The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich reported they had obtained the executive’s e-mail under condition of anonymity. From the article (subscription required):
(UPDATE: ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported Sunday that Kevin Goldstein, a special assistant to general manager Jeff Luhnow, sent the e-mail. Passan reported that Goldstein did not return a message seeking comment.)
The report also said that some scouts expressed to management their reservations about using cameras, fearful of damaging their reputations if they were to be caught.
RIVERA: How do you police and punish sign-stealing?
The Athletic reported that the Astros declined to comment. It also reported that MLB was tight-lipped:
The report will give people more reason to suspect the Astros have been cheating for years. Former Houston pitcher Mike Fiers told The Athletic in a story published Tuesday that in 2017, the Astros trained a center-field camera on the opponent’s catcher and fed the video to a television monitor mounted on a wall in the runway behind the home dugout at Minute Maid Park. Signs could then be relayed to hitters before the pitch.
Fiers’ comments led to Twitter users searching for instances of possible cheating by the Astros over the past three seasons. Sounds of “bangs” on a garbage barrel became widespread on the internet.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in September 2017 that using “elctronic equipment” to pick up signs was a violation of baseball rules. At the time, he was investigating accusations by the Yankees and Red Sox against each other of video sign-stealing and surveillance.
The Astros defeated the Red Sox and Yankees in the American League playoffs and the Dodgers in the World Series that October.
