MLB Cheating Latest: “Codebreaker” Confirms Houston Astros Should Just Be Cancelled

On Sept. 22, 2016, an intern in the Houston Astros organization showed general manager Jeff Luhnow a PowerPoint presentation that featured the latest creation by the team’s high-tech front office: an Excel-based application programmed with an algorithm that could decode the opposing catchers’ signs. It was called “Codebreaker.”

Wall Street Journal – Jared Diamond

The start to this Wall Street Journal article was so good I figured I would use it to start my blog too… Sometimes you can’t top what is already perfect and Jared Diamond’s first paragraph in the latest update to this Astros cheating scandal is exactly that…. perfect

“An algorithm that would decode the opposing catchers’ signs. It was called “Codebreaker”.”

Alright… let’s stop the tape right there. When this meeting took place in 2016, this whole sign stealing controversy should have ended. Jeff Luhnow should have told intern Derek Vigoa that you can’t steal signs LIKE THAT in baseball, especially at the major league level.

It’s just…. wrong.

But of course, that’s not what happened. That intern would climb the ladder of the Houston Astros organization, eventually landing the title he holds now, “senior manager for team operations”.

The Astros would win the World Series in 2017 using the sign stealing algorithm that Derek Vigoa introduced to Jeff Luhnow that day in 2016 when he was just an intern, and the rest is history.

Apparently Jeff Luhnow is denying everything… what a weasley little asshole. Imagine everyone else admitting to what is happening, except you. That’s a sad look.

Other Astros employees told MLB’s investigators that they believed Luhnow knew about Codebreaker, but they provided no definitive proof. Matt Hogan, now the Astros’ manager of pro scouting analysis, told investigators there was no effort to hide the use of Codebreaker in front of Luhnow when he visited the video room. In fact, he told them, “it would have been something to show we were working and get validation of our work.” Luhnow denied seeing evidence of sign-stealing during those visits.

Wall Street Journal – Jared Diamond

Of course he knew what was happening! Everyone knew what was happening… I just can’t believe it took this long for it to get out.

Apparently the players were the ones who took everything to another level with the trash cans and the replay monitor that is right inside of the dugout… that monitor needs to go. Go to still images like the NFL…

Players shouldn’t be allowed to go freely between the dugout and locker room anymore either. You don’t see players in other sports walking freely between the locker rooms and the bench while play is happening.

Baseball players can tough it out for the entire game, in the dugout OR bullpen. They get paid enough.

What this really exposes at the end of the day, is a conclusion we were already pretty sure of. The Houston Astros organization is rotten from top to bottom.

It’s time to hit the eject button, punt, and start over on that franchise. Let’s be real… before 2016, they were a franchise the MLB didn’t need anyway.

Then, reinstate Pete Rose and apologize to him for how badly you wronged him. What the Astros did is astronomically worse and received punishment not even equivalent to a “slap on the wrist”.

Meanwhile, Pete Rose is withering away in an old-folks home somewhere, being forgotten by the young people whose parents never got to watch him play. He’s becoming nothing more than folklore attached to the top of all the paper record books.

And that’s even more wrong than what the Astros did in 2017-2018.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan