[ericc]

Astros' Jeff Luhnow, AJ Hinch suspended for 2020 season for sign stealing

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...-sign-stealing

Pete Rose banned for life. Joe Jackson banned for life.

[lakerboy]

WOW

[pologq]

good. can't stand hinch.

[Mr. Teaser]

They both just got fired.

[Mr KLC]

First came an eye-popping new report from Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal that unveiled the role of the Houston front office in the sign-stealing effort. Though commissioner Rob Manfred had characterized it as a player-driven scheme — even as he worked out a deal that exempted players from punishment — he also sent a letter to Luhnow detailing a host of facts about the front office’s involvement that were not previously known publicly.

You’ll need to read the detailed story for the full account, but we’ll touch upon a few key points. The scheme is said to have been hatched before the 2017 season when the Astros analytical department cooked up a program — deemed “Codebreaker,” if you can believe it — that enabled swift sign deduction. As Diamond puts it, this “laid the groundwork” for the eventual trashcan-banging signaling effort that was utilized by Astros players, coaches, and video room staffers. “Codebreaker” was utilized in 2017 and 2018; it was deployed both in home and road contests.

So far as Luhnow’s knowledge and involvement goes, he was assuredly aware of “Codebreaker.” And there’s a fair compilation of evidence suggesting he knew just how it was being used on a game-by-game basis, including an email that Luhnow received (but claims not to have fully read) in which Astros director of advance information Tom Koch-Weser referred to “our dark arts, sign-stealing department” (a moniker he also used in other circumstances).

There are loads of scandalous details involving Koch-Weser, with Luhnow disputing them. Other junior employees involved in the efforts indicated that Luhnow was likely aware “Codebreaker” was being used in real-time during games, though it seems there was at least some amount of plausible doubt.

So far as is known publicly, lower-level Astros front office employees involved or potentially involved in the scandal have not been punished or removed from their jobs. Manfred found that there was a larger cultural problem in the Houston baseball operations department, but owner Jim Crane has disputed that characterization. Crane hired new GM James Click to take over for Luhnow an otherwise generally unchanged department (apart from voluntary departures, so far as is known).

The scope of the scandal remains an important element in understanding and assessing the matter. As noted above, today’s news suggests that the illicit actions were broader than had previously been known.

There’s one other item that hints at potential expansion of the known bounds of the overall sign-stealing/signalling effort.

Hinch, who has been more forthcoming with contrition for his role in failing to intercede with the scheme as the club’s top uniformed employee, held an interview with Tom Verducci for MLB Network. (Video and write-up via MLB.com’s Alyson Footer.) He accepted without condition that the team was wrong for its actions and that he personally failed to exercise his leadership power and responsibility to halt the cheating.

Curiously, though, Hinch declined an opportunity to shut the door fully on a theory that has been floated with varying levels of evidence and seriousness regarding the Astros’ 2019 season. When asked whether Houston players had utilized buzzers to convey signs to hitters in the just-concluded campaign, Hinch chose to stand on the proposition that “The Commissioner’s Office did as thorough of an investigation as anyone could imagine was possible.”

It would certainly be foolish to read that oblique statement to mean that the Astros were indeed utilizing buzzers and that Hinch was aware of it. Precisely why Hinch chose to state things that way isn’t evident. But the guarded phrasing does seem to leave ample cause for exploring the topic further, to the extent that’s possible. At a minimum, it leaves some room for doubt with a team that has already proven it doesn’t deserve any. If only to eliminate that doubt, the possibility of more recent cheating now seems a matter worthy of further examination (or, if that has truly already been completed, elucidation) from the league.

[DrunkHorseplayer]

No way this happens without the knowledge of almost every player, coach and administrator.

[Hman]

So what I want to know is, as long as you're not using electronic devices, are you allowed to steal signs by eye?

Because if not, it has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Isn't that the whioe point of signs, to hide your next move from the other team?

Are your opponents supposed to just look the other way??

[Chi_archie]

So what I want to know is, as long as you're not using electronic devices, are you allowed to steal signs by eye?

Because if not, it has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Isn't that the whioe point of signs, to hide your next move from the other team?

Are your opponents supposed to just look the other way??

yep, you can't use camera's and electronic communication.

its fair game to have any of your players or coaches study the signs as they are made and try to crack the code.

any player on 2nd can steal the catcher's signs and try to signal to batter if they are confident, BUT we know that that can lead to pitchers throwing at the offenders. but it breaks no written league rules.


but if you have a guy manning a centerfield camera that can see EVERY pitch and camera signal and that gets electronically sent to the dugout

that's a different animal. correct?

[Hman]

yep, you can't use camera's and electronic communication.

its fair game to have any of your players or coaches study the signs as they are made and try to crack the code.

any player on 2nd can steal the catcher's signs and try to signal to batter if they are confident, BUT we know that that can lead to pitchers throwing at the offenders. but it breaks no written league rules.


but if you have a guy manning a centerfield camera that can see EVERY pitch and camera signal and that gets electronically sent to the dugout

that's a different animal. correct?

Yes arch agreed, totally different

[Mr KLC]

Quibi and LeBron James’ Uninterrupted sports media company are teaming up for a new docuseries about a cheating scandal that has gone down in baseball infamy.

The short-form content platform has ordered “Sign Language” (working title), a series which aims to give viewers an inside look at the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal and its unprecedented fallout.

Per the logline for the series, it will look to “transcend the baseball diamond to explore larger themes of greed, cheating, corruption, sportsmanship, and social media activism.” News of the series comes around two months after it was announced that “Slow Burn” producers Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons are looking to hit a home run with a podcast about the Astros’ controversial World Series-winning 2017 season, which they then intend to adapt into a scripted series.

Quibi, which launched back in early April, was in the headlines earlier this week when its founder Jeffrey Katzenberg blamed its underwhelming subscriber count so far on the coronavirus in a New York times interview.