Major League Baseball came down hard on the Astros’ GM and manager because of a perception problem and that’s whom they could punish. Jeffrey Luhnow and A.J. Hinch apparently didn’t instigate or even encourage their coaches or players to use the video-replay monitor to steal the opposing catcher’s signs, but it occurred on their watch, so they have to go. My guess is that any attempt to penalize the players who actually did this would have run up against the players’ union, which would have been messy and taken much longer. Also, as I kept reading around World Series time last year, a lot of people in baseball don’t like the Astros’ management, which probably made this a little easier.

Is stealing signs really so bad? This is not the Chicago Black Sox scandal: no one was throwing games or giving less than their full commitment to winning. In fact, stealing signs has a long tradition in baseball; certain old-timers were famous for their prowess in this regard. There is no rule against the runner on second relaying information to the batter if he can somehow figure out the catcher’s signs. At the same time, I am often told, many batters don’t want to receive this information. It’s one more thing – perhaps one thing too many – to think about when you’re at the plate and you have to be able to adjust to a pitch’s location and speed, not just its type. And there’s always the chance the information provided will be wrong – which will really mess you up if you’re relying on it. The Astros’ alleged means of transmission – banging on a trash can – hardly seems foolproof. “Just let me hit,” seems a more sensible attitude.

No, it is only the use of electronic equipment to steal signs that is prohibited. You can see why MLB, with the ever-increasing sophistication of electronic equipment, wants to quash this practice in its infancy. It also, justifiably, wants to present a squeaky-clean image after seeing the public-relations messes the NFL has been in recently over video-taping other teams’ practices and such trivialities as taking an ounce of air pressure out of a football. Opposing fans will see to it that any plausible controversy will not die. And of course I should mention Baseball’s own bad handling of the steroid era, the taint of which still hangs around every time the Hall of Fame has a vote.

I doubt the stigma will prevent Hinch from managing again, perhaps after a coaching stint, given the high turnover rate among Major League managers, not to mention the willingness of owners to hire retreads (e.g., Gardenhire, Ron).  And managers will henceforth be vigilant in supervising how the game’s video feed is monitored and used. But in all, baseball is just a game played by boys, some older than others, and boys will be boys. If you can get away with something, somebody will try it. Spitballs, corked bats, phantom tags, pretending the pitch hit you – where you draw the line is a question of personal morality and often depends on whether it’s your team or the other guys who are doing it.

As a Twins fan, I found my heart pulling for the more familiar Astros, although my mind favored the Nationals for all the obvious reasons: they were the underdogs, the Astros’ executives were arrogant and sexist, and, believing in the principle of distribution, Washington, D.C. had not had a winner since 1924!
With travel and social commitments I was only able to watch sporadically but didn’t feel I missed much. The games themselves were almost uniformly disappointing, with lopsided final scores of 12-3, 8-1, 7-1, 7-2. Even the climactic Game Seven, which was a nailbiter through seven innings, ended up a 6-2 runaway. What you want in a World Series are games that go down to the last out, the best hitter against the best pitcher with the game on the line. Mazeroski hitting a homer in the 10th; McCovey lining out to Richardson; Joe Carter, Kirk Gibson, etc. Here, the big blow was a “cheap” (because not that long and almost slicing foul) two-run homer by journeyman Howie Kendrick off an undistinguished reliever, Will Harris. And then, rather than mount a comeback, the Astros fell apart, including a run-scoring error by their defensive replacement in centerfield.
Still, all credit to a Nationals team that entered the playoffs as a wild card, won five elimination games and amazingly won four games in Houston. It makes you wonder if future teams will work so hard to obtain “home-field advantage.” There are several other takeaways.
1. Anthony Rendon is a legitimate Star. He got big hit after big hit, including the momentum-swinging home run off Zach Greinke in the 7th, only Washington’s second hit of the game. For all the fuss and furor over Manny Machado last year, I would take Rendon over Machado in a heartbeat.
2. Juan Soto is scary. He only turned 21 during the Series, yet the Astros pitchers were clearly afraid to pitch to him – and when they did it was usually a mistake. Maybe opposing teams will figure something out, or maybe he won’t have the same success against lefties, but for now his future looks golden.
3. Trea Turner and Adam Eaton are scrappy speedsters, fun to watch, in the middle of interesting and unusual on-field action. (Why do I think they look like LA Dodgers?)
4. The Nationals probably won’t be a dynasty. For starters, they have the oldest squad in the Majors. Then, every time we think a dynasty is starting, it doesn’t happen. Think of the Cubs with Bryant and Rizzo; the Red Sox with Betts and Boegarts; now the Astros with Altuve and Bregman. Scherzer and Strasburg were great, but it’s hard not to worry that their best days – or injury-free seasons – are not behind them.
5. The electronic strike zone can’t come soon enough. My personal view is that Game 7, and thus the entire Series, swung on a missed strike call. After Rendon’s homer, Greinke had a 2-1 count on Soto when his pitch at the knees was called a ball. Greinke couldn’t believe the call, and the box on TV showed the pitch entirely in the strike zone, not just on the border. Whether flustered or having to pitch more carefully in the 3-1 hitter’s count, Greinke walked Soto. That led manager AJ Hinch to remove Greinke, who had given up only two hits and thrown only 80 pitches. On reliever Harris’s second pitch, Kendricks hit his home run and took the life out of Houston. We’ll never know if, pitching 2-2, Soto would have been more anxious, and Greinke could have thrown one of his drooping curves and retired him. Then, if Greinke had finished the 7th, Hinch surely would have brought in Gerrit Cole to pitch the 8th and 9th, and the story today would be different.
6. One of baseball’s worst rules was exposed when Turner was called out for interference in Game 6 as he, the first baseman’s glove and the ball arrived simultaneously a foot before first base. The glove flew off, the ball wasn’t caught and Turner should have been safe. Turner ran a direct line from his batter’s box to the middle of the bag, yet the rule would require him to run a zig-zag to first, moving to foul territory before returning to fair territory, where the base is located. More to the point is the justice of the situation: Turner was penalized for doing nothing wrong, while the defense was rewarded for making an off-target throw and missing a catch. When a rule, however well-intentioned, results in a wrong, it should be changed, and it easily could be. For starters: There can be no interference when the runner is within one step of the base (which is what the TV announcers thought the rule said).

According to Wikipedia, a sportswriter in 1985 coined the term “quality start” and defined it as a pitcher’s completing six innings while surrendering three or fewer runs. Whether this is an “official” statistic – whatever that might mean – I have no idea. I have also been unable to learn whether such a quality start loses its quality if the pitcher in question gives up a fourth run after the sixth inning. Many commentators have criticized the standard as too lenient, pointing out that allowing a run every other inning isn’t so great, and a 4.50 ERA is only acceptable for a team’s fifth starter. But decades of computer analysis have shown that the pitchers with the most quality starts are invariably the best pitchers by every other measure, so the concept, meaningless or not, has lingered.
The save, by contrast, has been an official Major League statistic since 1969, although it has been refined in the years since. It can be earned in several ways, but the most common is by finishing a win while pitching the 9th inning with a lead of three runs or less. The creation and glorification of this statistic led to the emergence of a specific position on every roster: the “closer.” Modern analytics-driven managers have recently started to deviate, but for many years – certainly every year that Ron Gardenhire was managing the Twins – every time a team entered the 9th with a three-run lead or less, the manager brought in the closer. Conversely, if the lead exceeded three runs, another pitcher would be used – even if the lead had been three and the closer had been warming up. This mindless worship of the Save obscured the fact that this statistic was arbitrary and relatively meaningless. It also led to hugely inflated salaries for those relievers who had been anointed closers.
To take the obvious example: a reliever enters in the 9th with a 3-0 lead and gives up two runs before recording the final out. He should be rewarded for this? Apparently I am not the first to notice this, as Wikipedia informs that in 2000 Rolaids, which gives reliever awards, came up with the “tough save,” when the reliever enters the game with the tying run on base. Never having heard of this, however, I shall assume this idea went nowhere.
My idea is to introduce, instead, the “quality save,” to correspond to the quality start. My test would be simple: if the reliever faces the potential tying run without being responsible for any of the runners on base and finishes the game while maintaining a lead. (The aforementioned “tough” save specified having the tying run on base; but as baseball has evolved and the home run has become so prevalent, I consider the situation sufficiently perilous if the tying run is at the plate.) This not only eliminates the no-stress three-run, one inning save, it eliminates the save when the reliever starts the 9th with a two-run lead. He can allow a run and still record an official save; he just won’t get a quality save. If a reliever is asked to pitch only one inning and he can’t do it without allowing a run, it’s not a quality effort – period.
As with every iteration of a save rule – and there have been many, both official and unofficial – there is another situation that makes my simple rule not so simple, and it involves a reliever’s entering the 9th with runners already on base. If he has a four-run lead but the bases are loaded, he will be facing the potential tying run – thus making him eligible for my quality save. What if he allows all three runners to score but still preserves the victory? How does that count as “quality”? Still, his assignment is infinitely more challenging than that of the reliever who faces a clean slate. If the latter can give up two hits and a walk and still record a quality save, why shouldn’t the former be able to, as well?
The other problem with quantifying a closer’s saves and listing league leaders for the category is that the playing field is not level (see my earlier post on rbi’s). Obviously, a pitcher can only get a save if his team is winning; therefore, the teams that win the most will inevitably offer their closer many more save opportunities than the Miami Marlins, who are usually behind in the 9th inning. A better statistic than total saves is percentage of saves converted. Commentators do mention this – e.g., Blake Parker has converted 10 of 11 save opportunities for the Twins this year – but there is no listing by percentage. Maybe this could be an addendum; and maybe the same should be done for stolen bases.