This story is juicy.
Stealing signs has always been part of baseball, but everyone in the game frowns upon using electronic methods to do it. It definitely looks like the Astros have been caught red-handed, as not only has one of their former players confirmed it, but there’s video evidence of former White Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar catching the Astros cheating in 2017.
In case you’ve missed the story, here are the allegations reported in The Athletic.
Four people who were with the Astros in 2017, including pitcher Mike Fiers, said that during that season, the Astros stole signs during home games in real time with the aid of a camera positioned in the outfield.
Early in the 2017 season, at least two uniformed Astros got together to start the process. One was a hitter who was struggling at the plate and had benefited from sign stealing with a previous team, according to club sources; another was a coach who wanted to help. They were said to strongly believe that some opposing teams were already up to no good.
The Astros’ set-up in 2017 was not overly complicated. A feed from a camera in center field, fixed on the opposing catcher’s signs, was hooked up to a television monitor that was placed on a wall steps from the team’s home dugout at Minute Maid Park, in the tunnel that runs between the dugout and the clubhouse. Team employees and players would watch the screen during the game and try to decode signs — sitting opposite the screen on massage tables in a wide hallway.
MLB prohibits teams from using electronic devices to steal signs from catchers and the Astros obviously knew they were cheating. On at least one occasion a Houston coach ordered for the screen that was in the tunnel to be hidden out of fear that they would be caught.
And here’s the part where the Astros were caught red-handed by Farquhar. According to the story in The Athletic, the Astros would bang on a trash can in the dugout to signal to the hitter that an off-speed pitch or breaking ball was coming.
Farquhar perfectly remembers that loud banging during one of his relief appearances at Minute Maid Park in 2017.
“There was a banging from the dugout, almost like a bat hitting the bat rack every time a changeup signal got put down,” said Farquhar, who is now the pitching coach with the White Sox’s High-A affiliate in Winston-Salem, N.C. “After the third one, I stepped off. I was throwing some really good changeups and they were getting fouled off. After the third bang, I stepped off.”
And guess what, there’s video of it happening.
Here’s the full game video. If you click on it, it should begin right when Farquhar makes his first pitch.
Oh, those cheating Astros! MLB is obviously investigating them.
Check out the whole story here.
