Let me note that I am somewhat vested in the controversy, having been a 7-year Houston resident who earned two graduate degrees at UH. Familiar readers know the quirky story of how I became a Minnesota Twins fan. My first love has never really changed, but I'm also fond of the Astros and there's a story behind that--it isn't just because I lived in the area. Granted, I did become a Bulls fan during the Michael Jordan championship era (not since he retired), but I never adopted other local teams when, e.g., I lived in Silicon Valley, Arizona or the DC area.
One thing I really wanted was a family vacation to see a major league game in person. It never happened for whatever (budget?) reasons; among other things, Houston was over 300 miles away. Dad was assigned to an AFB in south Texas for my high school years. We didn't have cable, but local programming picked up some Astros games on a syndicated basis. My middle brother, about 3 years younger, joined the same Boy Scout troop on base. One year the troop held a trip fundraiser, one option of which was a trip to the Astrodome. My brother and I sold a ton of Amway products, and when the decision came to select the destination we led the charge lobbying for the Astrodome--and won the vote. The Scoutmaster, who was lobbying for a camping trip like Big Bend, was dismayed by the vote result, basically suspended the vote, twisted a few arms and then held a second vote, reversing the outcome. I was furious at the unfairness of the situation. A lot of people reading this may be sympathetic with the Scoutmaster's position; after all, isn't Boy Scouting about camping and the like? With all due respect, that wasn't the point. First of all, we did camp on a fairly regular basis. But they had raised the Astrodome as an option at the beginning of the fundraiser; if they had no intention of honoring it, they shouldn't have offered it. I didn't do all that fundraising work for just another camping trip. I left Scouting shortly thereafter, never going on the Big Bend trip, 2 ranks shy of Eagle. There were other reasons as well, but I thought the vote manipulation violated the principles of Scouting, and for all practical purposes I was done with Scouting.
Years later, I moved from San Antonio, where I started my IT career as a programmer/analyst for a related position in Houston paying about 50% more. I wouldn't say the first thing I did in Houston was to attend an Astros game, but I probably went a half-dozen times or so over my residency, including a game where Nolan Ryan was closing in on strikeout #3000. (I think he got knocked out of the game about 7 KO's shy.) The Astros have been a sentimental favorite ever since, the only home team for my in-person attendances for major league baseball.
In 2017, the year in question, the Astros, who had moved to the American League since their only National League championship in 2005 (swept in 4 games vs. the White Sox), after posting over 100 wins in the regular season, dramatically beat the Yankees to win the AL crown and then beat the Dodgers 4-3 to win their first ever World Series. It was an emotional moment for Houston, which was just starting to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.
So that's the general context. Now let's talk about elements of the kerfuffle, including baseball signs from the catcher to the pitcher. Each pitcher usually has a limited number of accurate, effective specialty pitches, which may include any combination of fastballs, curve balls, slow balls/change-ups, sliders, etc. Hitting a pitched baseball is a complex skill which involves a number of things, including, but not restricted to, timing, location and type of pitch, bat swing and speed, etc.
Every pitcher and batter go into their encounter with preferences and strengths. For example, a pitcher throwing a 100+ mph fastball can smoke it past most batters. A ball breaking down and away late in the pitch can fool batters. Many hitters have trouble getting around an inside pitch belt-high. Part of the pitcher's strategy is to keep the batter guessing about location, speed and type of pitch to throw off their timing. Similarly, a batter may know a pitcher has a go-to, more accurate/effective pitch when worked to a full-count or maybe in a certain game he's having problems getting breaking pitches consistently over the plate. It's unlikely, for instance, a pitcher (other than a specialist) will throw a knuckle ball, with its unpredictable breaks, on a full count. Not to mention each pitcher and batter may have a history of at-bats against each other. For example, a pitcher may have had success in the past pitching him low and away. These considerations may provide data mining opportunities to enhance pitching and batting strategies.
Catchers typically call for pitches during an at-bat, especially type of pitch and location. This is where the current kerfuffle/scandal comes into play. Signs from catchers could be as simple as the stereotype of 1 finger for fastball, 2 fingers for curve ball. Now, of course, if and when a hitter reaches second base, he can see the catcher and potentially "steal" the sign and tip off the batter. Stealing signs is part of baseball history. (You might think a catcher is aware someone on second base could intercept his signs and adjust accordingly.) There is somewhat of a subtle distinction, classically described by Ty Cobb, the greatest hitter in baseball history which I'll paraphrase as follows: stealing signs is fair when it involves players on the field in a contest, but if and when it involves non-players or technology (especially not in the field of play), it's a form of cheating.
So Houston in 2017 has been accused of using cameras off the field (e.g., in the outfield stands) to focus on catcher signs and then for the receiver (say, a coach) to tip off batters (by various rumored means, including banging on trash cans or buzzers on players: note that MLB found the buzzer allegation without merit). I think the allegation was made by a former Astro; MLB has investigated the allegations and found them credible; the Astros have been sanctioned by the field manager and the general manager being suspended for a year and penalized with the loss of multiple high draft picks. The Houston team owner has tried to manage public relations by throwing the managers in question under the bus, i.e., terminating them.
Twitter has responded to the scandal with sore-loser Yankee and Dodger fans demanding that the Astros be stripped of their 2017 titles, calls for sanctions against players, etc.
I have not been sympathetic for a number of reasons, not necessarily related to my past and ongoing support for the Astros, including and not restricted to:
- It's all but impossible to know whether the Astros acted on, never mind benefited from stolen signs. I tweeted a well-known anecdote about Sandy Koufax being able to strikeout a certain slugger using a high fastball. That slugger probably knew that pitch was coming based on prior at-bats with Koufax, but that didn't mean he could hit it.
- The 2017 Astros won 65% of their road games (where they didn't have a sign-stealing advantage) vs 59% of their home games, not to mention the Astros won 2 of their Series games at Los Angeles, including the deciding game, not to mention 3 of the 4 championship games in NY. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that any hometown sign-stealing led to advantages in performance.
- There had been rumors of technology-assisted sign-stealing, and MLB in Sept. 2017 warned clubs after the Red Sox were fined for a related smartwatch incident that there would be a zero-tolerance policy for future violations. So two things: the Astros had to know they were at risk for continuing the practice; second, all clubs (including the Dodgers and Yankees) had to hedge against the risk of stolen signs. And the phenomenon went beyond the Astros. The Nationals, aware of Astros rumors, prepared with purportedly 5 sets of signs per pitcher.
- Batters, even if they can assume reliability of a translated sign (see last point)--what are they going to do--complain to the umpire that the pitch was supposed to be a change-up?, may not be aware of other pitch nuances (location, accuracy, spin, speed, etc.) which affect timing and performance.
