On Friday afternoon, Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal reported news that is only the latest in a long line of malfeasances in a sign-stealing scandal that has shocked the baseball world.
Astros baseball operations employees and video staffers deployed a “dark arts” system, Codebreaker, created by Houston’s front office to decode opposing catchers’ signs and relay them to Astros hitters in real-time. Then Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow responded to an in-depth email by an intern detailing the covert sign-stealing system with “These are great, thanks.”
Diamond’s piece characterizes Luhnow as excited about the Codebreaking system:
Koch-Weser, the Astros’ director of advance information, said he discussed Codebreaker with Luhnow in one to three meetings after the 2016 season.
Koch-Weser told MLB that Luhnow would “giggle” at the title and appeared “excited” about it. Koch-Weser also said that Luhnow sometimes entered the Astros’ video room during road games and made comments such as, “You guys Codebreaking?”
Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were both fired by the Astros organization on January 13th of this year.
Here are the masthead’s musings on what is undubitably the most eventful news of the offseason.
Charles Sutton: The Astros cheating scandal opens up like a tackle box. There are so many trays of outrageous behavior opening outward that this was clearly pervasive within the entire organization. How can teams trust that the demon is now exorcised and that every last malefactor has been weeded out? Twenty nine teams must forever assume the worst and change signs twelve times a game when facing the Astros.
What a change a few short years brings. People were saddened to see the damage a hurricane can do to the city of Houston, but now what comes to mind with the word Houston? Contempt.
Rev Halofan: The Astros should be given the ultimate punishment: banishment to the National League. Seriously though, the only “take” I have on this disaster is it behooves the players union to allow for stringent player punishments in the next general agreement. The integrity of the game is on the precipice. It is time to act decisively and submit to fair play.
Rahul Setty: I agree with the other responses in this thread: the Astros were too smart for their own good. The punishment in baseball implications is quite light (a pair of first round picks is peanuts for the shenanigans that were pulled), but the Astros may be toppled this year. Assuming the Pederson trade goes through, the Angels have assembled a daunting lineup and a competitive roster, and the A’s have mustered together two straight 95-win campaigns. With a shroud of dark(arts)ness looming above them, it’s not all Juicy Fruit at Minute Maid.
Jeff Joiner: The Astros cheating scandal is a reflection of the “win at all costs” direction sports and society take far too often, especially nowadays. It took a special group of like-minded people to take it to the extremes that they did. Creating a computer program to decipher signs that were illegally stolen in real time took a massive, organization wide effort and the entire franchise should be ridiculed and shamed. I don’t watch sports to find role models for myself or my son. But I certainly don’t want to watch and support people I don’t respect and through nobody’s fault but their own, and the Astros are now on that list. And really, I shouldn’t be surprised. Their acquisition of Roberto Osuna signaled all fans needed to know about the mentality of Jeff Luhnow and his cronies. They wanted to win and didn’t care how unethical they needed to be to do so.
In my mind, the accomplishments of the 2017 Astros will always be in line with David Ortiz’s entire Boston career and given no respect because they were gained unscrupulously. The Astros won and it cost them dearly. It cost them prestige, credibility and respect. And those things, once gone, don’t come back.
Jhmw: The Houston Astros change so much of what we think about in baseball. You can’t trust anything they do anymore. That I felt alright with Altuve winning MVP over Judge because of my hatred of the Yankees feels dirty in hindsight. I’m seriously disappointed in how little the Astros were punished and with every new bit of info we get, it makes the whole situation even worse. I call for a vote of no confidence in Commissioner Manfred’s leadership. This black mark on baseball is equivalent to the Black Sox. While I don’t agree completely with the Dodgers being awarded the [2017] World Series, the sentiment that they were robbed is something I cannot ignore.
The title should have been stripped. The owner should have been forced to sell. Hinch should have been banned for life. None of that happened. And as we see with new info, the front office of the Astros organization is not only morally corrupt in off the field matters, but also directly responsible for the cheating. I hope that other organizations are PR-savvy enough to not hire them in the future but that the owners have to cover for Manfred’s mistake is insane.
The Astros have done the impossible, they have made fans of other teams despise them more than the Yankees. And while I am not quite there yet, it has gotten so bad that I wouldn’t be surprised that I do end up in that same mindset when the season starts.
Stolen from Twitter:
“If you closely examine the broadcast footage, you’ll find that the Angels have been using a sign-stealing system since 2011. Every run they score has been preceded by the sound of Mike Trout swinging a baseball bat.”
Awesome! It’s scandalous
BAN THE LEAGUE!!!
I agree a lot more should be done to punish –
no nationally televised games?
no or fewer replay challenges?
thoughts?
I’ve come to the conclusion that Crane needs to be forced out. The old fish rots from the head thing.
Crane brought in Lunhow, approved Taubman, then gave the OK and increased payroll for Osuna. He fostered the environment for these scumbags to feed off each other.
He obviously has no morals and the next scandal under his leadership is a matter of when, not if. He’s like Robert Kraft minus exploiting human trafficking victims.
@Jeff Joiner
And then what happens to Mr.Moreno? Someone died under his ownership.
The people that are handing out these punishments, are the ones that will be punished in the future, and the do not want to set any precedents that will ruin their future with the league.
Punishment will look really lean at all times. Everyone needs to stay comfortable in the system of things. They don’t need anyone getting chirpy on the goings on in these closed door meetings. They don’t let everyone know what is going on between all the owners as it is. How can you account for every meet up, phone call, or message. There is a paper in Washington D.C., which to all the parties involved, would like it to always stay there.
Mr. Moreno has not been shown to foster an environment of wide spread drug use. He did not willingly hire a drug dealer and his associates then give them not only free reign but further resources.
Tyler’s death sucks, but is in no way relatable here. Countless employers have employees who abuse drugs, that doesn’t mean they endorse the behavior either openly or tacitly.
First post on CPG. So glad you all pulled this off!
What a bunch of cheaters the Astros are. It only gets worse by the day. No doubt in my mind that that Altuve and others were wearing electronic devices in 2019 and the cheating never stopped.
They are tainted forever. I actually feel sorry for the Dodgers, imagine that.
Manfred did MLB a disservice in how he ran the investigation and the lack of transparency. He’s not going to survive this.
This is akin to having a sneak peak at financial information before it hits the stock market, and you gain an unfair advantage. People go to jail for it, and a few people on the Astros have only lost their jobs, while there should be much larger repercussions. They tinkered with the integrity of the game in the same way the Black Sox did. While MBL won’t strip the team of their titles, something substantial needs to happen to those involved, including players. A-Rod was suspended for a year for steroids. Perhaps at least a year suspension for players, and possible outright bans for the most egregious perpetrators.
I’ve been using the Black Sox analogy and many on HH took the position it did not rise (or sink) to that level. However when one takes the viewpoint of ‘integrity of the game’ I just don’t see a difference. Even though there was no betting or throwing of games, it affected the game’s integrity drastically. MLB should ban any player involved from HOF qualification. That would send a message.
@Fansince1971
Gambling might not have been directly involved, but money was. Endorsements, and sponsor money, to name a couple of areas, that has went in the direction of the Astros due to their success for the sign stealing.
Banning from the All Star Game would bruise a few of those egos.
@Charles Sutton
Give the players a few extra days off. It may piss off the fanbase, but the Halos don’t play them in the regular games.
I don’t like the idea of an official ban, because it would be a big fat reminder of the scandal right when baseball is center stage. Besides, I expect that the fans will take care of this matter on their own by not voting any of them into the starting nine. I do hope that no Astro players are picked for the pitching staff or reserves.
If I’m Yu Darvish, and a few other pitchers, I’m sending this info to my agent AND attorney to file a lawsuit against The Astros, and the Luhnow, Hinch, Crane, etc for lost wages as this scheme surely depressed his contract value. This cost his agent big money too. We definitely have not heard the end of this.
@steelgolf
Probably something in the labor agreement that they can’t sue in the MLB or against players, due to the anti trust laws
Age if I’m the Twins I want Houston paying my Marwin Gonzalez contract. It was negotiated based on numbers that were frauds. He wasn’t a good hitter until he cheated and hasn’t been a good hitter since then.
I think MLB needs to have a representative in every dugout. The revelation of project Codebreaker and the fact Hinch and Luhnow knew it was happening means that the teams cannot be trusted to follow the rules. Technology is too strong a temptation. Unfortunately MLB needs to start policing to ensure these types of activities do not occur.
@Fansince1971
Like an umpire? Or someone like a team provided observer, that would make peanuts, and be very happy to get things in consideration.
I had been thinking of that renta-cop hanging around down there, but yeah, too much financial incentive to look the other way.
They would have to be employed by MLB. Maybe the cost for all these monitors should be fronted by the Astros.
“ but now what comes to mind with the word Houston? Contempt.”
I think Californians have associated contempt with Houston since Enron.
Poor old Sam Houston must be spinning like a wind turbine in his grave.
I think Manfred should resign over this. This happened on Manfred’s watch, the integrity of the game is part of the responsibility of the commissioner. These revelations show Manfred is not equipped for the role, the anger and frustration on this story is growing and is going to spill into the regular season like a tsunami of negativity and frustration. Fans could Boycott Astros games, instead of filling stadiums and rewarding MLB for ripping us all off, we should create financial pain for the Astros and every franchise that is playing them that day, so that the other 29 owners force Manfred out as part of this.
I was originally in the camp that the punishment by MLB was fair, and even stronger than what was expected. However, as more information leaks out my opinion has moved to the punishment was not harsh enough. The interview with Hinch was telling in that he was very forthcoming until the questions moved to the speculation of what MLB has not (yet?) disclosed – such as whether or not players had electronic devices on their body that communicated the upcoming pitch.
It seems that after the Astro got away with the scheme in 2017, they were emboldened to evolve it further. Did they likely use electronic devices? Yep. Were the players involved in the planning and strategy? Yep. Did other teams replicate the program? Yep. Will we ever learn the full scope and scale of the fraud? Nope.
While Hinch has remorse about what he did, he apologized for not having stopped it in the interview last night, not for it having happened in the first place. And that is a world of difference.
Valid distinction.
Bluto, I’m of the same mind. While I thought the penalties were sufficient at the time, in light of these new revelations I think further penalties are in order (if these new allegations can be proved; I haven’t read the article, which is behind a paywall).
Agreed on all counts.
They are going to be up against a pissed off team every single night. They will see the best that team has to give on a nightly basis. Personally, I believe they will be worn down by the constant boos and nightly news reports of how they were treated by the fans on the road.
It takes a lot to make me sympathetic to the Yankees and Dodgers, yet here here we are. I personally believe they have no idea what they are walking into in 2020. I know multiple Rockies fans who are planning trips to cities they play in this year just to boo them. And they weren’t even wronged by Houston.
They have tarnished the game we all hold dear, they aren’t ready. Baseball has a common enemy.
Expect to see an uptick in fans of other teams in Anaheim when the Astros are in town.
I didn’t get my thoughts in on time for this piece, but here they are:
It’s time to for the rest of the league to go old-school on these clowns. Getting drilled in the back is something every Astros hitter should expect to put up with in 2020. Same goes for hard slides into second and “incidental” knees and elbows by opposing middle infielders. If Bregman doesn’t put his bat down within three steps of leaving the batter’s box, the first baseman should put him down before he rounds the bag. If Verlander’s got a no-no going in the 9th, bunt your way on and then chirp at him from first base. Charge the mound from there if he has a problem with it. And so on.
Opposing fans should also get fully involved. Be merciless at every road stop. Run onto the field and disrupt the game when they’re building momentum. Throw trash from the ballpark trashcans at them like people threw money at Bonilla and others after the ’94 strike. The rest of the league’s fans should set up a GoFundMe to cover expenses for the brave souls among us who carry these deeds out.
If we’re all united in this approach, the Astros will be 20 games under by July with multiple suspensions and a toxic, depressed clubhouse culture that will never recover.
We can do this, MLB. After much thought, I truly believe this is the most rational approach to square things between the Astros and the rest of us and usher in a return to normalcy.
That would all be amazing. I think what will make it worse is the fact that not a single player on that team will miss a single game.
Had they been punished, I think we could have been a bit more civil. If I didn’t have to see Altuve or Bregman in the box until 2021 maybe i’d feel inclined to just move on, but MLB failed the fans, and we have to let them know they aren’t just going back to business as usual.
They should not be able to step on the field without hearing from the fans.
My thoughts exactly. The players are getting away scott-free. However I do think this team has strong egos and the relentless booing that will occur next season will have its affect.
Burning torches and sharpened pitchforks would be most appropriate, along with crazed wolfhounds if it’s Bring your Pooch to the Park Day. I think the Halo’s home opener is gonna be reeealy interesting.
Does DG still have the tar and feathers?
Always keep a cauldron of boiling tar on standby.
How about we just boycott Astros games. The only thing that will get MLB’s attention is pocketbook.
The Patriots went undefeated until the Superbowl the year after their cheating scandal — if anything a lot of hostility will unite them and perhaps light a fire under them as they now have something to prove. Let them play in nearly empty stadiums on all their road trips. Not hostility, just contempt for the way they’ve cheated.
Trashcan lid promotional nights may be a thing.
It will be interesting to see what MLB’s reaction will be to these new revelations. Of course, I’m assuming that they didn’t already know about Codebreaker.
I was just thinking the same thing. This is new info correct? It links the upper-echelon of the organization to this scandal. Hopefully MLB will react appropriately and institute additional sanctions.
What the Astros did wasn’t baseball, it was fraud. In baseball the statistics are scripture, every number associated with the 2017 Astros onwards is worthless. I think the Astros should be banned from the post season this year. They should play an entire season of nothingness to ponder it, an exhibition season with no DH. They should skip an entire year of draft picks, every round, no picks, they get the left overs. They should refund the cost of the tickets to every visiting fan who requests it for the 2017 post season games. They should burn all the merchandise with the 2017 World Series anything on it, and not be allowed to sell anything related to the 2017 WS, they lose all licensing of WS materials. All flags and pennants from 2017 onwards shall be destroyed, and not displayed. And each 2017 Astro involved should return the ring.