Major League Baseball handed down its punishment for the Astros cheating scandal on Monday, but if what MLB fans uncovered proves to be accurate, it may be time to fire up that investigation all over again.
While the Astros’ beat-the-hell-out-of-a-trash-can, sign-stealing scheme was well documented during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, fans have reason to believe that the Astros cheating evolved for the 2019 season.
The new allegations sparked from a series of tweets from a private Twitter account purporting to be Carlos Beltran’s niece that claimed the Astros used a buzzer device to relay signs without the super obvious clobbering of a trash can. However, it’s important to note that the Beltran family denied that the account belonged to a family member. Garry Sheffield’s son alleged that the Twitter account was likely a burner for a whistle-blowing MLB player.
Still, this account wanted to draw attention to Jose Altuve’s walk-off home run off Aroldis Chapman to send Houston to the 2019 World Series. As Altuve approached the plate for the celebration, he could be seen signaling to his teammates not to rip off his jersey. Like, he was adamant about it.
The thought process here was that Altuve didn’t want his buzzer/cheating device exposed to the dozens of cameras shooting the game.
As Yankees Reddit pointed out, Josh Reddick wasn’t as savvy. During a postgame interview, there appeared to be something taped to his chest with a wire in plain view.
Reddick was holding a microphone, so it’s unlikely the taped-on device had anything to do with the broadcast. It possibly could have been a buzzer. It also could have been confetti — the colors did match.
After all, this was the same organization that included their trash-can-whacking station in the World Series documentary. Could this have been another careless slip-up? At the very least, these new revelations warrant a follow-up from MLB investigators. Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer claimed that he had heard about the buzzers before.
MLB decided against disciplining Astros players for their role in the cheating scandal, but if Houston players indeed used actual buzzer devices to steal signs, something more will have to be done.
