards, one for the catcher to put on their wrist band and the other for the pitcher to place inside their cap. Signs put down by Nats catchers Kurt Suzuki and Yan Gomes were only understood by the pitcher as there was no concrete way to decode without the information on the cards. The Nationals would go on to win all four games in Houston and the 2019 World Series – marking the first time in history that a team was crowned World Champion winning all of their games on the road.
Baseball can only hope more organizations will follow the paradigm of the Nationals; do not fight fire with fire, instead extinguish the blaze. The system the Nationals used works, for now, but can cause more problems than it might solve. These cards tend to take more time than traditional means of signaling for a single pitch, which can disturb the flow of a pitcher that relies on tempo. Both players have to look at their cards, make sure they’re seeing the small numbers correctly, then put down the correct sign. For pitchers who are not familiar with this system, mix-ups can happen often. The most problematic issue? The time spent can kill the flow of the game by grinding it to a complete halt, especially with a pitcher on the mound who already is operating at a leisurely, deliberate pace. But, for now, there seems to be no better solution; though, I am confident that the negative effects from this method would be diminished greatly with widespread usage and with the development of more efficient ways to navigate the cards.
Knowing how teams tend to zig and zag with one another, I believe more organizations will begin to explore more precise avenues to guard against technology – so let’s not give up on baseball just yet. The difficulty lies in the long, grueling 162-game schedule, followed by even more games in the postseason. Some teams may not see it apt to be protective for all 162 games or even for the 81 road games, particularly in a scenario where a team may be cellar dweller in the division and out of reach of playoff contention.
Nevertheless, the game played by half-innings finds itself in a novel position: on the clock. Time will tell whether more drastic punishments and changes will be needed or if time itself will continue to be a flat circle.
