Justin Verlander has an idea that could solve two of baseball's biggest problems
Justin Verlander took the stage Wednesday for an ALCS media conference during an interesting day for the Houston Astros.
After news broke on Tuesday of the team potentially using an employee to steal signs, MLB went ahead and concluded that the Astros were actually trying to prevent cheating by monitoring other teams in the dugout. The league’s message was essentially that multiple teams had been accused of cheating through similar means, not just the Astros.
Such an episode is obviously a thorn in the side of MLB, which now has to deal with possible specter of a team or teams cheating during the postseason.
However, according to Verlander, it could all be fixed with one simple change he has proposed to the league. Such a change would also help solve MLB’s infamous pace of play worries, just for good measure.
Justin Verlander’s big idea to help fix MLB
Verlander’s full answer on how to end sign-stealing, via a transcription:
Given that cameras are everywhere, do you have any ideas how to make the sign stealing stuff go away, whether it’s wireless headsets, the communication —
It’s a good question. You know, honestly, I think something that came up for me in talking about pace of game might also help, which is, like you said, some wireless — you see in the NFL with the quarterback, a way to converse between pitcher and catcher and honestly between manager and catcher. I thought — I brought this issue to MLB last year and thought that for pace of game that could probably save 20 minutes a game.
You think of all the signs everybody’s going through — between pitcher/catcher, manager/catcher, especially when a guy gets on second base, I mean the game comes to a halt when that happens because of all the technology and we know that you need to be aware of it.
But I think that can also help. It’s not going to help pitch tipping, but I think it will help a lot with the sign stuff. And I think — I mean, I think this is a lot to do about nothing. I think it’s more peace of mind for the pitchers. Like I said, especially in the playoffs, you don’t want there to be any lingering doubt of anything. You want the only reason you get beat to be because you got beat. You don’t want to have to think it’s something else. That’s why you’re seeing all these advanced signs.
So basically, a team’s catcher, pitcher and manager or coach would all be looped in on a wireless headset, similar to how an NFL head coach can communicate with a quarterback or middle linebacker. The coach could convey a pitch call to both players, who would prepare for the pitch with no need to make any kind of visual signal on what’s to come.
What Verlander’s change could do
Obviously, the first big consequence would likely be the effective end of sign-stealing. Unless a team wanted to wirelessly hack into an opposing team’s feed — though let’s not put that past them — it would be borderline impossible to pick up on what a pitcher is planning unless he accidentally tipped it. Tipping wouldn’t go away, but taking advantage of that has never really been cheating, just strong observational skills.
Getting rid of the few seconds in which a catcher tells a pitcher what to throw and the several seconds used during a mound visit to confirm signals would also likely take out a huge chunk of the length of the average MLB game.
Between both teams, there was an average of 296 pitches thrown per game in MLB this season. Take away even two seconds per pitch, a conservative estimate for how long it takes a pitcher to receive a catcher’s signal, and that would remove nearly 10 minutes from the average MLB game. That’s not quite what Verlander estimated, but it’s still significant.
However, a side effect would be creating an entirely new dynamic of pitch-calling, taking the power to call pitches out of the hands of catchers and into the hands of a coach. MLB and its fans have always been infamously reluctant to change the game of baseball and this would mark a massive change with scores of potential ripple effects.
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