Some better news about sign stealing for Atlanta Braves fans?
Details continue to trickle out about the Astros’ sign-stealing escapades in 2017 and 2018. But one nugget from today’s news should make Atlanta Braves fans feel a bit better.
Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich have been doing yeoman’s work this Winter. They were the ones to break this story initially – with the the help of former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers. But there’s a new revelation today involving an Atlanta Braves fan favorite.
The picture painted of this article today – seen in theAthletic, subscription required and recommended – is of a band of players knowing that were involved in something wrong, but seemingly powerless to end it on their own.
For some, that may end up being the direction that coming apologies might take. For others… it may be difficult to accept.
One thing for sure: Carlos Beltran was the chief architect of the Astros evolving schemes… and he clearly held enough clubhouse charisma to maintain something that was apparently difficult for others to swallow. theAthletic picks up that point:
"Few players voiced any objections at the time to Beltrán or anyone else in authority, and the Astros continued with a different form of illicit sign stealing the following season, after Beltrán had retired. Major League Baseball had failed to take enough action to prevent such activity in the seasons leading up to 2017."
How much power did Beltran wield in that clubhouse?
"…some Astros players, even manager A.J. Hinch, felt powerless to stop him."
Attempts were made
In earlier versions of this story, it was said that ‘the players would have stopped had the manager told them to do so’. The information today actually seems to call that into question a bit.
Clearly, A.J. Hinch twice resorted to some violence in destroying the key means of obtaining the stolen signs – the TV monitor in the clubhouse. You’d think those acts alone should have been enough, even without him holding a team meeting on the subject. Yet Beltran and others simply replaced the broken monitors and kept going.
There were other attempts to get the illegal acts stopped; and in this article, one name is specifically mentioned as being part of the ‘let’s end this’ effort.
"During the season, small groups of Astros discussed their misgivings. McCann at one point approached Beltrán and asked him to stop, two members of the 2017 team said."
It was indeed Brian McCann.
Of note, this isn’t McCann saying this on his own behalf – it was a pair of teammates pointing out that he tried to do the right thing. Indeed, McCann still hasn’t been heard from directly on the subject.
The reaction from Beltran was swift… and showed utter disrespect for the opinions of (apparently) quite a number of his teammates – McCann certainly included.
"“He disregarded it and steamrolled everybody,” one of the team members said. “Where do you go if you’re a young, impressionable player with the Astros and this guy says, ‘We’re doing this’? What do you do?”"
That’s not only an egregious rules and ethics violation… now it goes to one of the behavioral codes in the clubhouse:
"Deference to accomplished veterans is another enduring clubhouse dynamic."
Apparently Beltran saw himself at the top of that pecking order… and even Brian McCann (who certainly should have had some power of his own) couldn’t knock him off that perch.
Not a Universal Opinion
The story continues by noting that some didn’t seem to realize there were objections being raised and at least one Astro believed that many ‘loved hitting with the system’.
The prevailing rationale for doing this in the first place was this conspiracy-laden thought that they were not only not alone in the electronic sign-stealing business, but that is was running rampant in the sport at the time.
But it appears that some of the Astros were trying to do the right thing – at least within the confines that their ‘rank’ in the clubhouse permitted.
It is good to hear that Brian McCann was prominently among those at least trying to stop the scheme. We may never know how much he did or how much he could have done, but perhaps it’s enough to recognize that he was at least on the correct side of the fence.
While it was noted that his participation in the scheme appears to have been significantly less than that of others, it is difficult to know whether he was a beneficiary at any point in the process.
This website – ‘signstealingscandal.com’ – chronicles a large portion of the ‘can banging’ and notes the batters at the plate when the scheme was in use. Of particular note, the graph for Brian McCann truly shows minimal activity for him – especially as compared to other teammates, which suggests that he might have tried to get the ‘bangers’ to leave him out.
No doubt: we were pretty harsh with McCann on this subject on the last TomahawkTake podcast. However, this new information does give me pause personally for my concerns.
There may be no way to get a full accounting of who said what, who tried to stop things, when they knew, what they did… etc. But to understand that Brian did actively try to stand against this tide… that’s good to hear, and I therefore wish to apologize to him for that criticism.