SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — In the summer of 2011, ESPN The Magazine ran a story detailing a convoluted sign-stealing plot allegedly hatched by the Toronto Blue Jays involving the now-infamous ‘Man in White’ parked in centre field.
The sources cited were four unnamed relievers from an undisclosed team who reported seeing a gentleman seated in Rogers Centre stands relaying the signals in to hitters during games. For a while the tale lingered, even though no one made a direct accusation to the Blue Jays and no team filed a formal complaint with the commissioner’s office.
“This is bogus. This is fictitious. This is made up,” Jose Bautista told me at the time.
The same cannot be said of the electronic sign-stealing by the Houston Astros during the 2017 season exposed in remarkable detail by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic.
Former Astros starter Mike Fiers spoke about the club’s system on the record while three other members of the ’17 team discussed it privately, detailing how a video-camera feed from centre field was connected to a monitor in the tunnel leading to the dugout, and breaking balls were identified with a loud bang on a trash can.
An example was subsequently identified and posted to Twitter by Jomboy Media.
Astros using cameras to steal signs, a breakdown pic.twitter.com/rncm6qzXxw
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 12, 2019
“That’s not playing the game the right way,” Fiers told The Athletic.
Major League Baseball, already investigating the Astros over their handling of former assistant GM Brandon Taubman’s deplorable behaviour toward a group of female reporters during the post-season, is now probing the sign stealing, too.
The Astros released a statement and this time did not throw gasoline directly into a fire.
“Regarding the story posted by The Athletic earlier today, the Houston Astros organization has begun an investigation in co-operation with Major League Baseball. It would not be appropriate to comment further on this matter at this time,” it read.
Sign-stealing is, of course, a time-honoured tradition in baseball but anything done outside the field of play is considered verboten. Technological advancements have made it easier and easier to skirt the rules — in 2017, MLB fined the Boston Red Sox for using smartwatches to steal signs against the New York Yankees.
Last year, the Astros were accused of planting an employee to point a camera into the Red Sox dugout during the American League Championship Series, while this year, the Yankees claimed the Astros used whistles to identify pitches.
Paranoia about sign-stealing has been attributed to the spike in mound visits that led to the implementation of limits on catcher trips to the pitcher. MLB strengthened its rules around sign stealing prior to this season, but suspicion lingers.
“There’ve been times because of all the talk in and around it where we’ve wondered and asked questions,” said Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins. “But it’s never been something where we’ve opened up an investigation.”
One coach said the Astros “aren’t even close to only team doing this,” and the latest revelations may provide some sort of tipping point on more substantial action by MLB to try and clean things up, even if Atkins said, “I don’t think it’s throughout the game and rampant.”
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“All that we can do is think about ways to put our players in the best positions to have success,” said Atkins. “When it comes up, we talk about ways to understand if there’s opportunities for us to be thinking about preventing something, or thinking about making sure that we’re prepared from just creating as much distraction as possible. … It’s something we spend some time on, but we spend the bulk of our time thinking about how we can make the best pitches and how we can execute best on the base paths and as hitters and as defenders.”
Sure, but in all the ways technology and modern business practices have changed the game for the better, the use of video and other tools in sign-stealing is changing the game for the worse.
Back in 2011, when the ‘Man in White’ allegations emerged about the Blue Jays, Ozzie Guillen, then managing the White Sox, said, “If they’re stealing signs, you got a dumb catcher.”
It’s not that simple any more. Teams can now use detailed Edgertronic video to overlay a pitcher’s delivery when throwing fastballs against breaking balls to try and identify a small tell, or find any subtle variance that can be used to a hitter’s advantage.
Whether such actions are crossing a line is an important question, one of many Major League Baseball is facing now that the most outlandish of sign-stealing schemes has gone from ridiculous to reality.