Biggest cheaters: pitchers or hitters?

Consider two forms of cheating:
1. Pitchers throwing spitballs, etc.
2. Hitters stealing the signs for the pitches.

Which is worse?
Which is more prevalent?

Given the current hysteria, the consensus right now would probably be that sign stealing is worse than "spitballs".

But in terms of a ratio for the 100 years since the spitball has been outlawed, it would have to be astronomically more spitballs than stolen signs. Which makes the reaction to what the Houston Astros did even more absurd. I'm waiting for an active pitcher to confess and apologize for throwing spitballs ... out of conscience. Even more, how about someone quantifying the "edge" that so many, like Yankee general manager Brian Cashman, attribute to "knowing" what  pitch is coming.

Spring training camps have opened and with them the floodgates of hysteria about the sign stealing "scandal" has exploded as even non pitchers, a.k.a., baseball players are irrationally complaining about the recently confessed and apologetic Houston Astros.

Prima donna pitchers have been whining for months. Consider:

Tipping pitches seems MUCH more prevalent than sign stealing. Monday, February 3, 2020

Yes, breaking the rules to steal signs is cheating.

Throughout the sign stealing "crisis/scandal" I've written multiple times that my guess was that tipping pitches by the pitcher or one of his teammates was probably at least 90 percent of the times that a batter "knew" what pitch was coming.
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Today the Los Angeles Dodgers, who lost the 2017 World Series to the Astros, were the lead complainers featuring 2019 NL MVP Cody Bellinger. He complained that Astro second baseman Jose Altuve cheated Yankee Aaron Judge out of the 2017 AL MVP:

Rank	Name	Tm	Vote Pts	1st Place	Share	WAR	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	W	L	ERA	WHIP	G	GS	SV	IP	H	HR	BB	SO
1	Jose Altuve	HOU	405.0	27.0	96%	8.1	153	590	112	204	24	81	32	58	.346	.410	.547	.957
2	Aaron Judge	NYY	279.0	2.0	66%	8.1	155	542	128	154	52	114	9	127	.284	.422	.627	1.049
3	Jose Ramirez	CLE	237.0	1.0	56%	6.9	152	585	107	186	29	83	17	52	.318	.374	.583	.957
4	Mike Trout	LAA	197.0	0.0	47%	6.6	114	402	92	123	33	72	22	94	.306	.442	.629	1.071
5	Francisco Lindor	CLE	143.0	0.0	34%	5.5	159	651	99	178	33	89	15	60	.273	.337	.505	.842
6	Mookie Betts	BOS	110.0	0.0	26%	6.4	153	628	101	166	24	102	26	77	.264	.344	.459	.803

The points were not really that close and Altuve got 27 of 30 first place votes, which are the types of things that get ignored throughout this silly "crisis".

Bregman, Altuve, Springer higher road OPS 2017-2019. Sunday, January 26, 2020

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has this basic concept: no harm, no foul.

MLB should just try for no hysteria or look at basic facts.

The owner of the Houston Astros has conceded that at least some of his batters cheated at HOME for seasons 2017, 2018, 2019 at least some of the time by stealing the opposing catcher's signs using means that were against the rules and conveying the information to Astros batters from banging a trash can to possibly the batter wearing a buzzer. No one has alleged that any cheating occurred on the road. So Astros batters should have hit better at home, which is what you'd expect anyway for most batters on any team...

The top three Astros batters all hit better on the road than at home 2017-2019...

Winners never cheat. Cheaters never win. That would be nice but in the immortal paraphrasing of Leo Durocher: nice guys finish last.

Cheating doesn't always work. So how about that honor code I've been recommending?
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Altuve's 2017 home/road OPS splits: .834/1.081. 30% higher on the road. Did Cody Bellinger even bother to check before he ran his mouth?  There are plenty of examples of people not checking, just babbling on.

Astros Altuve, Bregman, Correa and Springer this week have all admitted cheating and apologized. That probably did more harm than good for them but they finally, belatedly came clean, no matter how disingenuous it was perceived. In fact it may have inflamed more non Astros to speak out.

Showing posts with label Signs.