It has been a brutal postseason for catchers, with passed balls and wild pitches and pitches missed altogether because of misinterpreted signs and crossed-up signals. "You know why that is, right?" an evaluator asked. "It's all about the cheating."
It's all about the cheating, the paranoia about the cheating, the paranoia about the paranoia, the spying and the counter-spying.
Major League Baseball would love for this postseason to be about the Astros trying to win back-to-back titles, the upstart Brewers, the Dodgers trying to finally push across the championship finish line and Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez leading the Red Sox. But today, the conversation is about mysterious Astros employee Kyle McLaughlin popping up next to opposing dugouts with a camera and repeatedly being chased out by security in Cleveland and Boston. Despite an MLB statement Wednesday, which included a cursory explanation before declaring the matter closed, we don't fully know what he was trying to glean or if his presence was designed merely to unnerve opposing managers and coaches or if the Astros even benefited from whatever he was doing.
What we do know is that baseball officials and staffers who usually worry about bullpen strategy and spin rate are today asking themselves if they should be wary of surveillance bugs and cameras in visiting clubhouses. They wonder if they need to create something like a baseball version of the White House Situation Room -- a place where their organization's information is secure. They are asking questions about the vulnerability of the WiFi in other ballparks. And they are reviewing critical sequences of games played against the Astros and wondering if Houston cheated to win.
Like it or not, this is now part of the Astros' legacy. On Wednesday morning, some rival baseball officials wondered if Houston's offensive slowdown in Games 2 and 3 might be a direct result of the removal of McLaughlin from the photographers' well and whether the Red Sox's counterintelligence efforts have limited the access of Astros' hitters to information about the forthcoming pitch.
This kind of earned conjecture and conversation takes baseball down a destructive path; these are destructive doubts. There must be confidence that the competition is legit and that anybody who compromises that confidence won't have a place in Major League Baseball.
Commissioner Rob Manfred might feel cornered by precedent in the discipline he can hand down. But just as Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis recognized that the Black Sox scandal was a clear and present danger to the integrity of Major League Baseball and acted decisively, Manfred needs to step out of what has been a mostly collegial administration of the sport and do what he needs to do to end the cycle of spy vs. spy -- not just curtail it but end it.
Because despite what that MLB statement asserted, the matter isn't closed. The conversation continues.
Sometime soon -- today preferably or at the GM meetings in November at the latest -- Manfred should issue new rules about information-stealing, with penalties so harsh that no organization would consider fostering a culture of cheating. Landis effected change with lifetime bans, and Manfred should wield this as well.
If it's determined that a club employee used technology to steal signs: at least a five-year suspension, with the possibility of a lifetime ban.
For any employee determined to have knowledge of information theft: at least a one-year suspension, with the possibility of a lifetime ban. And all baseball employees should be put on notice that they are under obligation to report suspected information theft.
For the clubs: ejection from the draft for a period of no less than three years, with the possibility of a longer sanction.
In other words: Any general manager or assistant GM or president of baseball operations should know that to encourage or permit this sort of thing will end their career.
After St. Louis scouting director Chris Correa was found to have used passwords to enter the Astros' computers and access their information, Manfred fined the Cardinals $2 million and took away two draft picks -- the 56th and 75th overall picks because St. Louis had already expended its first-round pick to sign free agent Dexter Fowler. Many club executives thought the punishment was far too light and would do nothing to deter those who might consider cheating.
Similarly, there was surprise and disappointment in the industry that when the Braves were nailed for cheating in the international market and general manager John Coppolella was given a lifetime ban, his supervisors, John Schuerholz and John Hart -- though not implicated in the wrongdoing -- went unpunished. One rival executive said this was like letting a lowly assistant coach take the fall for everybody else in a rogue college football program -- and that given the type of money involved in the signings, there had to be awareness beyond Coppolella. "It's not like he spent his own money," said the executive, wondering about the trail of dollars.
Look, the stealing of a catcher's signs by baserunners at second base has long been a part of the game, a typically slow and organic and accepted practice. There has been discussion about providing some sort of technology for the pitcher and catcher to protect their signs.
But who's to say somebody wouldn't work to hack into the wireless catcher-pitcher communications? Or bug a manager's office? Or have cameras installed in an indoor cage? Or capture the cell phone communication emerging from the visiting clubhouse?
If baseball has truly reached a stage of win-at-all costs and a willful sacrifice of integrity, there are even crazier scenarios to contemplate -- and yes, club officials are starting to think about them and wonder. Those sorts of questions should scare Manfred a lot more these days than jittery catchers fretting over sign-stealing.