It’s like asking whether in football it would be an advantage for the defense to know whether the next play is a pass or a run.
Essentially 100% of players, coaches, etc. would say Yes.
Stealing signs might be worse, because instead of 11 people vs 11 people and the ability to improvise for the duration of a play, you have 1 vs 1 and all you’re doing is throwing a ball. The pitcher can’t make an adjustment once the ball leaves his hand.
The second statement demonstrates the veracity of the first one.
Absolutely no one questions the fact that knowing what kind of pitch is coming gives an enormous advantage to the batter. Most of the strategy of pitching is to prevent a batter guessing what kind of pitch is going to be thrown.
But what if each side could read the signs of the other? Wouldn’t that make them about as equal as if *neither *did?
I seem to recall in the early days of baseball, a batter requested what kind of pitch E wanted the pitcher to throw.
I don’t know that it is most of strategy. It is important sure, but knowing Mariano Rivera was going to throw a cutter wasn’t much of an advantage. And the Astros didn’t exactly go pumpkin when they stopped doing this. The data is noisy, but I’d imagine the system helped, but not really all that much. I think it is similar to steroids in that regard.
So he thinks The Commisioner’s Trophy is just “a piece of metal”. Well, I think he should be removed from his job immediately.
ETA: MLB is really fucked up at the moment, isn’t it?
I think the issue is that we have people called players, and they are supposed to be the ones playing the game. It’s one thing to have the non-players helping to put the players in the best position to win. It’s something else to have non-players, back office analysts, giving real time directions to players.
What the astros did was cheat. They stole signs that they weren’t supposed to steal. It’s akin to stealing a peek at your opponents cards during poker, using a camera, video monitor, and a colleague to send you the info. Yes, if you walk behind me to get some more salsa from the kitchen , I hide my cards, but if you’re sitting in your seat I stop hiding them because you’re not supposed to be using a hidden camera to look at my cards.
Ok make poker (or baseball) a free for all, but the game will instantly be about the technology you use instead of how you play the game.
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Excellent analogy.
Mariano Rivera was pretty much unique in that respect. Most starting pitchers need at least three quality pitches to be effective. Closers can have only two since they will never see the same batter twice in the same game. And a starting pitcher’s effectiveness drops every time he goes through the lineup.
At first, you would tremendously increase offense and have a different kind of game. Eventually what would happen is that you would have a kind of “arms race” as each side tried to figure out how to give signs that were unstealable with existing technology.
Saw this the other day and couldn’t help but be amused:
It’s a picture of Greg Maddux that says “No need to steal the sign. I’ll tell you what I throw. It’s an 89MPH sinker, and you won’t even swing at it.”
I think I know what he was TRYING to say, but holy shit did he do a bad job saying it.
There is really no way MLB could have managed this that would have made it not be ugly, but they have managed to make it way uglier than necessary.
The thing is, there’s now way to say what he was trying to say and not sound like a clueless idiot. It would be like the POTUS referring to the flag as “just a piece of cloth” when addressing war veterans.
This is the timeline
Scandal breaks and is explored: -18% attendance
Red Sox bullshit: -2% attendance
Manfreds further stupidity: -7% MORE attendance.
That may be too inflated but they ARE going to take a big hit.
That all said, taking away titles would be a big stupid mistake.
Can’t wait to see the Sox lose 93 games and the utter chaos of Astros getting plunked.
Something concerning and something that will potentially be awkward is if (and 538 currently projects this as a strong possibility) Houston plays deep into October despite a season of intense scrutiny and potential on-field retribution.
Well, actually, there is some debate about how much advantage there really is.
Seems like it should, but that could be a ‘just-so’ story. Some batters claim knowing the pitch in advance hurts them because their timing is thrown off. Could well be a deflategate situation (though there’s no conclusive evidence the Pats actually deflated balls there) where there’s no actual evidence of benefit to the practice despite cries to the contrary.
Still wrong in any event but also kind of pathetic if it didn’t really help (except psychologically).
The article shows that, although the Astros improved both at home and on the road, they improved much more at home. This would argue that the scheme was in fact pretty effective, even if other factors were involved. (And they improved only in strikeout rate, not in isolated power.)
It’s wildly inflated; they aren’t going to lose 27% to anything short of cancelling another season or a comet hitting the earth. Seven percent would be a disaster.
People are going to buy tickets just to boo at the Astros. I know I might. I’d bring a sign, but I’m afraid they’ll steal it.
Now the Astros are being [sued on behalf](“deceptively overcharging them for season tickets while … knowingly and surreptitiously engaged in a sign stealing scheme in violation of Major League Baseball rules.”) of the season ticket holders. Suit alleges that the Astros were “deceptively overcharging them for season tickets while … knowingly and surreptitiously engaged in a sign stealing scheme in violation of Major League Baseball rules.” And thus “secretly put a deficient product on the field.”
Now this is a suit I can get behind. Doesn’t stand a chance, but I like where it’s coming from.