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Report: Beltran used clubhouse clout to push improved sign-stealing system

Cooper Neill / Major League Baseball / Getty

Carlos Beltran was the creator and driving force behind the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scheme during the 2017 MLB season, Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic report.

Before Beltran signed with Houston in December 2016, the Astros had employed a system called "Codebreaker" that predominantly used Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and an algorithm to decipher opponents' signs. It would have been considered a legal scouting tool had it not been implemented live during games, according to Rosenthal and Drellich.

But several players, speaking anonymously, said Beltran and former bench coach Alex Cora used their clubhouse clout to push a revamped and more efficient illegal scheme forward. They said younger players - and even manager AJ Hinch - "felt powerless to stop" Beltran.

When Beltran joined the Astros, he apparently told the team its sign-stealing methods were "behind the times." He and Cora subsequently overhauled Houston's system, leading to the introduction of banging on trash cans to signal batters.

While some of Houston's younger players were reportedly reluctant to confront Beltran about their issues with the sign-stealing, veteran catcher Brian McCann is said to have approached his former New York Yankees teammate and requested the system be shut down.

"He disregarded it and steamrolled everybody," one player said of Beltran. "Where do you go if you're a young, impressionable player with the Astros and this guy says, 'We're doing this'? What do you do?"

The Astros continued to cheat after Beltran and Cora left following the 2017 season. Players reportedly considered their methods justified because of a pervasive belief that other teams were similarly cheating and that it was a league-wide problem.

"Did we know for sure? No, but there was so much BS in the air about what to believe other teams were doing and not doing," one anonymous Astros player said. "And so it got really muddled."

But Houston's sign-stealing, in particular, wasn't exactly an MLB secret.

"The whole industry knows they've been cheating their asses off for three or four years," one team executive said, according to Barry Svrluga and Dave Sheinin of The Washington Post. "Everybody knew it."

Members of the Los Angeles Dodgers reached out to Brian Dozier when he and the Washington Nationals were preparing to face the Astros in the 2019 World Series, report Svrluga and Sheinin. Dodgers players reportedly warned Dozier - a former Dodger himself - about Houston's extensive sign-stealing scheme.

Former Astros and Nationals reliever Tony Sipp also reportedly warned Max Scherzer that Washington needed to be wary of sign-stealing even when there were no runners on base.

The New York Mets hired Beltran as their manager in November, but he stepped down before managing a single game after Major League Baseball published its report on Houston's sign-stealing in January. Cora was also ousted from his role as manager of the Boston Red Sox.

Hinch and Astros GM Jeff Luhnow each received one-year suspensions following the publication of MLB's report, and both were subsequently fired by Houston.

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