Quick recap:
Detroit's pitcher, in grey, gets the analog of his poker-bluff "tell" found out, because it's part of his unintentionally ritualistic pitch mechanics. The Yankees, in white, go on to punish him, all while trying to keep their discovery mum.
This is super fascinating to me, because it's such an obvious pitching pattern, once detected, and the pitcher, who was already intentionally trying to obfuscate his body language, had no idea that his pitch warm-ups had such an obvious tell.
Peak baseball.
Hey ButterflyEffect, questions for you: I bet Jimmy (from Jomboy Media) probably had to get inside intel/permission through the grapevine from Detroit and the Yankees to post this. Do you think he discerned the pattern for himself first? He implies that. And how long do you think it takes to fix that something so far ingrained a rookie pitcher?
I love this. Jimmy for sure would have needed to get permission to share that publicly without pissing off the Yankees, I'm thinking he figured it out on his own. Did see that Anthony Rizzo (Yankees first baseman) shared what the "tell" was with the Tigers catcher in the 8th inning when the catcher reached first base, so that's how the Tigers found out. Which makes sense to tell them, Yankees get to take advantage of it, wreck the Tigers, share how they did it, and now other teams are unable to do the same thing. Probably not as long as you think, once the pitcher actually knows what's going on should be able to be fixed for one as simple as not staring off into the 3rd base stands. Yankees have been a looooot of fun to watch so far this season.
M.L.B. Approves Technology to Limit Sign Stealing The system, which was officially unveiled on Tuesday, includes a push-button transmitter, worn on the catcher’s glove-side wrist, that sends the desired type of pitch to bone-conduction earpieces inside the caps of the pitcher and any three other players the team designates. I can’t find any details on the encryption scheme.Old-fashioned finger signals and sign stealing may soon become obsolete in Major League Baseball. Teams will begin using electronic devices that transmit signals from catchers to pitchers starting this season.
Tested during spring training, the system is designed to eliminate the temptation for teams to employ illicit means to steal signs, as teams have done throughout baseball history.