Spy cameras

[Guest 41Forever]

https://www.si.com/mlb/2018/11/02/cameras-stealing-signs-pace-play-rob-manfred

If Verducci is correct here, teams are growing more sophisticated in their ability to steal signs, with cameras at all angles.

Here's the kicker: With all these spy cameras, teams still couldn't do well against deGrom. Shows you how magical his season truly was.

[batmagadanleadoff]

https://www.si.com/mlb/2018/11/02/cameras-stealing-signs-pace-play-rob-manfred If Verducci is correct here, teams are growing more sophisticated in their ability to steal signs, with cameras at all angles. Here's the kicker: With all these spy cameras, teams still couldn't do well against deGrom. Shows you how magical his season truly was.

deGrom was historically outstanding. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the cameras were ineffective against him.
Maybe deGrom would've been even better without the super spying. The Mets didn't exactly kick ass in deGrom's starts.

[Ceetar]

Just off the top of my head when this stuff comes up, I've come up with a zillion ways you could steal signs and get away with it.

[Frayed Knot]

Nothing wrong with stealing signs; if your players/coaches are better at deciphering the other side's signals then more power to ya.
But it's when you start rigging out your home park with electronic devices not available to the other side that it crosses the line over to cheating and then, yeah, the commish's office has to step in on this.

For the same reasons, if/when they install robo-ump for B/S calls then the set-up and operation of that stuff HAS TO BE kept out of the paws of the home team.

[Ceetar]

Frayed Knot wrote: Nothing wrong with stealing signs; if your players/coaches are better at deciphering the other side's signals then more power to ya. But it's when you start rigging out your home park with electronic devices not available to the other side that it crosses the line over to cheating and then, yeah, the commish's office has to step in on this. For the same reasons, if/when they install robo-ump for B/S calls then the set-up and operation of that stuff HAS TO BE kept out of the paws of the home team.

on the second front, they just have to keep that data public like it is now. It'll be ridiculously easy to spot if someone tampered.

On the first, well, sure. I'm sure we'll only a few years away from umpires doing the official "McAfee sweep of the dugouts for bugs".

If I were a manager, I'd probably be testing these things. Like it's bottom 6 with the pitcher on deck, I might say out loud "Eiland, get someone up, I'm going to take deGrom out if he pinch hits Acuna here" to see what happens.

[Centerfield]

Frayed Knot wrote: Nothing wrong with stealing signs; if your players/coaches are better at deciphering the other side's signals then more power to ya. But it's when you start rigging out your home park with electronic devices not available to the other side that it crosses the line over to cheating and then, yeah, the commish's office has to step in on this. For the same reasons, if/when they install robo-ump for B/S calls then the set-up and operation of that stuff HAS TO BE kept out of the paws of the home team.

Agreed. And if they found you have installed shit and are stealing signs, automatic post-season ban.

[MFS62]

Centerfield wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Nothing wrong with stealing signs; if your players/coaches are better at deciphering the other side's signals then more power to ya. But it's when you start rigging out your home park with electronic devices not available to the other side that it crosses the line over to cheating and then, yeah, the commish's office has to step in on this. For the same reasons, if/when they install robo-ump for B/S calls then the set-up and operation of that stuff HAS TO BE kept out of the paws of the home team. Agreed. And if they found you have installed shit and are stealing signs, automatic post-season ban.

Exactly. What ever happened to stealing signs the good old fashioned way?

Later

[Edgy MD]

The commissioner stepping in seems like only an invitation to get more and more sophisticated. Cameras be everywhere!

I'm no sure why they've generally disallowed electronic communication. Why can't the manager wear a headset and speak to his bullpen coach at the drop of a hat? Why can't the catcher tap a sensor under his chest protector and a voice in the pitcher's ear says "slider away"?

I guess the resistance is from a sense of preserving the pastoral elegance of the game, and that's not nothing. But it's passing strange that a manager can put on a headset and speak to the booth and to the world in the third inning, but he can't speak to his staff that way when the game is on the line. Or that a third-base coach has to use an elaborate-but-plainly visible series of hand gestures to call for a squeeze, but the ump has all available communications techto call an office across the country to determine if the squeeze was successful.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Frayed Knot wrote: For the same reasons, if/when they install robo-ump for B/S calls then the set-up and operation of that stuff HAS TO BE kept out of the paws of the home team.

Right. Home teams will be hacking into the pitch-framing detection array
and we'll be back in stone ages again.

[Frayed Knot]

Ceetar wrote: ... on the [Robo-ump] front, they just have to keep that data public like it is now. It'll be ridiculously easy to spot if someone tampered.

Over time, probably, but not always immediately.
Remember that the Braves got caught eventually for making the catcher's boxes wider than regulation at a time when strike zones were shrinking vertically but expanding horizontally. How much that actually helped them is guesswork but they certainly had the pitching staff to take advantage of it and of any umps gullible enough to be fooled by the catcher still being in his box despite the pitch being 6 inches outside.

The point being that time has shown that if teams CAN take advantage of a rule they likely WILL (paging Mr. Belichick) and it wouldn't take much of an edge (an inch or so all around?) to give your side the subtle advantage of hitting with more 2-1 counts and fewer 1-2 counts. The best remedy to keeping them from fucking with it is to not give them the opportunity in the first place.

[Ceetar]

We've got twitter bots that tweet out catcher framing stuff within minutes. So many people, including other teams, have databases and in-game pitch tracking stuff. It would only take an inning or so to realize that one team is getting called strikes farther inside than the other team.