Cheated by Andy Martino

Cheated by Andy Martino

Author:Andy Martino [Martino, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00


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Once, when the Astros returned from a series in Oakland in which they were swept, players complained to a member of the front office about the A’s.

“Oakland was banging a trash can in their dugout,” one player said. “They had our signs.”

The front-office member came to believe that the players were projecting—there was absolutely no evidence, or even any credible allegations, regarding the A’s and trash-can banging. But the Astros had convinced themselves that they weren’t alone.

Because of this, many players were enthusiastic participants in the scheme, internalizing Beltrán’s message that other teams were doing it. Ultimately, nearly all of the Astros hitters at least dabbled. This is proven not only by eyewitness accounts but by the work of Tony Adams, an Astros fan who later spent more than fifty hours watching video of every available at-bat of the Astros’ season and logging the bangs.

Adams, a web developer and graphic designer by trade, created an app that allowed him to collect data from MLB’s publicly available Statcast platform. He used spectrograms, which showed pictures representing the variance in sound caused by the banging.

Adams didn’t have video on twenty of the games played at Minute Maid Park, so his data was incomplete. It also registered scattered bangs from before the May 26 Baltimore series, when the trash-can system was not yet in place. But Adams did not claim that his system was precise, and it did effectively illustrate larger trends.

According to Adams’s research, which he posted on his website signstealingscandal.com, utility man Marwin González benefited the most of any Astros hitter, receiving 147 bangs on 807 pitches.

After González, the players aided most were Springer (140 bangs), Beltrán (138), Bregman (133), Gurriel (120), Correa (97), Marisnick (83), and Gattis (71).

It’s important to note that the number of bangs did not provide a full accounting of the information that the batters had. Any player accepting the bangs was also accepting non-bangs—that is, when there was no sound, he knew to expect a fastball.

Farther down Adams’s list was a trio of more complicated cases.

Altuve was the most resistant of the Astros stars. When the option to have a teammate bang the trash can first arose, he declined.

When Altuve was batting and there would be a bang, he would glare into the dugout.

“He doesn’t want it,” teammates would say frantically. On more than one occasion, Altuve returned to the dugout after his at-bat and yelled at the others to knock it off.

He was one of those players who felt that the additional information merely clouded his mind; he preferred to simply react to the pitch. McCann was also iffy on participating, as was right fielder Josh Reddick.

In the end, all three did receive bangs during their at-bats—McCann received 45 documented bangs that year, Altuve 24, Reddick 28—but very few times did those bangs match the general pattern that helped players know when a fastball or off-speed pitches were coming.

A closer look at specific plate appearances in which those players heard bangs provides further context.



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