Full Documentary

**** PBS!!!

We can summarize the rest of this thread

It stopped in Sept 2017, didn't occur on the road, in playoffs or after,the yankees, Red sox, dodgers and Rangers and 5 other team have all been similarly implicated in similar schemes, only occurred on less than 15% of pitches and very rarely if ever to Altuve (but apparently it's still ok to head hunt him)

If they hadnt beat the leagues favorite pets the Red Sox, Yankees and dodgers this would not be an issue and most teams would be running hacking operations like the Cardinals

The players didnt get punished because they knew were a lot of teams in on this. If the astro players got punished and the other teams didnt lawsuits would take over the game. You cant pick and chose which players go down.

DrZ said:

---

The players didnt get punished because they knew were a lot of teams in on this. If the astro players got punished and the other teams didnt lawsuits would take over the game. You cant pick and chose which players go down.

---

But you can pick and choose which franchises are implicated and which franchises get double secret super serious don't do that letters from MLB for second offenses after being told don't ever do that again…and doing it again

Keeper of The Spirits said:

---

We can summarize the rest of this thread

It stopped in Sept 2017, didn't occur on the road, in playoffs or after,the yankees, Red sox, dodgers and Rangers and 5 other team have all been similarly implicated in similar schemes, only occurred on less than 15% of pitches and very rarely if ever to Altuve (but apparently it's still ok to head hunt him)

If they hadnt beat the leagues favorite pets the Red Sox, Yankees and dodgers this would not be an issue and most teams would be running hacking operations like the Cardinals

---

This week Twins fans will boo Altuve and cheer passionately for Correa. Fans don't care if the guy is wearing their jersey.

DrZ said:

---

The players didnt get punished because they knew were a lot of teams in on this. If the astro players got punished and the other teams didnt lawsuits would take over the game. You cant pick and chose which players go down.

---

The players weren't punished because MLB had to offer immunity to get them to talk. MLBPA would have taken Manfraud to pound town if he had tried to suspend them.

MaxPower said:

---

DrZ said:

---

The players didnt get punished because they knew were a lot of teams in on this. If the astro players got punished and the other teams didnt lawsuits would take over the game. You cant pick and chose which players go down.

---

The players weren't punished because MLB had to offer immunity to get them to talk. MLBPA would have taken Manfraud to pound town if he had tried to suspend them.

---

exactly, the players are unionized and the union made a deal with mlb about immunity in exchange for honest answers

don't give AF. not watching

Bob Lee said:

---

Not a bad documentary. I could have done without the Osuna bit. I guess it was supposed to bolster the rotten culture narrative. That Lunhow and Hinch bore the brunt of it is pretty bad. I didn't know Hinch smashed the monitor as a show of disapproval. Interesting that the AV guy said Hinch thought it was hurting them and not helping them at the time.

I wish they would have tried to demonstrate that the Astros were advantaged statistically at home when using the system. The pitcher at the beginning who got blown up was getting blown up regularly pretty much every time out. To make it seem like the sign stealing did him in was disingenuous

---

This "it advantages them at home" argument is so bad. It didn't.

These are their 2017 home and away team splits. They were so much better collectively on the road it's not funny.



If you look at the individual player splits you will see exactly what you see with every team. Some guys are better at home. Some on the road. The only player who seems to have really benefited based on historical year over year data was Marwin Gonzalez. It certainly didn't help Beltran and he invented the scheme. By the end of the year he wasn't contributing.

Yu Darvish had more to do with the Astros winning a WS than any trash can did in getting them to the playoffs. He was tipping so badly every hitter knew what was coming and they took advantage of him. To make it worse the Dodgers made no effort to correct it between game 3 and game 7. Add in Dave Roberts over managing his bullpen and the outcome almost inevitable.

Funky Winkerbean said:

---

Very fair analysis in my opinion. What sticks out to me is the sign stealing was player based and no players were punished. As an old school purist, I don't know how to defend that decision other than to say I'm glad it wasn't me to have to make that call. I do think last year's title was "pure", as well as the one we'll pick up in a few weeks.

---

It was pre-determined. When the commissioner sent out the memo in August of 2017 telling teams to stop using electronics to gain an advantage, they said the punishment for any teams doing so after that time would be directed at the manager and GM. Thus, the punishment was directed at Hinch and Lunhow.

MLB knew this was going on across the league for years, but it was getting bad, and they clamped down on it. Some teams ignored it, the Astros got caught first and took the brunt of the heat for it. Similar to the crackdown on sticky substances, it was getting out of hand and they needed to reel it in.