WSJ: The Origins of the Houston Astros Cheating Scheme

Not even just a lack of contrition, but a total blindness to the kind of damage those incidents were doing to the organization as well as his own career. It's like he never came to grips with the fact that this isn't McKinsey where everything is coated in NDAs and it's perfectly fine to engage in whatever unethical behavior to maximize efficiency/profits as none of what you do will likely ever see the light of day. The media will hound you in this business if you get on their bad side and they suspect you are up to no good.

This entire episode is really a good example of how corrosive the culture of management consulting is to an organization and why these firms are so problematic.

 

Hmm...how do I put this....I guess I would say I don't especially have a problem with Osuna being on the team. I hope that he has learned that beating women is wrong and that he has learned his lesson and is deserving of a second chance. On the other hand if he continued said behavior, I would rather that he wasn't on the team. Frankly, I don't believe winning is the most important thing in the world. Quite frankly if you gave me the choice between winning while cheating vs. losing honorably, I'd probably pick losing honorably, with the hope that they could win honorably in the following years. Considering the amount of heartbreak we've all experienced, I can understand those who pick winning at all cost, but that wouldn't be my personal choice.

 

This and I KNOW MLB only cares to the extent it embarrasses them. How? The guy that came up with it is still employed in baseball..

 

It is comical that people are surprised by the development of a code or algorithm. Other than expense, I can’t figure out why baseball teams aren’t using video footage and AI to identify tells of pitchers and batters.

I’m sure the Astros have crazy algorithms to process data from track man and other sources. We didn’t go get that Pruitt kid on a hunch. Or Morton. Or Cole. Or Presley. I’m guessing there are probably ways to use track man data to help our batters.

yes, it was illegal to use video real time to signal to batters. But this should reveal to the rest of the league that if you aren’t using tech to this extent, you might as well not play the game BC in the long run, you’ve already lost

 

No.

 

better than crime school

 

Except this cheating only affects game in the margins. Not sacrifice bunting likely is a comparable if not bigger effect. Most recent analysis with a granular approach measured the effect for 2017 to be 2 runs or about the value Tyler White provided in 2017 in 60 something plate appearances.

On Pruitt, Rays basically gave him to Astros because they were out of 40 man roster spots.

 

A follow up on this...

Basically, when the scheme made a mistake, it was incredibly costly minimizing the reward. Think Correa watching a fastball down the middle of the plate, followed by a post by Buck complaining about it.

 

Anyone else think Hinch took frustration out on the monitor because he thought it was distracting more so than a moral dilemma with it? I don’t buy that he had that big of a problem with it. Actually I don’t understand how he could have had any problem with the whole sign stealing thing and let it continue.

 

We know the Astros played better on the road vs. home in 2017. When I first read that he destroyed monitors I pictured him doing that in a game or immediately following a game they stunk it up on offense.

 

So you're saying we'll see less of that this year? I'm down.

 

Care to tell me what crime has been committed?

If you want to talk Correa and the Cards then that was truly a crime. They got much less punishment from MLB than the Stros did.

This is all about MLB apeasing the media after Taubman and the big media teams Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers etc .... not being able to beat the Stros.

In short, it comes down to money and the MLB doing everything they can to make baseball as profitable as possible.

As Stros fans we need to accept we're small fish in a big pond.

 

Astros won fair and square. The haters are gonna hate ..just let them hate because we won!

 

Maybe. However, I think Astros have flipped Codebreaker from the CF camera to behind the plate to catch tipping. Plus, Correa is great at hitting offspeed pitches so he looks offspeed a lot. More than likely, Correa will take more fastballs down the middle without sign stealing now that Correa knows the benefits of hanging curves.

 

I think we should keep banging on the trash cans just to mess with the minds of the opposing pitchers.

 

Yep, embrace the darkness.

I'm looking forward to the tiny bat with a small trash can day promotion. I would show up on a Tuesday night for this.

 

If Fiers has the mental fortitude to pitch in Houston, I am showing up with a trash can and a bat.

 

Hinch also had far less leverage back then... he presided over a 2015 playoff collapse and 2016 regression. Luhnow was easily dominant in that dynamic.

 

Oh boy, we're to the "damage to the game" point of any sports "scandal." This is the point where the media and critic circle jerk has reached critical mass, and there's nothing else that can be done or said. At this point, we can all safely just move on with our lives while they finish each other off.