On the same day the Houston Astros were penalized heavily by Major League Baseball for stealing signs electronically, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Trevor Williams had a funny story about MLB’s video monitoring system.
MLB assigns someone to each clubhouse during games to monitor the type of video players and coaches are watching. Live television feeds of the game in progress are prohibited and must be on a 12-second delay.
Guest hosting on MLB Network Radio on Sirius/XM on Monday, Williams talked about how the Pirates might have followed the rules too closely last season.
“Last year, we — the Pirates — didn’t get written up enough,” Williams said. “The (monitor) comes in and says, ‘I’ve got to write you up because you haven’t been written up enough.’ I guess it’s like you’re taking a test and you get 100%, and it looks weird, so you make sure you miss a few answers, so you get a 97 instead.
“I guess he wrote us up for playing Candy Crush.”
Williams also questioned the effectiveness of the monitoring system.
“It’s lame,” he said. “They’re not paying attention. They’re playing Candy Crush. There’s ways to get around it, and there’s teams doing it, I’m sure.”
Astros manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were suspended for the entire 2020 season and the team was fined $5 million for sign stealing by the team during the 2017 and 2018 season. Moments after the discipline was announced, owner Jim Crane fired Hinch and Luhnow.
The Astros also had their first- and second-round pick in the 2020 and 2021 amateur drafts taken away.
