No. I poked myself in the eye with a pencil instead. I did read the synopsis Nate posted.
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My grandmother used to respond whenever we kids would complain about being put upon, “well, it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”
Not always.
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It wasn’t bad to do yard work to.
Listen more, over react less. Listen to the podcast and get the full context. I gave a tease not the full argument.
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Was not talking to you, of course. Was talking to the concept of sign stealing=hits which seems to be the conventional stupidity. This concept leads inexorably to the demand the Astros be stripped of the WS title because they stole it. What you criticized from me was not an overreaction at all; it is my normal reaction to the manufactured “scandal” (I love HH’s “pearl-clutching” phrase) and the attempts to cheapen the title the Astros won. Maybe Reiter did not do that, but I’ll never know. I am not going to listen to even 5 minutes about the Astros-only “scandal,” and certainly not a multi-part podcast unless the disclosures and analysis includes New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and the other practitioners of electronic sign stealing.
He makes it clear that it wasn’t just an astros thing and spends a good bit of time in the last episode discussing the scapegoat issue. It is well done journalism. Something that is rare in today’s world. The premise is really did he miss something in his time imbedded with the team to write the Astroball book. So he goes down several paths in that pursuit. I get nothing out of you listening to it but it made me more informed about several of the aspects of the whole situation.
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Ok, Steve, I trust your judgment and analysis, and it helps it is Reiter. I’ll listen and report back. I’ll bet I still think MLB should be ashamed.
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Finished three episodes of the podcast tonight and will finish the rest tomorrow. Well done, and interesting so far. The label “cheating” applied only to the Astros bothers me a lot. Reiter has done a good job of giving the history of non-electronic sign stealing using the rudimentary “technology” of the day.
ETA: Using no banging for a fastball is so stupid if this actually was the system. No banging could also mean “I don’t have a fucking clue.” No way for a hitter to be sure. You’d think mastermind genius cheaters would have a better system.
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Listened to the entire podcast. Reiter seems to have more criticism of Crane not having any meaningful penalty, increasing the team
Value from $680 million to $2.4 billion in nine years. Stephen Cohen somehow in put in the mix for similar rewards. Reiter accurately posits the commissioner as an owner advocate and contrasts him unfavorably to Fay Vincent. All of this is in episode six, with only the historical info in episode one adding material not already known to this board.
I haven’t listened to the podcast, but I did read Luhnow’s entire petition. Luhnow may be arrogant and tone-deaf, but if even some of the allegations in the lawsuit are true, Manfred and Crane are both full of it. I don’t know the case law on arbitration, but I’m not convinced that the arbitration clause should be negated in this situation, as Luhnow asserts. It’s possible that the commissioner could appoint someone neutral. We’ll see how the Astros answer.
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What conclusion did he come to?
He often engaged in a conversation with himself concerning what he missed or done differently given his role as chronicler of Houston’s ascent. He did say that he lacked much access in 2017. Much of the podcast is rehashed information and speculation
I finished the podcast and mostly enjoyed it. Much of the Codebreaker info was fairly new to me because I quit reading stuff about the “scandal” pretty early on. I thought then and think now the effort to portray the Astros as the sole villain is ludicrous.
What was most absurd to me: the statement near the end that Codebreaker activity (tv in replay room used to relay real-time signs through base runners to the hitter) was going on lots of places and was generally acceptable but Astros’ trash-can banging crossed the line and was unacceptable.
Relaying signals to hitters is NOT illegal; what crossed the line was getting the signals in real-time with a camera, and BOTH systems did that.
The podcast/Reiter agreed with a couple of things I have been saying since the story broke. The first is the Taubman incident was the catalyst for MLB’s action and the media’s faux outrage. The second is MLB and the other organizations were out to get Luhnow for years for a number of reasons, and the sign-stealing “scandal” gave them cover for the assassination.
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I guess I’ll have to find some time to listen. Is the reason that the trash can banging is “worse” because it can be used for every batter rather than having to wait for some to get to second base and relay signs to the runner or were the other schemes also able to work without a runner on second?
Who knows. A cynic would say it was worse because the Astros were the only one banging cans, but I do not believe for a minute other teams limited their schemes to runners on second base.
Interesting also to me: the Astros were right 90% and wrong 10% with the trash-banging system. The 90% had some statistical benefit to the hitters, but not dramatic, and the 10% was a disaster for the hitters. Adding both together, the system was a wash and did virtually nothing to benefit the team.
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Yet the 90-10 equivalence statement was immediately modified by invoking the broader overall effect, which accrued to the Astros’ benefit. The 10% negative impact could follow the favorable 90%.
I have no idea what you are saying here. The net effect was basically nothing.
Ashley McHugh posted on Twitter a while back that the Astros pitchers hated going to Arlington because of whatever sign-stealing scheme they were running there.
There was a follow up statement by Reiter explaining that the positive impact for Houston outweighed the negative effects because in-game circumstances were affected, even though the overall statistics were equal. He said it immediately after the section on the 90-10 split. Otherwise, I suppose, why even try it?
A Fangraphs analysis determined the scheme netted the Astros two runs.
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