By now, you probably know about the Houston Astros scandal and how they supposedly stole signs in the 2017 season and potentially in the World Series that year against the Dodgers. We don’t know all the facts yet.
However, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman shed some light on the situation. In a statement made today, he implied that he did not believe that Yu Darvish tipped his pitches in the World Series — instead, he implied that there was most likely some external force that influenced Darvish’s terrible displays in Game 3 and Game 7.
Here is a quote that Friedman provided, courtesy of Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register:
Andrew Friedman today, regarding allegations the Astros used a sign-stealing system in 2017.
"We had a player who was really good at picking up pitch-tipping type things and watched the (Yu) Darvish outings and said you couldn’t sell out on something that Darvish was doing."
— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) November 12, 2019
“We had a player who was really good at picking up pitch-tipping type things and watched the Yu Darvish outings and said you could not sell out on something that Darvish was doing.”
This hurts. However, it does demonstrate that there is a chance that something else was at play In regards to the horrendous outings from Yu Darvish in 2017. While Darvish might still take the blame for the World Series loss — he blames himself — the blame does not entirely rest upon his shoulders, especially if there was some foul play.
Overall, Andrew Friedman implying that there could have been something else at work in the 2017 World Series is pretty unnerving. While this obviously does not confirm nor deny any Astros wrongdoing, it certainly does a force a trend in the prior direction.
