the cheating thread

he had a decent run, but a .500 record just isn't going to cut it

he lasted longer than wally backman with the d-backs, at least

uh oh

Beltran's niece tweeting about the buzzers, which matches up with what Ive been told from about 5 different parties. pic.twitter.com/zla70bW0Wu

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) January 16, 2020

I don't know if this is a topic of conversation or not (and I can't decode the tweet above): will this cast residual doubt on something like Altuve's MVP (and, way down the road, come up when he goes on the HOF ballot)? I wouldn't think so, but it was the hitters who benefited, after all.

NYC sportstalk radio already fulla Aaron Judge fan bullshit

how is it bullshit

if true, wow

I know lip reading is your thing but it looks here like he’s saying “camisa, no camisa” pic.twitter.com/4LZyGUSCm4

— Alec Guarino (@AlecGuarinoo) January 16, 2020

I mean I can't think of any other explanation for this, baseball players love having their shirts ripped off more than anyone

Hade bcz NYY fans of all ppl bitching about needing more trophies

What happened was wrong. I said so. But a lot of you people are out of your minds. Beltran’s family told ESPN they don’t know that person. I think one reason why people keep us around here is we don’t lose our shirt for every unsourced whistle in the wind. pic.twitter.com/bH8mScReWR

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) January 16, 2020

wonder if Altuve's device was made by the same company

i'm at a loss pic.twitter.com/XcFXjGeWDU

— Natalie Weiner (@natalieweiner) October 22, 2019

My understanding is that "Beltran's niece" may be a former player, the name is a joke?

yes I don't want a trophy, that's boring

*extremely yankees fan voice* wow it’s a shame that the red sox, astros, and mets have all had to fire their managers

Dave Martinez the only WS winning manager who is still managing the team he won the series with.

As a Dodgers fan I want to tap dance on the Astros grave but there's no fuckin way. Everyone is dirty, imo.

It would have been funnier if it was the Cubs.

as they pointed out on the EW podcast, it's "early days" for the Stankeehive to be gloating

plz jesus, let the Stankees be next

Early days lol, our two biggest rivals just lost their managers and draft picks and have been branded for history as cheats

Not to mention the expansion team across the river now needs a manager

gloatgloatgloatgloatgloat

expand this, Booby

lol

If you thought this was going away today, you were wrong. Now there’s a call from Congressman Bobby Rush of Illinois for a Congressional Oversight hearing on the MLB cheating scandal. pic.twitter.com/TJlreTHKYr

— Levi Weaver (@ThreeTwoEephus) January 17, 2020

http://cdn.ppomppu.co.kr/zboard/data3/2020/0117/m_20200117085014_ffqbygcv.jpg

LaRussa double "cheating" pioneer?

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28503160/jack-mcdowell-says-tony-la-russa-had-sign-stealing-system-white-sox-80s

McGwire and Canseco's manager cheated? Damn

this discussion of "Beltran's niece" etc is p funny

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1488-wrinkle-wrinkle-little-star/

Banghazi https://t.co/NpAUb6A6fX

— McNally 🗺 (@LikeTheMaps) January 20, 2020

lol that EW episode number is cursed..

lol

Keuchel apologizes for Astros sign-stealing scandal. Said it was “not like every game we had it going on.” pic.twitter.com/oAS4DewLk5

— Paul Sullivan (@PWSullivan) January 24, 2020

I thought the pitchers would be immune from all this, but I guess they benefited too. Has Verlander said anything? He can get a little self-righteous at times about other people's transgressions.

That’s because of his allergies. He’s constantly battling them with the help of Flonase

I’m an Astros fan. To understand the scope of the Astros cheating & the players involved, I logged every trashcan bang from every Astros 2017 home game w/ video available. Over 8,200 pitches watched and over 1,100 trashcan bangs found. The results are at https://t.co/kVtisgUo74.

— Tony Adams (@adams_at) January 29, 2020

wow. nice job Tony Adams!

https://i.imgur.com/IFvOCQI.png

why'd they bang so little for Altuve?

trying to figure out what the variation of the frequencies of the bangs among the players means. at first i thought it could just be attributed to situational things (e.g., runners in scoring position, or a situation where a certain pitch is more or less likely). but then, compare altuve and gonzalez. they both saw similar numbers of pitches (866 and 776), but altuve only has 2.8% bangs while gonzalez has 18.9%. that's huuuuuge, and can only be explained by altuve opting out of the scheme in some way, like "hey don't bang me, bro". which the other players did not choose to do, it seems.

guilty: gonzalez, beltran, springer, bregman, gurriel, correa, marasnick, gattis, white

total exoneration: altuve, reddick

partial exoneration: mccann

xp

was typing that out as you asked the question! to me, it means he must have known and told them to stop

I thought altuve had the armpit buzzer tho.

was that the theory that turned out to be tweeted by a troll posing as carlos beltran's niece or something? honestly, around the same time there were several different instances, prominent and otherwise, of people getting all riled up by something that turned out to be obviously fake, and i can't remember what the verdict was

Nothing proven on that

looooool i cannot visit tony adams' site at work because of a content filter (i didn't even know we had one)

Manfred policing you

Amazing detective work by Adams. 1100 bangs but the scheme worked for a specific pitch, a changeup for instance. If pitchers through their changeups 25% of the time, then they had to steal signs on 4400 pitches to get 1100 bangs. It works out to half of all pitches for the entire season (or at least within the sample size, which isn't small).

wait was Altuve wearing a buzzer thing proven false somewhere

wasnt proven either way iirc

xp yes and obv some hitters are going to see more offspeed pitches than others irrespective of situation

would like to see this broken down by % of ABs w/ one or more bangs

yeah my immediate thought was that maybe altuve saw nothing but fastballs, but i don't think that's the case

i would never doubt anyone who went to these insane lengths, but i have to say listening to a handful of these audio clips, i couldn't hear much

Just looking at the Jays they used their can against... kind of gross some of the scrubs they felt the need to cheat against.

On August 4th, the game with the most trash can bangs, the Astros scored 16 earned runs. Mike Bolsinger, a Blue Jays reliever, allowed 4 earned runs in 0.1 IP. He never pitched in the big leagues again. https://t.co/iEWXSokLvn

— David Spampinato (@DavidSpampinato) January 29, 2020

Data analysis of Tony Adams data: Astros didn't benefit

Used the data from @adams_at to look at the impact of the Astros' trash can banging in '17. I applied run values above outs to pitch outcomes (ball, strike, HBP, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, out) and compared pitches with and w/out bangs.

Here's the difference by batter at the PA level pic.twitter.com/RyeXPRWzGg

— Bill Petti (@BillPetti) January 30, 2020

paywall:

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/56750/moonshot-the-banging-scheme-hurt-the-astros-as-much-as-it-helped-them/

Astros were one of the only teams to not host a Pride Night/Day. That changes in 2020 -- it'll be held June 24 vs. Twins.

— Alyson Footer (@alysonfooter) February 4, 2020

You knew this was coming: Rose has applied to be put back on the HOF ballot, citing recent events.