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This thread seems to surprisingly be petering out here at The Cardinal Nation. Let’s hope it’s not losing steam in the Commisioner’s office too.
Good point. I haven’t seen anything new about this in the news since Winter Meetings.
I wonder if the investigations are done. If so, they could be to the point when they negotiate penalties. What I mean by that is this. I bet that Manfred doesn’t want a public fight with the Astros. He is going to want them to grudgingly accept the punishment. One can surely argue that Houston shouldn’t be in a position to negotiate, but my gut is that MLB will want this ugly problem to go away as smoothly as possible.
The problem with this one is that so many people had to be in on it, I don’t see any way there can be just one person to take all of the heat. There are going to be a lot of accomplices. The more people penalized, the harder it is to contain the residual damage.
P.S. All of the preceding is my wild guess.
Is there an explicit MLB rule spelling out exactly what consitutes “illegal” sign stealing?
Is it cameras no, binoculars yes? Banging on a washtub no, 3b coach scratching his nose yes? Batter peeking no, runner peeking yes?
It seems to me the burden rests with the team using signs to come up with better signs.
<Cardinal in France wrote:
Is there an explicit MLB rule spelling out exactly what consitutes “illegal” sign stealing?>
Great question CIF. I would also like to know if there is a hard and fast description of what constitutes a ‘go’ or ‘commit’ on a checked swing. One game last season some knowledgeable person (NOT McCarver) said there was no written description and that it was up to the individual ump.There was a league-wide directive from 2010 that prohibited the use of electronic devices and binoculars. That directive was codified into a fairly specific rule before this past season.
There is not really a check swing. It is only the umpire’s opinion on whether or not the batter “struck at the pitch.” The basic interpretation is whether or not the batter attempted to hit the ball. I once saw an umpire make an interesting call on this. On an 0-2 pitch (in a critical situation against a nasty closer”, the batter swung the bat on a pitch that was wild by 10 feet. He just swung and ran to first. The ump(s) determined that he wasn’t trying to hit the ball, so it was not a swing. And, that was the correct call.
<ATSOTC wrote: There is not really a check swing. It is only the umpire’s opinion on whether or not the batter “struck at the pitch.” >
That is what I was getting at. Umpires opinion will soon be called into question with the approval of sports gambling by SCOTUS. Several states have already approved it. There have been dirty refs in the NBA and NFL. Some really bad calls in MLB but whether they were incurred by buying an ump is questionable. But a check swing can end a game or change it dramatically. Some sort of parameters need to be established. I think it has generally been accepted that the breaking of the wrists or movement of the bat past the front line of the plate constitutes a strike. I might be wrong on that last one.
So then, Triple, if I understand you correctly, sign stealing is “illegal” only if it involves electronic devices or binoculars, and all other means of purloining signs are “legal,” or, not prohibited?
The basic rule of thumb is that if it is entirely done by uniformed team members, it is legal (but you risk getting ear-holed). If you involve others, it is illegal. That was always the way it was understood by players. It has now been codified. The codification just makes it apparent that a uniformed guy in the bullpen relaying it to hitter is against the rules, too (which was also understood).
I don’t think the players involved in the Astro’s scheme should get off scott free but my sense is that they will.
That is a really interesting question. How do they prove which players participated in the cheating and who chose not to? Or are they all guilty of being accomplices because they knew what was going on?
If MLB suspends the entire offense, would the Astros have to use call-ups instead or forfeit games? If the coaches are suspended too, who would be in charge? The pitching coaches?
It is unlikely that players were the masterminds behind the cheating plan, but it would be ironic in a way to let them off as they are the ones who most directly benefited. Maybe their punishments would be fines instead of suspensions.
A couple of the coaches have moved on to manage other teams so if they are suspended, it could affect teams other than Houston. Quite the mess…
Here’s the thing about the Astros.
Late in the 2017 season the Red Sox were busted for using Apple brand watches to steal signs.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/sports/baseball/boston-red-sox-stealing-signs-yankees.htmlSo in mid-September of 2017, the Commissioner fined the Red Sox an undisclosed amount and issued a strong and quite explicit warning to all 30 clubs. This warning included the following:
“…all 30 clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”
Full statement here: https://www.mlb.com/press-release/commissioner-s-statement-regarding-red-sox-yankees-violations-254435818
So the Astros, in the 2017 postseason, used illegal means to steal signs less than three weeks after being quite expressly warned by Rob Manfred in the strongest terms NOT to do so.
Who do they think they are, Bill Belichick?
(Apologies to all, if these observations/links just rehash earlier statements in the thread.)
Apple brand watches?? Man I have trouble putting one foot in front of the other. How in the heck do you use a watch to cheat? My $8 Casio can barely tell time much less relay signals.
I hear you, Minuteman. We’re trespassers in the postmodern age. Sometimes I feel like I’m Fred Flintstone transplanted to The Jetsons.
But yeah, Apple Watches. Go figure.
Well, I won’t belabor the point. It just seems to me that stealing signs is stealing signs, no matter how you go about it. It’s either illegal or it ain’t. If you steal money from a bank it’s still stealing whether you do it at gunpoint or embezzle it. Angels dancing on a pin I guess.
“If you steal money from a bank it’s still stealing whether you do it at gunpoint or embezzle it.”
And the man who steals $1,000 from a bank at gunpoint will very likely get a rougher sentence than the man who steals $1,000,000 via embezzling. It is understood by one and all that those two activities are not morally or ethically or legally equivalent.
Laws are what they are, and the Astros obviously knew exactly what they were doing, and moreover were warned loudly & clearly. They not only violated explicit MLB rules, but gave the commissioner the middle finger while doing so.
Sign stealing isn’t illegal or against MLB rules. Using electronic equipment to steal signs is against the rules. Its not that complicated.
This is so much more complicated than I was thinking. Brian paints a bleak picture of what could be. Hey, all we did was steal some data and got slammed. Cardinal fans should be following this closely…. ya know…. what’s good for the goose…. I say we get our draft picks back for starters 🙂
You are quite right, there are many who hold that view of moral and ethical equivalency.
But heck, I’m all in favor of stealing signs in baseball. Let the user beware.Again, the issue is NOT uniformed personnel stealing signs, as has been the case for 100 years. The problem is HOW the signs were stolen and transmitted by non-uniformed personnel, which was clearly against the rules. The two are not the same.
Yes, I would propose fines for the players for failure to report the illegal activity.
I’d venture a guess that this would violate the CBA.
For grins, I looked at the CBA. Player fines are expressly allowed, but anything over $10K requires review by a Grievance Procedure. There is nothing said about cheating, but suspensions can be issued for throwing baseballs or other equipment to cause harm, assaulting fans, media or umpires, or questioning the integrity of umpires or the Commissioner’s office. There is also a section covering suspensions for legal proceedings such as criminal matters.
However, there is a catch-all section, the “best interests of baseball”. Following, it states that the discipline mentioned here can be a fine, suspension or both:
“Players may be disciplined for just cause for conduct that is materially
detrimental or materially prejudicial to the best interests of Baseball
including, but not limited to, engaging in conduct in violation of federal,
state or local law. The Commissioner and a Club shall not discipline
a Player for the same act or conduct under this provision. In cases
of this type, a Club may only discipline a Player, or take other adverse
action against him, when the Commissioner defers the disciplinary
decision to the Club.”My conclusion is that players could be fined and or suspended, but they have a right to a hearing if so.
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