14 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

The Sox were one of the few times that noticed and brought attention to it. Not sure how a sox fan can find a way to spin this negatively about Sox coaching... 

The Sox have also faired pretty well against the stros in the rebuild years. They've won the season series twice.

20 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

A grudge? Why portray him that way?

Maybe he just felt the cheating was wrong and had gone on too long and he realized no one else was going to speak up so he took the bullet to put a stop to it.

It sounds like he's still unhappy about being left off their postseason roster, which is probably a fair point.

That's one obvious problem with trying a setup like that; you have to make decisions in baseball that won't leave everyone on your roster totally happy, and as a consequence eventually everyone's gonna know.

38 minutes ago, mqr said:

The Sox have also faired pretty well against the stros in the rebuild years. They've won the season series twice.

The Sox were so bad that stealing signals was actually detrimental to the Astros 

1 hour ago, BackDoorBreach said:

We know BoSox, NYY, Cleveland are all confirmed to have reported it since 2017.

I saw some memo or post that there have been multiple teams reporting it to MLB.  This would explain the Yankees doing all types of sign sequences against HOU even with nobody on base.

Hahn implied they did without saying it.

3 hours ago, BackDoorBreach said:

We know BoSox, NYY, Cleveland are all confirmed to have reported it since 2017.

I saw some memo or post that there have been multiple teams reporting it to MLB.  This would explain the Yankees doing all types of sign sequences against HOU even with nobody on base.

How the Nationals planned for this was...insane.

Washington Post: Sign-stealing in the World Series? The Nationals had a plan, just in case.

Quote

There were some layers to the Nats’ plan for Houston. First, each pitcher had to have his own set of signs, and catchers Yan Gomes and Kurt Suzuki had to be familiar with each one. So the staff printed out cards with the codes and had them laminated. The catchers could have them in their wristbands, a la an NFL quarterback with play calls strapped to his forearm, and the pitchers would have them in their caps. Each pitcher had five sets of signs, and they could change them from game to game — or even batter to batter, if necessary. Using the set labeled No. 2, but worried the Astros were catching on? The pitcher could signal to the catcher to move to set No. 3.

---

Next came the way the Nats employed their signs, which was nontraditional. Rather than just use, say, the second sign the catcher put down, the Nats might “chase the two.” That meant the pitcher would watch for the catcher to put two fingers down, and then throw the pitch that corresponded to the following sign. Or they could play “outs plus one.” So if there was one out, the pitch would be the second sign the catcher put down. If there were no outs, it would be the first sign. “Strikes plus one” worked the same way.

Whole thing is worth a read.

I know it is second nature to these guys but remembering all these signs and then changing them up has to be quite a grueling mental exercise 

37 minutes ago, Quin said:

How the Nationals planned for this was...insane.

Washington Post: Sign-stealing in the World Series? The Nationals had a plan, just in case.

Whole thing is worth a read.

Yeah I saw this.  NYY was doing the same thing.  It is a fucking joke this is and was going on.  It ruins the damn game.  As good as those Astros hitters are it REALLY makes you wonder what those numbers would look like.  I've seen Bregman hit like 7 or 8 HRs so far with this garbage and it just started.

With like 150 pitches in a game by the Nats, if putting down a series of signs takes a few extra seconds, that’s a nontrivial increase in the length of each game.

A very interesting response from Yu Darvish:

 

21 minutes ago, reiks12 said:

A very interesting response from Yu Darvish:

 

Yu has always been very well spoken and intelligent. He gets into his own head sometimes but that's well said. 

To grind your entire life for that opportunity only to feel cheated at the end of the day must really suck. 

Astroball had an entire chapter on this, about Beltran catching his “tip”.

I 100% think it’s bullshit now.

12 minutes ago, bmags said:

Astroball had an entire chapter on this, about Beltran catching his “tip”.

I 100% think it’s bullshit now.

The mistake they made with that situation was telling Yu what the supposed tip was; of course he was going to go back and check the tape. If he can't see it in slow motion on replay then there was no glove waveing.

Also, what a class act Darvish is.

Edited November 15, 20196 yr by Look at Ray Ray Run

I just feel terrible for Darvish because this is his legacy. He left LA because he didnt want his child to go through the threats and bullying. You think about his 2018 season and how putrid he was, how much of this could be attributed to that? The mental stress of thinking you are tipping when you arent, etc...

Do you think that Chris correa, cards employee who went to jail for hacking astros database was right?

He claimed he did it because he thought luhnow brought proprietary information with him from the cards to the astros.

10 minutes ago, Dominikk85 said:

Do you think that Chris correa, cards employee who went to jail for hacking astros database was right?

He claimed he did it because he thought luhnow brought proprietary information with him from the cards to the astros.

He probably did. Luhnow is a cutthroat scumbag

20 hours ago, Quin said:

How the Nationals planned for this was...insane.

Washington Post: Sign-stealing in the World Series? The Nationals had a plan, just in case.

Whole thing is worth a read.

I don't think the "chase the two" kind of thing is all that uncommon. My first college start, the senior catcher told me "chase the two" (or some other number) with a man on second and once I looked at the signs I had to call him to the mound and ask him what the hell it meant. So at a small school, we had been using that sort of thing for a while. That general type of thing is not much different than the "indicator" most 3B coaches use to relay signs to batters.

15 minutes ago, mqr said:

He probably did. Luhnow is a cutthroat scumbag

This one always feels shitty to me.

While you sign an agreement when you take up a job like this - or any job in a data analysis industry - it's likely that Luhnow built a lot of the models himself. The data he built the models with may have even been gathered and monitored based on technology he put in place, but technically that data is owned by the club. While you are being paid by the organization, and they assume the rights of your work once you complete it, it's really hard to work on something for 7 years and then you can't take it with you.

It doesn't excuse his actions - for example, Theo had to leave all his information behind and start fresh - but it does feel shitty when you work for something for so long and then have to start over at a new spot. 

Oh lord, BP is visualizing the sound from the Astros' trash cans.

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/55283/moonshot-the-astros-sign-stealing-left-a-fingerprint-in-the-audio-date/

How many tables do you think the Astros PR department has flipped?

On 11/13/2019 at 6:30 PM, turnin' two said:

Pine Tar, Domestic Abuse and Sign Stealing: The Houston Astros Story

 

Coming soon to a theater near you.

 

Another example of why guys get so much better when they go to the Astros.  Maybe it isn't that they have a great analytics department.  Maybe they really cheat, a lot.

 

1 hour ago, pcq said:

 

Between Ozuna, Brady Aiken (low balling after MRI), trying to force their young players into disadvantageous extension terms, sign stealing...they’ve gone from the Patriots to something even more insidious, crossing the line one too many times.

Maybe it’s actually a good thing for baseball...to have another team join the Yankees and Red Sox as a team we can all unite behind cheering against.

I can't believe how bad this has developed...

Just ~5 or so months ago I was enjoying the skill set of Breg + Altuve + Springer + Alvarez + Correa and amazed at the squad. Now, they are the most hated team in all of sports. 

It's truly despicable. has there been any calls to take away their 2017 world series? I wonder what baseball will do about this.

24 minutes ago, iWiN4PreP said:

I can't believe how bad this has developed...

Just ~5 or so months ago I was enjoying the skill set of Breg + Altuve + Springer + Alvarez + Correa and amazed at the squad. Now, they are the most hated team in all of sports. 

It's truly despicable. has there been any calls to take away their 2017 world series? I wonder what baseball will do about this.

I make that call. ( futilely )

34 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Between Ozuna, Brady Aiken (low balling after MRI), trying to force their young players into disadvantageous extension terms, sign stealing...they’ve gone from the Patriots to something even more insidious, crossing the line one too many times.

Maybe it’s actually a good thing for baseball...to have another team join the Yankees and Red Sox as a team we can all unite behind cheering against.

And they got Bregman as compensation for lowballing Aiken.

It’s like USC football...when they vacated titles, it’s not like Oklahoma got an extra for getting to the NC game.

That said, the Dodgers’ fans and anyone the Astros beat the in the postseason must be up in arms.

The Royals were especially lucky to escape the Luhnow Curse, they were dead to rights against Houston in 2015 and somehow escaped. 

Yelich butchered Darvish on twitter.