Could the Astros Still Be Cheating?

[MLB Fun]

7 minutes ago, Lillian said:

And what about the evidence that suggests that Altuve was wearing a wire? Remember when he grabbed his shirt, for fear that his teammates would tear it off, while celebrating a walk off homer?

There is absolutely zero evidence that Altuve or anyone was wearing any sort of electronic device. That was completely made up out of thin air by Jomboy on Twitter, and because there was a fervor of Astros hate at a fever-pitch, everyone ran with it without a single shred of evidence. I mean, just think about it. If Altuve wasn't even willing to have anyone bang on a trash can while he was batting, do you really think he'd put some kind of wire on? And if the players were wearing a wire, do you really think they'd try to rip his shirt off? It makes absolutely zero sense, and is one of the sillier conspiracy theories in sports.

Astros players would sometimes rip the shirt off of a player who had a walk-off hit. Altuve didn't want them to do that after having a walk-off homer to send them to the World Series on national television. That's all it was. 

[joejoesox]

what a fucking bizarre hill to die on lmao

[RTC]

Yes, they could.  And could JR still be cheap?

Hard to criticize a team that signs Michael Brantley when you’re stuck with Spanky Mc Gimpy. 

[tray]

Astro players and coaches  who knew about or participated in the cheating scandal should have  received more than a slap on the wrist from major league baseball.

That includes Hinch and Keuchel.  The Astros play if down, but the cheating scheme was premeditated and took place over three seasons including the play-offs.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/astros-scandal-timeline-sign-stealing-punishment/zbe6j4yoi1g21ia0say31zv3n

[MLB Fun]

6 minutes ago, tray said:

Astro players and coaches  who knew about or participated in the cheating scandal should have  received more than a slap on the wrist from major league baseball.

That includes Hinch and Keuchel.  The Astros play if down, but the cheating scheme was premeditated and took place over three seasons including the play-offs.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/astros-scandal-timeline-sign-stealing-punishment/zbe6j4yoi1g21ia0say31zv3n

It was two seasons, 2017 and some of 2018, and there is zero evidence that it was done in the playoffs. It’s also not feasible that it was done in the playoffs as the crowd is way too loud. Also, the opponents changed signs constantly in the playoffs.

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, joesaiditstrue said:

what a fucking bizarre hill to die on lmao

And the dude has a Houston IP, go figure.  Now I wonder about his connection to the organization. 

[ron883]

32 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

And the dude has a Houston IP, go figure.  Now I wonder about his connection to the organization. 

LOL that's pretty funny. Could be a Astros team paid shill, or just a fan that was jaded by Beckham's "slanderous" comments. It's a very detailed and thought out response though. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by ron883

[tray]

MLBfun:

I see you have 4 posts on this forum, all dedicated to the Astros' cheating scandal.

A simple Google search on the topic reveals that the sign stealing scheme was planned in 2016.

As reported this year by The Wall Street Journal, operation "Codebreaker" was presented to Luhnow by intern Derek Vigoa, who would eventually be promoted to director of team operations. The Powerpoint set forth the premise of a systematic sign-stealing scheme in which the Astros would illegally use cameras to get live intel into what pitch was on the way and pass that information to hitters in real time. The possible advantage there, of course, was astronomical.

On Sept. 22, 2016, an intern in the Houston Astros organization showed general manager Jeff Luhnow a PowerPoint presentation that featured the latest creation by the team’s high-tech front office: an Excel-based application programmed with an algorithm that could decode the opposing catchers’ signs. It was called “Codebreaker.”

There are current allegations that it continued through 2019.

The Rays reportedly asked MLB to look for "Houston players wearing vibrating Band-Aids" during the '19 ALDS, and Martino details a tense interaction between the Yankees and Astros hitting coach Alex Cintrón during the '19 ALCS. 

"The exact tone and volume of the whistle would vary, depending on the pitch that [Masahiro] Tanaka was about to throw," Martino wrote. "Yankees manager Aaron Boone and a few of his coaches started yelling across at Cintrón, telling him to stop."

“ 'What the f--- are you gonna do about it?' ” Cintrón called back."

Hinch vehemently denied all sign-stealing allegations during the 2019 playoffs. He said the claims of cheating were a "joke." He was fired in January '20, shortly after MLB issued his yearlong suspension. 

https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/06/09/astros-sign-stealing-scheme-continued-2019-playoffs

There was sufficient evidence presented to the Commissioner's Office that Hinch knew about the cheating scandal all along and did nothing to stop it.  That is why he was fined and suspended and in my opinion, should have received a lifetime ban from baseball.  If he was truly innocent, he would have challenged the suspension and fine in a court of law and prevailed.  I do not recall seeing that he did that.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

16 minutes ago, ron883 said:

LOL that's pretty funny. Could be a Astros team paid shill, or just a fan that was jaded by Beckham's "slanderous" comments. It's a very detailed and thought out response though. 

You can tell the first one was a copied pre-formatted response withe the extra spacing in it.  It's someone who is closely following Houston and adding these responses as more of a PR campaign. 

Personally I feel like posters on Soxtalk deserve to know that this isn't regular message board content. 

[Lillian]

If ever there was a justification for banning someone, that's probably it.

[Two-Gun Pete]

Nah, don't ban (snicker) "MLBfun."

 

Change his name to "Cheatin' Derek Vigoa" or something similar.

[MLB Fun]

1 hour ago, tray said:

MLBfun:

I see you have 4 posts on this forum, all dedicated to the Astros' cheating scandal.

A simple Google search on the topic reveals that the sign stealing scheme was planned in 2016.

As reported this year by The Wall Street Journal, operation "Codebreaker" was presented to Luhnow by intern Derek Vigoa, who would eventually be promoted to director of team operations. The Powerpoint set forth the premise of a systematic sign-stealing scheme in which the Astros would illegally use cameras to get live intel into what pitch was on the way and pass that information to hitters in real time. The possible advantage there, of course, was astronomical.

On Sept. 22, 2016, an intern in the Houston Astros organization showed general manager Jeff Luhnow a PowerPoint presentation that featured the latest creation by the team’s high-tech front office: an Excel-based application programmed with an algorithm that could decode the opposing catchers’ signs. It was called “Codebreaker.”

There are current allegations that it continued through 2019.

The Rays reportedly asked MLB to look for "Houston players wearing vibrating Band-Aids" during the '19 ALDS, and Martino details a tense interaction between the Yankees and Astros hitting coach Alex Cintrón during the '19 ALCS. 

"The exact tone and volume of the whistle would vary, depending on the pitch that [Masahiro] Tanaka was about to throw," Martino wrote. "Yankees manager Aaron Boone and a few of his coaches started yelling across at Cintrón, telling him to stop."

“ 'What the f--- are you gonna do about it?' ” Cintrón called back."

Hinch vehemently denied all sign-stealing allegations during the 2019 playoffs. He said the claims of cheating were a "joke." He was fired in January '20, shortly after MLB issued his yearlong suspension. 

https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/06/09/astros-sign-stealing-scheme-continued-2019-playoffs

There was sufficient evidence presented to the Commissioner's Office that Hinch knew about the cheating scandal all along and did nothing to stop it.  That is why he was fined and suspended and in my opinion, should have received a lifetime ban from baseball.  If he was truly innocent, he would have challenged the suspension and fine in a court of law and prevailed.  I do not recall seeing that he did that.

 

 

Those are all just nonsense allegations from some guy selling a book. I mean, vibrating Band-Aids? C’mon. 
 

P.S., Codebreaker was simply a computer program that would crack the catcher’s signs. Every team in the league had a guy in the back doing it by hand. They would watch the catcher and try to figure out the signs and relay it to the rest of the team so that when they got a runner on second, the runner could alert the batter. Every team in the league does this. The only difference is that the Astros had the help of a computer program to crack the signs instead of just a guy figuring it out on his own. It had nothing to do with the trash can banging in 2017. 

[raBBit]

11 hours ago, MLB Fun said:

Those are all just nonsense allegations from some guy selling a book. I mean, vibrating Band-Aids? C’mon. 
  

P.S., Codebreaker was simply a computer program that would crack the catcher’s signs. Every team in the league had a guy in the back doing it by hand. They would watch the catcher and try to figure out the signs and relay it to the rest of the team so that when they got a runner on second, the runner could alert the batter. Every team in the league does this. The only difference is that the Astros had the help of a computer program to crack the signs instead of just a guy figuring it out on his own. It had nothing to do with the trash can banging in 2017. 

Yeah the Astros use of technology to cheat is what separates them as a scumbag organization. This isn't Art Kusnyer peaking the bench coach and 3rd base coach all game to try his hand at guessing the signs. This is computer algorithms decoding signs and running thousands of scenarios in seconds time.

[Rowand44]

MLB Fun isn't fun at all.

[Bossanoveralls]

I'd like to know who is monkeying with the sox' defensive play algorithms, for groaning out loud.

[MLB Fun]

15 minutes ago, raBBit said:

Yeah the Astros use of technology to cheat is what separates them as a scumbag organization. This isn't Art Kusnyer peaking the bench coach and 3rd base coach all game to try his hand at guessing the signs. This is computer algorithms decoding signs and running thousands of scenarios in seconds time.

That is not cheating. The Astros were never in trouble for their Codebreaker program. Every team in the league would have used computer algorithms to decode signs if they were smart enough rather than doing it by hand. 
 

And, we don’t know what other teams do. They might have had a similar code breaking tool. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by MLB Fun

[raBBit]

Just now, MLB Fun said:

That is not cheating. The Astros were never in trouble for their Codebreaker program. Every team in the league would have used computer algorithms to decode signs if they were smart enough rather than doing it by hand. 

Maybe every team was using them and they weren't dumb enough to get caught?

[southsider2k5]

3 minutes ago, MLB Fun said:

That is not cheating. The Astros were never in trouble for their Codebreaker program. Every team in the league would have used computer algorithms to decode signs if they were smart enough rather than doing it by hand. 
 

And, we don’t know what other teams do. They might have had a similar code breaking tool. 

And now we have arrived at the "everyone else was doing it" defense.  I don't let me children get away with this, let alone a grown ass man.

[MLB Fun]

1 minute ago, raBBit said:

Maybe every team was using them and they weren't dumb enough to get caught?

The Astros didn’t get caught. They were ratted out by a disgruntled former player. 
 

Many other teams have been accused of doing similar things, such as the Rockies, Brewers, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and more. The difference is they haven’t had anyone rat on them. 

[southsider2k5]

Just now, MLB Fun said:

The Astros didn’t get caught. They were ratted out by a disgruntled former player. 
 

Many other teams have been accused of doing similar things, such as the Rockies, Brewers, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and more. The difference is they haven’t had anyone rat on them. 

And there you go, now you have the motivation for Mr Fun to be here.  Hope the paycheck is nice.

[Quin]

6 minutes ago, MLB Fun said:

The Astros didn’t get caught. They were ratted out by a disgruntled former player. 
 

Many other teams have been accused of doing similar things, such as the Rockies, Brewers, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and more. The difference is they haven’t had anyone rat on them. 

lmao, that's what getting caught is my guy.

Astros running black ops campaigns on opposing teams message boards is next level hysterical.

[raBBit]

15 minutes ago, MLB Fun said:

The Astros didn’t get caught. They were ratted out by a disgruntled former player. 
 

Many other teams have been accused of doing similar things, such as the Rockies, Brewers, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and more. The difference is they haven’t had anyone rat on them. 

Yeah Enron didn't get caught either. They were ratted out  by a disgruntled employee.

John Dillinger was never caught either. Just ratted out by a disgruntled woman in a red hat.

[ScootsMcGoots]

25 minutes ago, MLB Fun said:

The Astros didn’t get caught. They were ratted out by a disgruntled former player. 
 

Many other teams have been accused of doing similar things, such as the Rockies, Brewers, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and more. The difference is they haven’t had anyone rat on them. 

Have you seen the video evidence? 

[joejoesox]

13 hours ago, ron883 said:

LOL that's pretty funny. Could be a Astros team paid shill, or just a fan that was jaded by Beckham's "slanderous" comments. It's a very detailed and thought out response though. 

or someone who's still having Geoff Blum PTSD

[southsider2k5]

Honestly the biggest problem of all of it is MLB let them all tell on themselves instead of punishing them for being the cheating scumbags that they were.