You understand that the Yankee clip was a splice of two different games. So, not only isn't it proof of anything nefarious by NY, it's proof that someone out there is very gullible.
Got no problem with stealing signs or watching pitchers to see if they tip pitches the old fashioned way. In my mind this is legit and been part of the game forever. Stealing signs because you're the home team and you've got electronic equipment set up as part of a planned and orchestrated effort to get an advantage is something totally different.
I think the Astros ownership should be given a choice. Option 1 - Astros are barred from 2020 playoffs. Option 2 those that knew and were responsible are fired and out of baseball forever. That will send a clear and direct signal this won't be tolerated now or in the future.
My two cents...
Goosegg posted:You understand that the Yankee clip was a splice of two different games. So, not only isn't it proof of anything nefarious by NY, it's proof that someone out there is very gullible.
You do realize that the clip was clearly a joke and not to be taken seriously, right? I doubt many people who are following this cheating news closely haven't seen the Gardner flip out clip that was all over baseball media when it happened.
hshuler posted:meads posted:My thoughts- if your cheating than use it to your advantage. If you get caught cheating shame on you! Take your punishment.
What Mike Fires said- did the right thing vs snitched. Jury is still out on that.
Yelich vs Darvish goodness gracious! Let it go!Baseball is a skilled sport. Correa knee what was coming and still struck out- so perhaps it all boils down to skill. Pitcher vs Batter.
Point taken but it’s a HUGE advantage when the batter knows what's coming.
If not, why work so hard to protect signs?
Can’t be too much of an advantage if so many are still striking out... just saying
meads posted:hshuler posted:meads posted:My thoughts- if your cheating than use it to your advantage. If you get caught cheating shame on you! Take your punishment.
What Mike Fires said- did the right thing vs snitched. Jury is still out on that.
Yelich vs Darvish goodness gracious! Let it go!Baseball is a skilled sport. Correa knee what was coming and still struck out- so perhaps it all boils down to skill. Pitcher vs Batter.
Point taken but it’s a HUGE advantage when the batter knows what's coming.
If not, why work so hard to protect signs?
Can’t be too much of an advantage if so many are still striking out... just saying
The allegations were from ‘17 season and they won the World Series. Coincidence? Maybe? I don’t think so - but that just my opinion.
I don’t disagree that you still have to capitalize but I’m just saying it’s definitely an advantage if you know what’s coming. Just ask any hitter. If there one out there who says the it’s not an advantage, he’s 🤥 !
Gerrit Cole sits 96 - 98 with a wipeout slider. Would it not be an advantage if you knew which one of those he was throwing at any point?
"I don't want to work
I want to bang on the drum all day
I don't want to play
I just want to bang on the drum all day"
LOL!!!
From the Atlantic article:
"...inside the game, there is a belief which is treated by players and staff as fact: That illegal sign stealing, particularly through advanced technology, is everywhere."
If this is the case, it's probably not going to go away. So why do catchers still use the old "1 is a fastball, 2 is a curve" system? I mean, they don't even try to hide it, the TV announcers tell us what's coming half the time. I don't want to blame the victim, but we all lock our doors at night just in case... You'd think some of the analytical smarts in these organizations could surely be used to create difficult-to-break codes.
hshuler posted:The Yankees too?!?
Seems rather brazen. 
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When you think of the whole thing- from the time a catcher calls the pitch, the pitcher acknowledges and winds up- the batter has milliseconds to process the information, see the pitch and swing.
sure it help if you know what’s coming between an 95 vs 84mph ball but still when I think about it all my mind is blown
Trevor Bauer has chimed in too. He has a history with the Astros accusing their pitchers of cheating with pine tar and calling out bregman.
This goes back to a rivalry with his former college teammate Cole I think.
There's always someone watching.
Apparently the red sox also stole signs electronically in 2018.
The common link between those teams is of course Alex cora who went from the Astros to the red Sox. Nothing sure yet but if they find out that he brought over this method from the Astros to the red Sox he will probably receive a long can, maybe even a lifetime one.
Dominik85 posted:Apparently the red sox also stole signs electronically in 2018.
The common link between those teams is of course Alex cora who went from the Astros to the red Sox. Nothing sure yet but if they find out that he brought over this method from the Astros to the red Sox he will probably receive a long can, maybe even a lifetime one.
If the Astros won the WS in 2017 while stealing signs (with Cora as bench coach), and then the Red Sox won in 2018 while stealing signs (with Cora as manager), then 1) MLB has a serious problem and I would not want to be Rob Manfred deciding how to handle this issue, and 2) Alex Cora seems to be some kind of Evil Genius (or maybe just a really good baseball guy; or both).
Jeff Passan had an article on ESPN.com yesterday with predictions for the 2020 season that was a good read on the sign-stealing controversy:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story...rs-20-questions-2020
As in Casablanca when Captain Louis Renault finds out that gambling has taken place in Rick's bar (as he is shoving his winnings in his pocket), it was equally shocking to find the Astros and now the Red Sox are using technology to get an advantage on the field. Just shocking ;-) .
Since the Astros weren't penalized in 2017 there was no deterrent, and probably the Red Sox are not alone in either stretching the rules or breaking MLB rules. Why not let everybody get that sign stealing video advantage? Arm each team with small encrypted electronics using a virtual private network that can't be hacked in real time so team signals can be transferred without human or digital interference. This is where this is headed unless the Commissioner steps in to set the ground rules, punishment and enforce it. Again, I suspect there are numerous teams that have been doing it. The two that were caught/accused just happen to be the 2017 and 2018 World Series winners...headline makers for the media that has been reporting this story.
it is going to be interesting to see where this issue goes. Don't be surprised if we learn these teams have hired or paid folks to create Artificial Intelligence algorithms to make on-field game-time decisions based on lots and lots of data points over the years. Why should MLB be any different from the Corporate world that understands where competitive advantage is coming from...it is data. MLB front offices are loaded with young highly educated geeks that understand this, and thrive on it. Manfred has some tough decisions ahead.
As always, JMO.
The easy thing is just using an ear piece for pitcher and catcher. If you use an encrypted signal it would take major criminal energy to hack that and it would also speed up the game.
This would probably mean catcher game calling is gone but that is not a too big sacrifce imo. Manager says curve down and in and then pitcher says yes or no and then go. Takes 2 seconds and over a game saves a lot of time and can't be hacked.
I know this is not a laughing matter. Heck I’m an Indians fan. But I came across this link on twitter and I couldn’t help myself.
https://twitter.com/ben13porte...660150448705536?s=21
Its January, folks. And I can’t wait for some baseball!
Fenway is right on.
Winners usually get caught, because everyone is trying to do the same thing!
JMO
Am I the only person who thinks if you signs are stolen, you did not do a good job trying to disguise them and it's you own fault. I do think using cameras is a little over the top but only because it gives the home team an advantage. When I was coaching my signs never changed, my indicator did. I changed it every game, sometimes during the game.
I had a player who quit our team and went to a local rival. The player told me his new coaches asked about our signs. He told me he gave them every sign we had. Then he told them that the only reason he gave up the signs was because I always said that my signs never change and I don't care who knows them. then he told them they will never figure what's being called because I change the indicator all the time.
To me if your signs are being stolen the weren't very creative and or disguise enough and that is your fault.
greatgame posted:Am I the only person who thinks if you signs are stolen, you did not do a good job trying to disguise them and it's you own fault. I do think using cameras is a little over the top but only because it gives the home team an advantage. When I was coaching my signs never changed, my indicator did. I changed it every game, sometimes during the game.
I had a player who quit our team and went to a local rival. The player told me his new coaches asked about our signs. He told me he gave them every sign we had. Then he told them that the only reason he gave up the signs was because I always said that my signs never change and I don't care who knows them. then he told them they will never figure what's being called because I change the indicator all the time.
To me if your signs are being stolen the weren't very creative and or disguise enough and that is your fault.
Pitch signs being stolen via a hidden camera is not "a little over the top". That's a flagrant violation (cheating).
Juicing the ball is only a crime when you get caught.
Greatgame's sons pitching coach has 4 sets of signs and changes sets during the game. I doubt he cares if there is a camera pointed at him.
1) MLB rules prohibit using cameras to steal signs. If you do it and get caught, arguing that the rules should be different or that other teams do it, too, is beside the point.
Posting a guy in the stands with binoculars and relaying signs via hand signals was considered cheating many years ago. Using cameras and other electronics is another version of the same thing. Sure, base runners are free to try to pick up signs—that is part of the game. The Astros are accused of something that has always been against the rules.
2) I don’t mean to denigrate the baseball acumen of anyone commenting here (really) but: MLB has the best players (and presumably some of the best coaches) in the word. It is a multi-billion dollar operation with hundreds of front office staff engaged in high-level analytics. If using an indicator or changing signs more often were enough to foil the kind of cheating the Astros allegedly engaged in, I assume teams would be doing that. In other words, it seems to me that teams are already doing whatever they reasonably can to prevent sign stealing without negatively affecting their teams’ performance. (At some point, making your signs too complex is going to cause more problems than it solves.)
greatgame posted:Greatgame's sons pitching coach has 4 sets of signs and changes sets during the game. I doubt he cares if there is a camera pointed at him.
He probably would care if he knew there was a high-end analytics team in the background (probably using software algorithms) decoding the stolen signs and the decoded pitch was being relayed to the opposing batter...with this all happening in real-time.
greatgame posted:Am I the only person who thinks if you signs are stolen, you did not do a good job trying to disguise them and it's you own fault. I do think using cameras is a little over the top but only because it gives the home team an advantage. When I was coaching my signs never changed, my indicator did. I changed it every game, sometimes during the game.
I had a player who quit our team and went to a local rival. The player told me his new coaches asked about our signs. He told me he gave them every sign we had. Then he told them that the only reason he gave up the signs was because I always said that my signs never change and I don't care who knows them. then he told them they will never figure what's being called because I change the indicator all the time.
To me if your signs are being stolen the weren't very creative and or disguise enough and that is your fault.
Point taken but stealing signs isn’t a violation. Using technology to steal signs is the violation.
Question for you:
How long do you think it would take a professional team or staff to steal your signs? Or figure out that you changed the indicator?
All it takes is knowing your signs for a few pitches to make a difference in the outcome of the game.
greatgame posted:Am I the only person who thinks if you signs are stolen, you did not do a good job trying to disguise them and it's you own fault. I do think using cameras is a little over the top but only because it gives the home team an advantage. When I was coaching my signs never changed, my indicator did. I changed it every game, sometimes during the game.
I had a player who quit our team and went to a local rival. The player told me his new coaches asked about our signs. He told me he gave them every sign we had. Then he told them that the only reason he gave up the signs was because I always said that my signs never change and I don't care who knows them. then he told them they will never figure what's being called because I change the indicator all the time.
To me if your signs are being stolen the weren't very creative and or disguise enough and that is your fault.
If they used machine learning in combination with image recognition technologies they can easily decode a sign system.
Interesting that there has not been any mention of stealing the signs as they come from the dugout to the catcher. Why not have both pitcher and catcher watch the dugout, similar to the way some college football teams signal plays in. The advantage is that you can have multiple guys giving them and make them much harder to de-code.