Author: /u/Trees_feel_too

TLDR: Reliever Ryan Tepera accused the Astros of stealing signs this postseason. Dusty Baker didn’t really respond. I do too much research to see if they are. I conclude the Astros are not stealing signs and the White Sox pitchers were just bad in the first two games.

Summary:

Chicago White Sox reliever Ryan Tepera accused the Astros of stealing signs when at Minute Made. Per Tepera –

They’ve obviously had a reputation of doing some sketchy stuff over there, and we can say that it’s a little bit of a difference… Ithink you saw the swings and misses tonight compared to the first two games at Minute Made [park].

On Monday, Dusty Baker half-addressed allegations by the Tepera. He states –

They’re about the same runs, OPS and everything as we are — well, actually, better on the road than we are at home … And I think they’re actually better at home than they are on the road … So I don’t have much of a response to that other than I was listening to Eric Clapton this morning, and he had a song “before you accuse me (Take a look at yourself).” you know what I mean? That’s all I got to say

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First things first lets address the OPS home vs away for both teams.

Team	Home OPS	Away OPS
Chicago	.789	.729
Astros	.787	.780

Both teams hit very well at home and not as well on the road. However, this is a consistent trend across MLB.

Team	Home OPS	Away OPS
ALL of the MLB	.744	.713
Diamondbacks	.725	.658
Boston	.831	.724
Atlanta	.766	.743
Angels	.744	.690

This trend has numerous documented reasons — https://sabr.org/journal/article/home-field-advantage/ Teams in general play better at home. Scoring, K/BB. Homeruns, HBP, etc. everything is better.

So, looking at OPS or any basic stats does very little to prove or disprove the innocence of the Astros.

In my opinion (and Tepera’s opinion), a much better indicator of sign stealing (without listening for whistles/bangs/buzzers) would be to look at the Astros Whiff% throughout the year vs. the post season.

First up 2021 Swing / Whiff / Called Strike %

Astros Lineup	Fastballs	Whiff %	Breaking Total	Whiff %	Off Speed Total	Whiff %
Jose Altuve	1346	10.5%	799	23.0%	341	19.6%
Michael Brantley	1107	8.0%	467	16.3%	292	13.7%
Alex Bregman	947	10.3%	445	13.8%	201	21.3%
Yordan Alvarez	1282	17.9%	714	27.3%	400	29.0%
Yuli Gurriel	1345	10.8%	664	20.6%	282	15.1%
Carlos Correa	1510	15.4%	774	29.5%	326	23.0%
Kyle Tucker	1204	17.1%	600	24.6%	376	25.3%
Jake Meyers	347	18.9%	239	38.8%	69	58.3%
Martin Maldonado	1063	23.6%	583	38.2%	143	30.7%
Chas McCormick	755	32.0%	405	42.0%	124	35.7%
Aledmys Diaz	648	19.0%	347	24.6%	145	32.9%
Jason Castro	461	28.9%	190	46.8%	121	43.5%

Now we know roughly how these guys perform. Similar to the fluctuation in OPS between home and away, a 5% wiff rate difference wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. Translating into an extra swing and miss per game. This may be an incorrect assumption, but I couldn’t find data showing the splits between home and away swing rates.

Meaning if Jose Altuve sees 20 fastballs he should whiff at 2 at home or 3 on the road.

Second up 2021 Post Season –

Game 1 Astros 6 – White Sox 1

This could not have been a better match up for the astros. By-in-large the whiff rate by the astros on fastballs is superb. Lance Lynn has turned in multiple cy young years living off throwing majority fastballs and cutter. The game plan in game 1 was no different. of the146 pitches 119 were fastballs.

It’s no secret to anyone that Lance is going to come to the game and pound the zone and pound fastballs. Lance’s Whiff% is 26.5%.

Player	Game 1 Fastballs (4 seam, Cutter, Sinker)	Game 1 Fast ball whiffs	Game 1 Breaking Ball (Curve, Slider)	Game 1 Breaking Ball Whiffs	Game 1 Offspeed (split, change)	Game 1 Offspeed whiff
Jose Altuve	23	2	2	0	0	0
Michael Brantley	14	0	1	1	1	0
Alex Bregman	13	1	4	0	0	0
Yordan Alvarez	13	2	4	0	1	0
Yuli Gurriel	18	1	5	2	0	0
Carlos Correa	10	0	2	0	0	0
Kyle Tucker	11	2	2	2	0	0
Jake Meyers	7	1	3	0	0	0
Martin Maldonado	10	3	2	0	0	0

So looking at game 1 – the Astros saw 119 fastballs, they whiffed at 12, giving them an impressive 10% whiff rate. However, that number is carried by the fact that fastball hitters were challenged with fastballs.

• Jose Altuve saw 23 fastballs and whiffed at 2 – which is consistent with his season average of 10.5%
• Michael Brantley saw 14 fastballs and didn’t whiff once. – this was an incredible performance in a vacuum, but his season average was 8%. We would expect 1 whiff with 14 fastballs, so not whiffing isn’t out of the ordinary.
• Yuli Gurriel saw 18 and whiffed once, again, he is a 10.8% whiff rate on fastballs… and he whiffed at 1, so slightly lower than his average.
• If you exclude the 3 guys who saw the most fastballs AND the best fastball hitters on the team, the whiff was 14%. It’s low, but when you game plan for a guy coming in and throwing fastballs, it’s understandable.

​

Game 2 Astros 9 – White Sox 4

Lucas Giolito is the sweet heart of foolishbaseball and the baseball community. For great reason. He made some incredible changes to his mechanics, approach, and pitch mix. That being said, coming in with the approach that you’re going to throw a majority fastballs to the Astros might not be the best game plan — see Game 1.

Lucas / the rest of the white sox staff threw 71 fastballs, 44 breakers and 27 offspeed pitches. Looking at Lucas’s rates for each — Fastball – 25.6%, breaker – 38%, offspeed – 35.4%. Meaning we should see 18 whiffs on the fastball, 16 of the breakers, and 10 on the offspeed… Let’s take a look.

Player	Game 2 Fastballs (4 seam, Cutter, Sinker)	Game 2 Fast ball whiffs	Game 2 Breaking Ball (Curve, Slider)	Game 2 Breaking Ball Whiffs	Game 2 Offspeed (split, change)	Game 2 Offspeed whiff
Jose Altuve	13	1	6	2	6	0
Michael Brantley	5	0	7	5	2	0
Alex Bregman	8	1	5	1	5	0
Yordan Alvarez	12	0	3	1	3	0
Yuli Gurriel	4	0	3	0	2	0
Carlos Correa	12	1	8	1	3	1
Kyle Tucker	4	0	5	0	3	1
Chas McCormick	7	0	5	0	2	0
Martin Maldonado	6	0	2	0	1	0

Totals by the astros for this game:

• Fastball whiffs – 3 — expected 18
• Breakers – 10 — expected 16
• Offspeed – 2 — expected 10

Looking at JUST Giolito and Kimbrel it paints a very interesting picture.

• Giolito
  • Fastball – 13% whiff… granted, his fastball was not ideal against the astros on this night.
    • 1.1 mph harder
    • Spinning less
    • less vertical break (averages 12 inches, today was 10)
    • less horizontal break (7 average, 5 today)
  • Slider – 56%
    • Thrown 1.4 mph harder
    • spinning slightly less
    • less vertical break (averages 32, 30 today)
    • less horizontal break (averages 3, today 2)
  • Change up – 14%
    • Thrown 1.5 mph harder
    • More spin
    • Less vertical break (average 28, today 24)
    • More horizontal break (averages 10, today 12)

All in all, Giolito did not look like himself. He was amped up and throwing harder, but sacrificing movement and control. Only 1 slider was in the zone the entire night. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?date=10/8/2021&gamePk=660934&chartType=pitch&legendType=pitchName&playerType=pitcher&inning=&count=&pitchHand=&batSide=&descFilter=&ptFilter=&resultFilter=&hf=illustrator#660934

If the Astros see that he is missing the zone on his slider every single pitch, then you know he only has a fastball or change up left. And looking at his pitch chart, he was throwing belt high nearly his entire start. When he missed with his fastball, it was up, and his change up was down. But if it was in the zone, belt high.

• Kimbrel
  • Without breaking down each of his stats. Kimbrel has been scuffling since going to the Sox. Today was no different, he gave up a double and a homer.

Everyone else did not throw enough pitches to be statistically significant in my opinion. (14, 5, 13, 13, 7).

Game 3 Astros 6 – White Sox 12

Finally… if you’re still with me…

Dylan Cease’s whiff rates – Fastballs – 23%, Breakers – 48%, Offspeed – 47.7%. Meaning in his start, we would’ve expected 5 fastball whiffs, 10 breaker whiffs, and some number of offspeed whiffs, but he didn’t throw any.

Player	Game 3 Fastballs (4 seam, Cutter, Sinker)	Game 3 Fast ball whiffs	Game 3 Breaking Ball (Curve, Slider)	Game 3 Breaking Ball Whiffs	Game 3 Offspeed (split, change)	Game 3 Offspeed whiff
Jose Altuve	8	0	11	3	1	1
Michael Brantley	10	1	7	0	1	0
Alex Bregman	11	1	4	1	0	0
Yordan Alvarez	10	1	9	2	0	0
Yuli Gurriel	5	0	9	2	1	1
Carlos Correa	14	0	6	2	0	0
Kyle Tucker	7	1	1	0	1	0
Jake Meyers	3	1	9	1	0	0
Martin Maldonado	8	1	9	2	0	0
Aledmys Diaz	1	0	0	0	0	0
Jason Castro	4	2	2	0	0	0

Dylan Cease failed in a similar way to Giolito, he couldn’t find the zone. Of his 66 pitches, only 12 were in the zone https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?date=10/10/2021&gamePk=660931&chartType=pitch&legendType=pitchName&playerType=pitcher&inning=&count=&pitchHand=&batSide=&descFilter=&ptFilter=&resultFilter=&hf=illustrator#660931.

The pitches that were in the zone were sliders and sitting belt high.

Once he was pulled, guys in general were attacking the zone and consistent enough to cause more swings and misses.

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Long story short.

The Sox did not seem to have a good game plan in game 1. Only exacerbated by Lance Lynns 4.41 era against the Astros over his career…

Game 2 was more of a product of Giolito missing the zone, resulting the in the astros sitting fastballs in one place. And his relievers were grooving pitches down the middle. You can’t blame the Astros for jumping on Ryan Tepera’s 2 fastballs middle middle at 92.8 mph.

Game 3 was a better pitching performance by the White Sox. They attacked the zone, were hitting their spots, etc, which resulted in the Astros swinging and missing more.