In the wake of Major League Baseball publishing its findings about the Astros stealing signs in 2017, Houston fan Tony Adams decided to conduct an investigation of his own.
To see how frequent it was that the Astros banged on garbage cans near the dugout to relay to the hitter at the plate what pitch was coming, Adams resigned himself to watching a lot of tape and a lot of pitches.
To be exact, 8,274.
What Adams found after going through every home game with available video from the 2017 regular season, 58 in all, was that players in Houston’s dugout banged on trash cans 1,143 times, approximately 13.8 percent of pitches.
On Wednesday, Adams released his findings — which also show that certain players such as Carlos Beltrán received more help at the plate than other players like José Altuve — on SignStealingScandal.com.
He also tweeted out a lot of his data.
Astros trashcan bangs by player: bangs vs their number of pitches.
See all the data at https://t.co/kVtisgUo74. pic.twitter.com/mseZmSjmIG
— Tony Adams (@adams_at) January 29, 2020
Astros players trashcan bangs.
See all the data at https://t.co/kVtisgUo74. pic.twitter.com/n9qqapcIZD
— Tony Adams (@adams_at) January 29, 2020
“The truth is bad enough in this situation,” Adams told The Wall Street Journal. “With all the stuff going around, I wanted to say, ‘We know this happened,’ and get back to an empirical fact assessment of the situation instead of the craziness that’s been the last few months … It’s very obvious that they did it. I wanted to see it for myself.”
In related news, the Houston Astros have hired Dusty Baker to replace fired manager A.J. Hinch. Baker’s one-year deal includes a team option for the 2021 season.
“Throughout his successful career, Dusty has embodied the qualities that we were looking for in a manager,” said Houston owner Jim Crane. “He’s a winner, and more importantly, a strong leader who has earned the respect of not only his players, but of virtually everyone that he has touched in baseball. We’re extremely excited to name Dusty as the new leader of our ballclub.”
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