Steven Souza claims more than half the league steals signs
They reportedly institutionalized real-time, pitch-by-pitch electronic sign stealing, evidently included the entire lineup as well as reportedly having coaches and management involved. They reportedly did this multiple times in ways that have been specifically documented, occurring in a year that they won their only title and had home-field advantage for two game sevens (granted, it was only the ALCS that the Astros got home-field advantage based on the record).
And the issues reportedly weren’t isolated to 2017, given the “code breaker/dark arts” revelations and so forth. Here’s this from 2018, after an Astros employee was reportedly taping things in the dugouts of Cleveland and Boston:
https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-red-sox-warned-indians-astros-attempting-steal-signs-information-032027336.html“This is not the first investigation into the Astros’ attempts to gain competitive advantages this season, three sources told Yahoo Sports. During a late-August game against Oakland, A’s players noticed Astros players clapping in the dugout before pitches and believed they were relaying stolen signs to pitchers in the batter’s box, sources said. The A’s called the league, which said it would investigate the matter. It’s unclear what the result of the investigation was or whether it remains ongoing.“
“Teams around the league are perhaps more wary of the Astros than any team, fearful that their employment of cameras – they use high-speed models made by Edgertronic to help evaluate players, according to sources – allows them to steal signs.“
Additionally, in connection with the Red Sox Apple Watch violations, the commissioner specified the following in September 2017:
https://www.mlb.com/press-release/commissioner-s-statement-regarding-red-sox-yankees-violations-254435818“Moreover, all 30 Clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”
All this as well as the best interest of baseball clothes appear to have given him the latitude to do things like vacate the title connecting commensurate with Black Sox-level rules violations, including what reportedly happened in 2018 with the Astros despite this warning. I would hardly say that the Astros are being unfairly singled out given the abundance of evidence, the scope of the violations, and the persistence in doing so reportedly well after being warned by the commissioner’s office.
This isn’t even getting into all of the focus their management garnered surrounding the whole Osuna incident; perhaps people will start opining that they were unfairly singled out there too as well on a “most everyone does this“ basis.