The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 28 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Carlos Beltrán and Alex Cora led the Astros' sign-stealing scheme
“There was this specific makeup of the Astros clubhouse, in which one veteran in particular, one coach in particular, Carlos Beltran and Alex Cora, had a lot of influence in there. And in most ways, that influence was exerted in really positive ways, as far as …”
Houston Astros remain a model for the pitfalls of high-performing organizations
“I would argue that the Astros remain a model organization. Right? An organization that we can learn from. But now we can learn a lot of different things, besides how to turn the laughing stock of sports into a champion in a few short years. We can learn about …”
MLB investigators could not prove GM Jeff Luhnow knew of cheating
“Major League Baseball, as I said, did an extensive investigation into this. Even they couldn't prove that Jeff Luno knew. You know, they looked at tens of thousands of emails and texts and They interviewed, like, dozens and dozens of witnesses, many of whom pr…”
English soccer lags years behind Major League Baseball in data analytics
“I've actually gotten a lot of reach out from England, from English soccer people, and people who work for teams, about the Astros, because that industry is a few years behind.”
Electronic sign stealing in MLB was not limited to the Astros
“Sign stealing was not at all limited to the Astros, right? Nobody believes they're the only team doing it. They might've been pushing it farther than anybody else, but they weren't alone.”
MLB playoff share voting incentivized low-paid video staff to facilitate cheating
“The players were also responsible for voting on who else got a cut of these playoff shares, which non-players. And those could include people like the guys who worked in the video room who were helping the players out all year. And these are guys who make 50,0…”
Most opposing pitchers did not hear the Astros' trash can banging
“They did this to over a hundred pitchers that year. Some of these guys, like guys with 20 years of experience, most of them didn't hear it down in the field, etc.”
MLB's investigation report explicitly absolved Houston Astros owner Jim Crane
“The commissioner, in the very first paragraph, actually, which stuck out like a red thumb to me, the very first paragraph of this nine-page report completely absolved the owner of the team, Jim Crane, from any responsibility or accountability whatsoever.”
Astros' championship was ultimately sealed by executive gut calls over analytics
“I really think what tipped them ultimately was the fact that essentially their gut was what made the final call, like Jeff Luno making informed but gut decisions to really put the finishing touches on this champion, whether you look at
Acquiring Justin Verland…”
Astros evaluate prospect academic grades to assess growth mindset and coachability
“Like, they do certainly select four players who they believe have that growth mindset, and in fact, one of the things they look for is good grades, funny enough, for baseball players.
I think good grades are a real indicator of a willingness to learn, which I…”
Astros drafted Carlos Correa over Byron Buxton for unquantifiable psychological grit
“To Luno, you know, this is the sort of unquantifiable, like, grit, drive. Growth mindset type of things that they look for. So the scouting side of things really tipped that away from somebody like Byron Buxton, who was, you know, probably consensus number one…”
Astros owner Jim Crane ran team payroll under $30M during rebuild
“Fighting a Off the union and media who are kind of ripping him for running a payroll that was under thirty million dollars at one point, like embarrassingly low.”
Jim Crane faced a $5M fine but retained his championship and equity
“He was fined five million dollars, right? That's the maximum fine that an owner can receive in baseball. He lost a few draft picks, but keeps his ring, keeps his players, keeps the franchise valuation.”
Jeff Luhnow faces a harder path back to MLB than fired managers
“Jeff Luno, I think, will have a tougher road. Well, especially now that he's suing the Astros for twenty-two million dollars. That probably doesn't help his chances, but he was always somebody who never quite shed his outsider status. In a lot of ways, he embr…”
Astros' sign-stealing was a symptom of an extreme drive for efficiency
“And I think when I look back at it now, the sign stealing scheme is a symptom of that.”
Houston Astros' ruthless efficiency approach is now standard across MLB
“The Astros were once at the vanguard as far as a valuation slash efficiency based approach to
Team building and running the organization.
They're not really an outlier anymore.
This is how everybody operates.”
Houston Astros ran two concurrent sign-stealing schemes in 2017
“There are actually two sign stealing schemes going on at once. One was happening in the video room. One was happening among the players.”
Reiter: Astros combined qualitative human scouting with quantitative performance analytics
“The Astros recognize that humans can detect things especially in players that numbers can't describe, that there aren't numbers for, and the trick is to properly process those observations and incorporate them with the performance data to kind of get the best …”
Reiter: The 2014 Astros were not run ineptly and had a strong rebuild plan
“And I came away thinking this is not a team that's run cynically or ineptly or an organization that has no idea what it's doing. It's an organization that has a very strong idea of just what it's doing.”
Reiter: Jim Crane's patience set the Astros' rebuild apart
“I think one of the things that really set the pastors apart was patience, you know, was a stomach for the embarrassment and the torture that they had to go through for all those years and a confidence in it, right? Not to deviate from the plan. A lot of the cr…”
Reiter: MLB team standings often invert over three-year windows
“Three years down the line, which is actually a long time in baseball terms, it doesn't sound like a long time, but often if you look at the schedule, at the standings from like three years ago, they're almost upside down from where they are today.”
Former GM Jeff Luhnow is suing the Houston Astros for $22M
“He's currently suing the Astros for twenty two million dollars because they tore up his contract, firing him for cause in relation to this.”
Houston Astros' valuation rose from $600M to over $2B under Jim Crane
“He bought them for about six hundred million dollars. Less than 10 years later, they're worth estimates between 2,000,000,002 and a half billion.”
Winning the 2017 World Series yielded roughly $450K per Astros player
“So in 2017, if you're the Astros and you win the World Series, it was like 450,000 dollar bonus per player. Which is actually a lot of money even for a baseball player. Minimum salary guys would double their salary based on this playoff share.”
Astros banged trash cans most during Mike Bolsinger's 2017 outing
“Turned out after people studied the exact pattern of the Astros sign stealing, he had faced them on the night of its peak, like they had banged on their trash can more times on that night than against anybody else.”
Reiter: Jose Altuve signed for $15,000 after seven MLB teams passed
“A five foot five inch second baseman slap hitting guy who got 15,000 dollars to sign out of Venezuela only after seven teams had passed on him.”