The Astros Are Cheaters, Their Championship is Tarnished, But the Dramatic Overreaction is Comical... We Are Talking About Sign Stealing, Right?

This article isn’t so much a reaction to the recent revelation that the Houston Astros cheated during their 2017 World Series winning campaign. It’s more of a reaction to the reactions from around the sports world to the scandal.

For those of you that are unaware, Houston has been busted for illegally stealing the pitch signs from opposing catchers electronically during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and then relaying that information to hitters by banging on trashcans to indicate whether the pitch was a fastball or something off-speed. They had their own camera out in center, which is a no-no, that fed into a monitor near the dugout where someone would interpret the signs. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has responded by throwing the book at the Astros, fining the club the maximum 5 Million dollars allowed under the MLB Constitution, stripping them of their first and second round picks in each of the next two drafts, and suspending both manager AJ Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow for a year apiece.

The investigation began in response to the words of a whistleblower back in November. Mike Fiers has had himself a solid major league career. The 34 year old has played almost a decade in the league, accumulating a career ERA just north of four, with a pair of no-hitters and an immaculate inning. Unfortunately for Mike, he will most likely never be remembered for any of these accomplishments.

As a result of the scandal, Astros owner Jim Crane said forget the suspension and fired both Luhnow and Hinch. Alex Cora, who served as the bench coach in Houston during their title run, has been relieved of his managerial duties in Boston, and his 2018 World Series winning Red Sox are now under similar investigation. Then there’s Alex Beltran, a veteran on that Astros team that was specifically named in the investigation’s report, who after being removed from the Mets as manager now receives the dubious distinction of being named a Major League manager that never manages a single game.

The baseball world is on fire about this scandal. The media is crashing down hard on Houston, with many going so far as to demand the vacating of their 2017 World Series title. The Los Angeles City Council has passed a resolution urging Major League Baseball to name their Dodgers the champions of the 2017 and 2018 World Series, which they lost to Houston and Boston, respectively. 

Alright. Now you’ve got the meat and potatoes of the scandal. And now it’s my turn.

Now the key word with regards to the cheating itself is “electronically.” After all, sign stealing and baseball go together like peas and carrots. The traditional version of it, simply watching the catcher make his signals to the pitcher and decoding their meaning, is the oldest and most accepted form of “cheating” in sports. I did it in little league. But instead of banging trashcans, we would just see the finger go down and shout fastball in unison.

Sign Stealing is pure gamesmanship when done legally. There’s no rule against using your own two eyes to get a competitive edge on your opponent, thus putting the onus on the battery, the pitcher catcher duo, to avoid such disclosure, both by masking the true pitch signal within a series of decoys, and then mixing up that system as the game progresses.

That traditional version has advanced into the grey, and even the black a great deal through the generations.

The Athletics just prior to the First World War had one of their players stand by a weathervane with a pair of binoculars. He would spin that weathervane north for a curveball and south for a fastball.

The 1951 New York Giants had a guy with a telescope reading signs, with a backup catcher holding a baseball in the bullpen while his club was on offense. If he held the ball it was fastball, off-speed if he tossed it.

1959 was the first time television cameras were used to steal signs.

1959.

The argument here is that if Major League Baseball, the fans, the media, and every last person that is looking up to the heavens after hearing about this scandal and screaming “Why God Why” were this worried about this particular cheating performed by the Astros… something substantial probably should have been done about it at any point between the invention of the television and two years ago. The monitor was directly outside the dugout… this cheating has been going on forever… if MLB was so worried about it why didn’t they have someone monitoring the monitors?

Yes the technology has advanced a lot since the early years of television, and yes they were using their own camera, but in reality the Astros basically did an enhanced version of this, a mechanism of cheating first used 58 years before the 2017 World Series in question.

Sure it’s always been “illegal.” But until Manfred’s threat to all 30 clubs made in 2017 following the Apple Watch incident in Boston no significant moves had been made to protect pitchers from this form of cheating absolutely. In September 2017 Manfred vowed to take a stand against electronic sign stealing in the name of the integrity of the game, and I’ll make arguments as to why that in itself is hilarious in mere moments. The problem is, all he did was ban something that is as old as the very electronics they used, and somehow people are shocked that the Astros didn’t stop in the month-and-a-half between that ban and their hoisting the World Series trophy?

Oh, and by the way, if you think the Astros are the only ones still doing this just because they got caught, well I just don’t buy it… Seeing as I try to do it on every single pitch from my couch.

Do you know how often a pinky finger means outside fastball to a righty? Because I sure do.

Everyone is incensed about the camera they had in center field?… You know what other camera is out there? The one that broadcasts these games to the entire freaking world. AJ Hinch could’ve just had me on speed dial and it would’ve been the same damn thing, albeit much less accurate I’m sure…

In addition, every pitcher in the league worries about their signs being stolen, and yet somehow when a team gets caught doing it the Stephen A. Smiths of the world act like this is the most egregious thing the Astros could have done. Hell, Max Scherzer used about 5 different signing systems in last year’s World Series worried about this very thing.

I feel the need to say at this juncture that I am not taking Houston’s side in all of this. They are, after all, a bunch of dirty cheaters that deserved to be punished, especially if their cheating directly screwed other teams out of the 2017 World Series. I’m simply saying, what the hell did you think was going to happen?

What Houston did is despicable. But baseball has only itself to blame. And the members of the sports community that are tearing their hair out about it (almost all of them) are either stupid, ignorant, or both.

Sign stealing should obviously no longer be part of baseball with where technology is today, but it’s ridiculous for the entire baseball world to feel this strongly about this incident given the well over 100 years of documented cases of this type of cheating. You all waited way too long to be this offended by sign stealing.

Now there is another layer to this that may be playing a role in the reaction to the scandal. The Astros are both a very easy and very fun team to hate. Jeff Luhnow ran the team like the true McKinsey consultant that he was, ruthless with no sense of morality. This was highlighted by Luhnow’s overruling of other staffers in acquiring Roberto Osuna while he served his 75-game suspension for domestic violence. The dark nature of this management group was then reinforced when one of Luhnow’s right hand men, assistant GM Brandon Taubman, was seen screaming at a group of female reporters “thank God we got Osuna” immediately after the club won the 2017 pennant. They run a shrewd organization down there in Houston, one that will take any measures necessary to win baseball games.

Hell, it would be more surprising to me if these guys weren’t cheating.

But again, this particular cheating has been around forever. They found a new way of doing it that makes me sick as a fan, but the year 2020 is way too late for the baseball community at large to be set on fire by this type of scandal.

Fact is, it’s really easy to cheat in baseball today, so short of having a representative from the league watchdogging every team at every game, teams will always find way to gain this edge. It’s brutal that it has come to this. But if you want cheating out of baseball it’s the only way.

MIKE FIERS

Then there’s Mike Fiers, our whistleblower. There have been plenty of different responses to the actions of Fiers, none of which make a whole lot of sense. Some people think he’s a hero. I’m not willing to go that far. Some like Pedro Martinez think he’s a villain for breaking the clubhouse code. Personally I don’t think Fiers is a hero or a villain in all of this. I don’t think he broke an unwritten code, or that whistleblowing doesn’t just tarnish his team, but the league as a whole. You want to know what I think?

He’s a pitcher!

Not only that, he’s in Oakland now, a division rival. He’s not being brave or a villain, he just doesn’t want to get lit up every time his club steps into Minute Maid Park. He’s expected to maintain the code of the clubhouse while in Oakland even if it means having to look up the standings at the group of crooks that traded him there?

If the Astros believed there was any chance that this cheating wouldn’t have been discovered, they would have had to manufacture a system that somehow left their entire pitching staff in the dark. What’s Mike Fiers supposed to do in this situation? Just be okay with getting his ass kicked by his former team?

Maybe the Astros were thinking let’s just get that title and let the chips fall where they may. If so, they got their wish.

We can’t villainize Fiers for blowing the whistle when his new team plays the Astros 20 times a year and competes with them for the AL West. But we can’t call him a hero either, because if it was really all about the integrity of the game and if he really was a hero, he would’ve done something about it while it was happening.

I imagine it’s a lot easier to be brave when you’ve already got that ring on your finger.

And where was Justin Verlander in all of this? This guy is a vocal leader in Major League Baseball. Never shy to criticize all the wrongs he witnesses in the league. Hell, he’s even spoken of sign stealing in the past. In fact, earlier in that very same year of 2017, while he was still in Detroit, Verlander was quoted saying “Hey, if you can get my signs, good for you. In the past, if a guy on second was able to decipher it on a few pitches, I guess that was kind of part of the game. I think it’s a different level now. It’s not good.”

Didn’t seem to bother him too much when he arrived in Houston now did it?

Tigers lefty Matthew Boyd spoke up in response to the scandal, saying that it’s his job to worry about sign stealing, legal or otherwise. As I mentioned, The Nationals had all kinds of sign combinations in last year’s World Series against Houston because they were worried about something fishy going on as well.

Everybody knows it’s out there… because it’s basically watching television and making notes. Remember… 1959…

ROB MANFRED

Last but certainly not least I’d like to discuss the man in charge of it all. The Commish. The Big Cheese. Rob Manfred.

This discussion can be summed up in one word. Hypocrisy. And there’s hypocrisy to found in a variety of places here.

First and foremost is the punishment. Yes Manfred took Houston’s top two picks in each of the next two drafts. Yes they fined the club the maximum 5 million dollars allowed by Major League Baseball’s constitution. And yes they suspended the coach and GM for a year apiece and they were subsequently let go. The hypocrisy here is that there has not and will not be any punishment for any of the players involved.

When Rob Manfred warned teams about the penalties they would face for electronic sign stealing back in 2017, he made the decision then that only those in charge would be held accountable. But just because he kept his word on that front, doesn’t make it right. Not even close.

By only suspending Luhnow and Hinch, Manfred is basically saying that Major League Baseball only wants to punish the cheaters that while having a great importance on the success of the ball club in the long-term, are the two most forefront figures on the team that have zero day-to-day impact on the fans that attend these games, and those that watch from home.

The players sell the tickets, the players bring the ratings.

Witnesses from the investigation consistently described the Astros’ sign stealing as a “player driven” scheme. Yet all of the involved players that benefitted from the cheating will be in the lineup on opening day, while three coaches on three different teams get the boot. As if Luhnow, Hinch, Cora, and Beltran, who was a player at the time, were the only four grown men in the organization.

“Oh, but Mr. Manfred, coach told me to.”

Okay Jose, okay George, okay Yuli, you all get to keep your millions and keep playing ball. While your naughty managers suffer the consequences.

And while on that subject, don’t better numbers equal bigger contracts? And doesn’t knowing what pitch is coming directly lead to better numbers? Twenty years from now no one will remember that AJ Hinch and Jeff Luhnow were running this club (well, they might now…). But people will definitely remember the stars, Altuve, Springer, Bregman, Correa, and Gurriel lighting up the stats sheet.

Manfred says that he is taking a stand in the name of the integrity of baseball. But he won’t punish the people that had the most to gain from the cheating?

What’s he going to do if and when we find out that more teams are doing things like this? Are the players always going to be forgiven?

What’s to stop disgruntled players that want their coach fired from calling up a buddy and saying, “Yo, Jim, come to the ballpark today with a pair of binoculars and an earpiece, and tell them you’re with me when they catch you. I can finally get this damn coach off my back, and maybe hit a couple extra dingers in the process.”

Nolan Arenado is upset with his GM for not spending to put more pieces around him in Colorado. Maybe he should just cheat. Problem solved.

What if we find out somewhere down the road that Jose Altuve was wearing a wire when he hit that walkoff homerun off Aroldis Chapman to send the Astros to the World Series? Is Manfred really going to be able to say with a straight face that it’s all Hinch and Luhnow’s fault?

To be perfectly honest I think that Manfred is loving this scandal. The world is talking about baseball while its not even being played. He gets to look like a leader in the cleaning up of baseball. And more importantly, the scandal is deflecting attention from other major issues in the game. Don’t get me wrong, sign stealing is a real issue, but get real people it’s 150 years old!!!

What about tanking? And the fact that there are only ten teams in baseball in a given season that even worry about their signs being stolen, because they are the only teams that actually care about winning baseball games?

You want a reason to penalize a team in the name of the integrity of baseball? Penalize the half of the league that seemingly has no interest in putting a competitive ball club on the field. With all the sources of generating revenue now and a system of sharing that revenue among all 30 clubs, baseball teams make money no matter what. Owners and fans don’t suffer and triumph together anymore. When teams go into the tank with dreams of a better tomorrow, whether it works or not, only the fans suffer through the trying times. And for the record, tanking now for success later doesn’t work way more often than it does, with this very Houston Astros team being a rare exception after their historic tank job from 2011-2013 where they lost over 105 games in three consecutive seasons.

How about the integrity of your Hall of Fame Rob? The most “prestigious” Hall of Fame in all of sports, that your writers almost managed to keep Larry Walker out of because a third of his at-bats were in the mile high city. That would be like keeping David Ortiz out because it’s only 302 to Peske’s foul pole in right field at Fenway, with a fence that is waist high at best.

Or how about this one? If you want to restore integrity in baseball, stop using balls that 160-pound men can hit 450 feet. That’s right. I’m 100% in the camp that believes there’s something different about these baseballs. Or maybe Manfred wants to blame sign stealing for the 7 million home runs that were hit last season too.

Major League Baseball bought Rawlings, the company that makes the balls, and all of a sudden everyone is hitting 20 dingers. Major League Baseball got a committee of scientists together to figure out what was happening and they came up with “inconsistent baseball seams and changes in player behaviour.”

Really, that’s what we’re going with hey Robbie?

So after 150 years we forgot how to make baseballs. That’s the line.

Integrity in baseball, he said with a scoff.

They just started using MLB baseballs in Triple-A for the very first time last year too by the way. And guess what? They destroyed the previous homerun record down there as well.

Records and stats are more important in baseball than any other sport, and it’s not even close. And yet the league itself is quite blatantly doing something that is pumping up power numbers throughout the entirety of the league, and throughout the entirety of the lineup, and blaming it on factors like “natural variation in the manufacturing process.” And all of this comes after Manfred specifically said when he took the job as commissioner that he wanted to get more offense into the game.

There’s some integrity in baseball for you.

Oh yeah he’s really worried about the record books. It’s okay if number nine guys are hitting 20, just as long as no one hits 70.

Now he’s gone ahead and enforced a three-batter minimum rule for all pitchers that come in from the bullpen in an effort to speed up the games. Bullpen management is one of the single most important managerial duties in baseball, especially in the playoffs, and this rule completely changes MLB managers’ ability to do that effectively.

Playoff games, hell the World Series could easily end up being decided by a brand new rule that totally changes an essential element of baseball strategy, and Manfred’s going to sit on his throne and say he’s all about the integrity of the game?

Manfred’s been told the Astros sign stealing is player driven but he won’t punish players. He wants more offense in baseball, buys the manufacturing company, and all of a sudden the entire league is hitting dingers in record numbers. He wants to protect the game of baseball but puts in a new rule that completely alters the way it’s played. And he has the audacity to say he’s coming down hard on the Astros for disrupting the integrity of the game, by going too far with a form of cheating that has been around for about as long as the game of baseball itself.

So settle down baseball world. The Houston Astros are cheaters, and they absolutely deserved to be punished. But the fact that baseball fans and the media are losing their minds that Houston found a new way to steal signs need to grow up. You all waited about 100 years too long to be outraged by this.

And if you believe that Rob Manfred came crashing down on the Astros in the name of integrity in baseball, realize that you’re talking about a man that is manipulating the oldest professional league in sports in an effort to increase the size of his audience.