Is this the last hurrah for the UFC’s flyweight division?
It feels like the promotion’s lightest male weight class has been on life support for ages. But the events leading up to Saturday’s UFC Norfolk headliner have changed what was supposed to be a shot in the arm to a punch in the gut.
Two-division champion Henry Cejudo had already appeared to leave the flyweight belt for dead in his pursuit of big names at 135 pounds. If that wasn’t bad enough, the vacated title is now only on the line for Joseph Benavidez after his opponent Deiveson Figueiredomissed weight for their contest.
On paper, it’s still a fine pairing of two of the best in the world at 125 pounds. But there’s no questioning that the matchup has lost some shine, which is doubly disappointing when talking about a division that has long struggled for relevance.
The same could be said of the women’s 145-pound division, though we may at least see a No. 1 contender emerge from the UFC Norfolk main card. Former Invicta FC champions Felicia Spencer and Megan Anderson take on Zarah Fairn and Norma Dumont, respectively, and whoever puts on the most impressive performance in those two matchups could be next for Amanda Nunes. The featherweight queen is keeping a close eye on this weekend’s events ahead of a possible title defense at UFC 250.
When: Saturday, Feb. 29. The entire event will air on ESPN+, with the seven-fight preliminaries starting at 5 p.m. ET, and the five-fight main card starting at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
Let’s just get it out of the way: It sucks that Deiveson Figueiredo missed weight, and this fight is considerably less intriguing now that only one man can actually win the flyweight championship.
That said, it’s Joseph Benavidez’s time anyway.
Ever the bridesmaid, Benavidez was the de facto answer for who was the world’s second-best flyweight for years before Henry Cejudo came along and shook up the apple cart. But keep in mind, Benavidez did beat Cejudo when they fought in 2016, so it’s not as if Cejudo toppling Demetrious Johnson removed Benavidez from the equation. He’s always been a fast, hard-hitting, volume-striking world beater.
On the other side of this matchup we have Figueiredo, an absolute buzzsaw of a man. He’s patient and has a rocky chin, so he won’t be bothered by Benavidez stinging him over and over again. He only needs that one big punch to turn things around. With 14 of his 17 wins coming by way of finish, the stereotype that flyweights don’t have stopping power definitely does not apply to Figueiredo.
It’s hard to bully Benavidez, though. He’s been in the cage with heavy hitters like Dustin Ortiz, Alex Perez, Cejudo, and Eddie Wineland, and none of them have been able to push him around (only Johnson, who ironically was not considered a finisher at the time, managed to land a KO blow on Benavidez). Figueiredo might be the most dangerous of them all, so Benavidez’s striking game has to be sharper than it’s ever been.
Because I see any scenario that goes to the scorecards favoring Benavidez, and I’m not predicting a Figueiredo finish, then I have go with Benavidez for the win. It will be “and new” on Saturday, not “and no.”
The lanky Zarah Fairn brings an impressive 73-inch reach to this matchup, and her game plan has to be to tag Felicia Spencer early and make the former Invicta champ think twice about standing with her. Spencer’s striking has improved with every appearance, but her bread-and-butter is still getting the takedown and hunting for a choke. She shouldn’t deviate from that here.
One has to wonder how Spencer will bounce back from her first loss after dropping a one-sided decision to Cris Cyborg in her last outing. There’s no shame in losing to the most decorated women’s featherweight of all time, but Spencer learned there’s another level to this game, and it remains to be seen whether she levels up from that experience, or if it negatively affects her ability to pull the trigger.
Still just 29, Spencer has plenty of room to grow, and if she stays smart and takes this one to the ground early, she should get a submission finish and possibly the attention of Amanda Nunes.
On paper, this one should be fireworks. But for some reason, I’m worried these two might have too much respect for each other’s abilities to truly throw down. Ion Cutelaba and Magomed Ankalaev both have legit sambo backgrounds, so expect there to be plenty of grinding clinchwork in this one.
In space, the bouncy Cutelaba is going to present a lot of problems for Ankalaev. He can quickly get steam behind his punches, though he does have a tendency to telegraph his heavier shots. He’ll have to be more unpredictable than usual if he wants to get through Ankalaev’s defenses. Ankalaev makes good use of kicks to keep opponents at bay, and they’ll serve him well against a headhunter like Cutelaba.
I still feel like the grappling will be a huge factor here, and if that’s the case, then Ankalaev has the advantage. Not only has he shown he can control fights with his wrestling, he also has enough of a counter game to foil Cutelaba’s advances.
Norma Dumont is a live underdog and Megan Anderson will have to avoid any sort of letdown if she wants to stay in the featherweight title picture. Anderson was a favorite against Felicia Spencer once upon a time, and that outing went poorly for her.
Dumont is giving up a lot of size in this matchup, which is going to make things difficult for her with Anderson kicking away from long range. Should they grapple, the developing wrestling of Anderson could be the difference. Both of Dumont’s finishes are by submission, but she isn’t a grappling specialist by any stretch.
A background in Sanda might give Anderson pause, as Dumont presents a look she hasn’t seen before, which could make for a methodical first round as the two feel each other out. Anderson has got the big game experience now, though, and the longer the fight goes on, the more I favor her to make adjustments and eventually put Dumont away. Look for Anderson to find a finish in the third round.
And here we have our second fight on the main card with a weigh-in offender.
Grant Dawson missed weight by an egregious 3.5 pounds, as if he didn’t already have an advantage over Darrick Minner, who is stepping in as a replacement for an injured Chas Skelly with little more than one week’s notice. You don’t always want to assume that fighters who miss weight have an advantage, or that fighters stepping up on short notice are at a disadvantage. But those are two factors working against Minner here.
Skill-wise, it’s no secret what Minner wants to do. The man has 21 submission victories. If Dawson’s team hasn’t studied up on Minner, he’s going to find the debuting veteran breathing down his neck, throwing heavy punches upon entry and then ducking in to get a hold of Dawson by any means necessary. A lack of proper opponent prep time may actually be an issue for Dawson as well.
The good news for Dawson is he has a grappling-heavy approach that works well against a variety of styles. As well-versed as Minner is on the ground, Dawson’s top control and ground-and-pound is just what the doctor ordered to deal with a squirrelly submission game. We should see a few fun scrambles, but it’s Dawson who will do the actual damage and either finish with strikes or take a decision.
For those who have a lifetime subscription to PFT (i.e., anyone), the question of whether the Cowboys will use the non-exclusive or exclusive franchise tag on quarterback Dak Prescottfirst emerged in October. With March approaching, the Cowboys apparently have made their choice.
Via Ian Rapoport of the NFL, the Cowboys will apply the exclusive version of the tag to Prescott. While that limits Prescott’s ability to potentially leave the Cowboys, it also gives him considerably more leverage in talks on a long-term contract.
The non-exclusive tag, which provides a theoretical path to a new city (but entails a pair of first-round picks as compensation), likely will be in the range of $27 million for 2020. The exclusive version will come from the average of the five highest-paid quarterbacks in 2020, based on cap number.
That average will be subject to change, as quarterbacks sign new contracts and as quarterbacks currently under contract restructure their deals to reduce cap numbers. Ultimately, the number locks in at the end of the restricted free agency signing period, in April.
Currently, the five highest-paid quarterbacks based on 2020 cap number are Rams quarterback Jared Goff ($36 million), Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger ($33.5 million), Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins ($31 million), Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson ($31 million), and 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo ($26.6 million). That’s an average of $31.62 million, and it could go up or down in the coming weeks.
Assuming it stays the same for present purposes, Dak can choose to continue to refuse long-term offers from the Cowboys, eventually sign the tender (he can wait until Labor Day weekend or thereabouts), make $31.62 million this year, and then be in line for a 20-percent raise in 2021. That’s $37.9 million in the second year of the tag.
That’s also an average of $34.7 million over the next two years, and it would set Prescott up for a one-year salary of $54.63 million in 2022 — which likely means that the Cowboys wouldn’t use the franchise tender a third time on Prescott.
The challenge for the Cowboys will be to offer Prescott a long-term deal that causes him to sacrifice his year-to-year earning potential under the exclusive tag and, eventually, the power that he will have. And that’s the only analysis that matters at that point. Market becomes irrelevant. Contracts signed by the likes of Tom Brady and Philip Rivers and Ryan Tannehill become irrelevant. The math relative to the exclusive tag drives the discussion at that point, and the sum and structure will need to be enough to make Dak abandon the ability to put a major squeeze on the Cowboys.
And no one should get mad at Prescott for doing it. The Cowboys could let Prescott become an unrestricted free agent, allowing the market to determine his value. Instead, the team is choosing to exercise its rights under the CBA to keep Prescott in place. That decision unlocks a chess match that gives Prescott some very potent pieces that players often are reluctant to use to their full potential.
Le'Veon Bell did. Kirk Cousins and Trumaine Johnson did. Prescott has done nothing over the past year to suggest that he won’t.
I know we are all pumped for the arrival of March, but we are going to have to wait one more day. We’ve got an awesome lineup of Saturday games to get through first, not to mention the scintillating race between my colleagues and me to get to the top of The Athletic College Basketball ATS standings. (The race, of course, is only scintillating because I am winning handily, thanks to my stellar 8-2 performance last week.) Don’t worry. When midnight strikes, the best month of the year will be on hand, so we might as well enjoy Leap Day. As always, these picks should be used for entertainment purposes only.
No. 16 Penn State at No. 18 Iowa (-4), noon ET (Big Ten Network): Both of these teams have been short-handed lately. Penn State sophomore guard Myreon Jones, who ranks fourth in the Big Ten in 3-point shooting (41.3 percent), has missed the last six games with an illness. The Nittany Lions have lost two of those. Iowa, meanwhile, has been missing freshman guard C.J.
Friday at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine was highlighted on the calendar of every New York Giants fan. Friday saw the offensive line and running bac position groups take the field in Indy, and it was the former group that Giants’ fans have circled.
Not only do Giants fans want their team to find a long term answer at one of their offensive tackle positions, but the team also needs a long-term answer at center and developmental talent for the offensive interior. This was the Giants’ chance to see all of the top prospects at the same time, on the same field, in the same conditions, doing the same drills. And if one thing was proven, it is that the top of this offensive tackle class is absolutely stacked.
And as usual, the ‘Chris and Joe Show’ offered our reaction immediately after the drills ended.
The Big 4 show out
If anyone was hoping that the Scouting Combine would help give some separation at the top of the offensive tackle depth chart, they were disappointed. Of course, the flip side of that coin is that all four of the top offensive tackles had tremendous days on the field and there is an argument for any of them to be the top offensive tackle.
So viewed from that perspective, the Giants almost can’t miss if they select one.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Becton in position drills, as he his combine ended after the 40-yard dash with a tight hamstring. So we weren’t able to compare Becton to Wirfs, Wills, or Thomas on the field in position drills, which could have really helped sort the top four tackles.
Still, seeing a 360-pound offensive lineman run a 5.1 is impressive, and seeing him post a 10-yard split that is as good as most defensive ends is just impressive.
We knew that Wirfs was going to be an explosive linear athlete, but this was still an incredible workout. Wirfs had the fastest 40-yard dash, had one of the best vertical jumps for an OL in combine history, the best broad jump in combine history, finished fifth in 3-cone drill and eighth in short shuttle.
Wirfs movement skills also moved very well in the position drills, with little wasted motion, clean feet, and good knee bend on every drill. Anyone who thought he was a guard coming in to Friday should be rethinking that assessment.
Thomas might not have stood out in the 40 like Becton and Wirfs did, but he definitely showed off his movement skills in the 3-cone and short shuttle.
But where Thomas really showed off was on the field in the position drills. His movements were precise and controlled, with quick feet and great ankle flexibility to make sure he was able to keep a wide base and maintain full contact with the ground.
Wirfs, Becton, and Wills might have stolen the show with the measurable events, but Thomas reminded everyone why he is in the thick of the conversation for OT 1 with his work in the positional drills.
Jedrick Wills Jr. bringing the thunder
Wills had himself a good workout, though his 5.05 second 40-yard dash and 34.6-inch vertical aren’t quite as impressive with Wirfs putting up the numbers he did. We knew that Wills was an athletic blocker with good movement skill and explosive traits, so him putting up good numbers was expected.
But what WAS impressive was how Wills hit the bags in the position drills. Each of the top tackles hit the bags well, but Wills hit them like he didn’t like them.
That kind of violence in a punch is going to get coaches’ attention.
If Cleveland didn’t already have the attention of scouts, coaches, and GMs, he got their attention in Indy. His measurements weren’t particularly impressive at 6-foot-6, 311 pounds, with 33 3/8 inch arms and 9-inch hands (good thing he isn’t a quarterback).
But what is impressive is his athleticism. Cleveland held the top time on the 40-yard dash for the first group with a 4.93 second run, which was tops for all OL until Tristan Wirfs came along. He does have the top overall time on the 3-cone with a great 7.26 seconds and the short shuttle with a 4.46 second time — both of which were the best among all OL by a solid .2 of a second.
Cleveland backed up his athletic numbers with good work in the field drills, showing quick, smooth feet, good agility, and obvious movement skills. He made himself some money on Friday.
Lemieux is one of the top guards in the draft, and could be the top guard on many draft boards. He’s experienced, powerful, and nasty blocker who is solid in both pass protection and run blocking. That much we knew from watching his tape.
But its what showed up in Lemieux’s position drills that land him on this list. He was remarkably smooth in his movement drills with quick feet, little wasted motion, good bend and balance. Lemieux is regarded as a power blocker, but he might have the best feet of any guard in the draft and looks like he can play in any blocking scheme
Ruiz might have cemented himself as the top center in the draft. Ruiz had a good workout, posting the fourth-best short shuttle of any lineman on the property and a good 5.08 second 40-yard dash. But like Lemieux, it was Ruiz’s work in the position drills that really stood out. Other centers performed well, but Ruiz made the the drills look almost effortless as he moved around the field.
He showed good power as a blocker on tape, but the Combine gave him a chance to show off his movement skills. The fact that Lloyd Cushenberry III pulled up lame in the 40-yard dash and Tyler Biadasz did not work out gave Ruiz a chance to shine.
D’Andre Swift was widely considered the top running back coming in to the Combine, but he will likely have some competition from Jonathan Taylor from Wisconsin.
Swift is quick and smooth with the ball in his hands, showing great balance and vision as a runner. He’s a good athlete with all the tools to be a productive athlete in the NFL.
There might have been the perception that Taylor is something of a lumbering grinder of a running back who got his yardage through volume. He those notions to rest with an impressive workout, highlighted by a blazing 4.39 second 40 yard dash that was one hundredth of a second faster than the run Saquon Barkley put down in 2018.
If there wasn’t a debate in war rooms over the top running back in the draft before Friday, there should be one now.
If there is an award for the sweetest feet at the Combine, Florida State’s Cam Akers wins it for the running backs. Akers had good numbers at the measurable portions of the night, but it was his feet in the position drills that caught everyone’s attention. He is amazingly smooth with the ball in his hands.
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Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies linked to the alleged display of gruesome Kobe Bryant crash-scene photos in a California bar were told they could avoid discipline if they simply admiited involvement and deleted the photos, according to a report.
But the disclosure of the alleged quiet attempt to let the deputies off the hook could amount to destruction of evidence, a source told The Los Angeles Times.
The sheriff’s department learned of the alleged bar incident from a citizen’s complaint, the newspaper reported. The citizen reportedly saw a deputy showing the crash-scene photos, which had been stored on a cellphone, at a bar in Norwalk, about 17 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Several other sources told the newspaper they had witnessed crash-scene photos being shown in settings that had nothing to do with the crash investigation – alleged behavior that Patti Giggans, chairwoman of the sheriff’s department’s Civilian Oversight Commission, described as “completely unprofessional” and “very regrettable.”
Brian Williams, executive director of the commission, told the Times his office planned to question sheriff’s department officials about the matter at a meeting next week.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s department issued a statement Friday saying it was “deeply disturbed” by the alleged misuse of the photos and promised “a thorough investigation.”
Two days earlier, Villanueva did not respond when asked if he ordered the deletion of the photos, the Times reported.
The Jan. 26 helicopter crash killed Bryant, a retired star for the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, his daughter Gigi, plus the copter’s pilot and six other passengers. The cause of the crash remained under investigation but weather-related concerns were considered a likely contributing factor.
Baseball's growing technocracy is responsible for many of its problems. It demands a deep examination of how the game is played and where it is going.
The enormous fallout from the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal has pushed baseball into a moment of crisis. The root cause of the scandal is embedded in the nine-page report by commissioner Rob Manfred: technocrats gaining power in how the game is played.
Amid all the outrage and the reviews of press conferences and interviews as if they were performance art, union chief Tony Clark issued the most important words in a statement last week that should have received more attention:
“How the parties handle the next several weeks will significantly affect what our game looks like for the next several decades. The opportunity is now to forge a new path forward.”
Manfred has vowed to reduce the live video available in and around clubhouses. It’s a start toward winning back trust. “That’s a joint obligation,” Manfred said. “It’s something we have to do and something the players have to us help us do.”
Discussions with the union have included an all-out blackout: video rooms closed, clubhouse televisions off, no more running inside to look at video during a game. Managers overwhelmingly favor the blackout. Several of them briefed by Manfred last week expect it to happen. It is the first step toward re-balancing baseball to be more of a player-driven game than a front office-driven one.
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
“Get rid of it,” said Arizona catcher Stephen Vogt. “Get rid of the in-game video. It’s hard because sometimes you want to study your swing and go back and look at a pitch and see what it’s doing.
“But I’m all for removing all in-game technology. Let’s go back to six, seven years ago when we just didn’t have this instant feedback from all these cameras. Technology has really enhanced our game in a lot of ways, but it’s also created opportunities for people to take advantage of it, to take it further than it should have. If you want to work on that in between games, yes. It’s called preparation.”
Baseball is in a fight to reclaim its soul. That soul of the game must be found in its aspirational value: players of all sizes playing a simple kids’ game. The conceit we like to keep is that this is our game writ slightly bigger.
Baseball lost its soul under a growing technocracy. Brutish efficiency and cold, inarguable algorithms guide searches for the smallest of advantages. To be abundantly clear, the Astros are not evidence that this embrace of information and technology is wrong. It’s provided much good for the game, especially as a training tool. The Astros are the warning shot of what happens when it goes too far.
Games are being decided in real time, not just on the field but also in front of computers, often in clubhouses. Analysts overlay in-game video of the opposing pitcher to see if he is tipping his pitches, replacing human craft. Others monitor thousands of real-time data points to watch if their pitcher is dropping his elbow by an inch or two. Why do clubhouses look like start-up labs during games? Why is the replay monitor even in the clubhouse and not in a press box booth or TV trailer?
“The Houston Astros are a product of their environment,” said agent Scott Boras. “When fans go to games, they don’t want to know that the manager is not the one making the moves. You’ve got to create theatre, drama. I don’t care about efficiency. I care about the audience to help our game grow.
“My biggest problem with this thing is it came from the front office. Jeff Luhnow buried the memo from Rob.”
Baseball is borrowing ethos from Wall Street. Banking and stock trading are not spectator sports. Brewers manager Craig Counsell said the biggest change over his five years managing is the population of the room in staff meetings to plan spring training: it swelled from about 10 people to 45. The Dodgers last week introduced their R&D staff to their players: 12 of them, or about one analyst for every two players on the 25-man roster.
The Astros’ scandal was not wholly “player-driven” any more than is the game itself. We have a game so driven by metrics that players choose not to run from first base on a full count and less than two outs because they know a caught stealing hurts their Wins Above Replacement. (Yes, it happens.) We have a game in which 35% of all plate appearances end in a strikeout, walk or home run, when athleticism is moot. We have a game that saw a decline in attendance even with a spike in offense—the first time in 50 years that tried-and-true correlation didn’t work in tandem. We have a game that takes longer than ever: three hours, 10 minutes on average.
This is the game we get when knowledge is valued over wisdom.
What the Astros did, layered over what the Padres did (fuzzy medical records), what the Cardinals did (hacking) and what the Braves did (cheating on international signings), demands a deep examination of how the game is played and where it is going.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
“A lot of front offices are going away from hiring former baseball players,” Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw said. “I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. A lot of teams almost alienate the former player, saying they don’t want that in their front office. They don’t want that in their clubhouse. They don’t want that influence of old school baseball.
“They want a lot of guys with Ivy League degrees crunching algorithms and figuring out if you spin your fastball up in the zone two percent more you’re going to have this effect more. Great. I understand it. I’m not naive to that. [But] there’s a place in the game for guys who really know baseball.
“I think the Dodgers do a good job of that. As many guys as we have that are from Harvard or Yale or whatever, Ivy League guys, we also have Raúl Ibañez around. We have Chase Utley. We have Jamey Wright. We have a lot of guys around who played in the big leagues 15-plus years and that’s invaluable.
“You have to have that around, almost to balance everybody out. Because a lot of guys up there—now some of them do it well—but a lot of them who didn’t play don’t really understand how hard the game is. They show you what to do and then they’re like, ‘Why is he not doing this? Why can’t he do this?’ They just kind of take the human element out, too. You need both. There’s no doubt in my mind you need both.”
But Manfred acted only against Hinch and Luhnow for a failure to act. He did nothing about the actual actors in the schemes. Luhnow’s hand-picked lieutenants—the technocrats—provided the runway to the trash-can banging scheme. They operated in-game schemes themselves under Codebreaker, the name they gave to their nefarious sign stealing first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Opposing players could not reconcile the report with the subsequent disclosure of Codebreaker. To that complaint Manfred responded, “I think in their concerns about a lack of transparency is they don’t quite understand how those two systems work together, which I think the report made clear. The Codebreaker system in and of itself could have been perfectly legal. It started as a non-in-game effort to decode signs. Lots and lots of teams do that. It doesn’t violate our rules.
“What the report made absolutely clear was that at the same time they were developing Codebreaker the video monitor/trash can system emerged. They got a little nervous about that. Then they started using Codebreaker in an inappropriate way.”
What the Astros did with technology should scare Manfred about where the game is headed.
“Stem cell management, cleats that allow you to jump five feet, and what else?” Boras said. “We need to have an independent medical board to be ready.”
***
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Luhnow, the man running the Astros baseball operations, did not love baseball enough to make it his life’s work. “At no point was I planning to go into sports or baseball,” Luhnow (Penn ’89) once told The Daily Pennsylvanian. For 14 years he worked as an engineer, a McKinsey consultant and a tech entrepreneur. His only connection to baseball was taking part in a fantasy league.
Then in 2003 a former McKinsey colleague helped him land a job with the Cardinals. The Astros hired him in December 2011.
In June of 2013 Luhnow posted an opening in his baseball operations department. He didn’t want an actual baseball person. He wanted someone from banking. Taubman (Cornell ’07) answered. Taubman was a Wall Street derivative valuations expert who last played baseball on the junior varsity team at Syosset High School on Long Island, N.Y. He was making side money beating people at online fantasy baseball with a statistical model he once described as a "hacked-together, Excel-spreadsheet, SQL-server-sourced" optimizer.
It wasn’t too big a leap to treat major league players as derivatives or fantasy picks. He took a pay cut to work for Luhnow as “economist, baseball operations.” Luhnow promoted Taubman four times in the next five years, all the way to his right-hand man as assistant GM.
Three months after hiring Taubman, Luhnow hired Tom Koch-Weser (Illinois ’04), who had been manager of advance information for the Seattle Mariners from 2009-13. Shortly after his hiring, Koch-Weser pulled aside Dave Trembley, a baseball lifer who was Houston’s bench coach after serving the previous season as third-base coach.
Trembley, 68, told the Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., that Koch-Weser told him, “Be careful giving signs from the bench. Last year in Seattle we played you guys 18 times and we had a camera on your bench coach and third-base coach and we had all your signs.”
Such use of technology to steal signs was illegal in baseball since 2000 under protocols established under MLB executive Sandy Alderson.
Said Trembley, “A red light went on for me. It was like, ‘Why is this guy here?’ In my wildest dreams I could never have imagined that this is where it would end up. But the culture there was just different.”
That same year, in February of 2014, Luhnow hired Matt Hogan (Wisconsin ’09) from Stats LLC as an apprentice in advance information. Hogan rose quickly. In 2017 he was the coordinator of Major League Advance Information when, as he told investigators, Luhnow saw him and other personnel Codebreaking in the video room. Luhnow denied seeing such work.
In spring training 2016 Luhnow hired a fellow Penn graduate as a Spanish translator. Derek Vigoa (Penn ’12) had worked four years in sponsorship and consulting businesses.
Six months later, Vigoa was in the clubhouse when Astros rookie third baseman Alex Bregman mentioned that other teams were better than Houston at picking up signs from second base, an accepted practice in baseball. Vigoa offered help. He created an Excel-based application in which an Astros employee would input the catcher’s signs and the outcome of the pitch. An algorithm in the app decoded the signs.
On Sept. 22, 2016, Vigoa showed his work to Luhnow in a PowerPoint presentation. The name of the app was Codebreaker. Luhnow told investigators he considered it legal advance scouting. Two months later, Luhnow promoted Vigoa to manager, team operations.
Early the next season, 2017, Koch-Weser sent two e-mails to Luhnow regarding “our dark arts.” In the first one, on May 24, Koch-Weser seemed to acknowledge the ethical line they were crossing when he wrote, “I don’t want to electronically correspond too much about ‘the system’ but Cora/Cintrón/Beltrán have been driving a culture initiated by Bregman/Vigoa last year and I think it’s working …”
Luhnow wrote back, “How much of this stuff do you think [Hinch] is aware of?”
(In an example of how power has concentrated in the front office, Luhnow and his crew kept their own manager in the dark. Hinch did not find out about Codebreaker until three weeks ago, when Luhnow called him to say the Wall Street Journal was about to break the story about Codebreaker. Luhnow’s brother, David, is Latin America editor of the Wall Street Journal.)
Taubman proudly referred to the codebreakers, analysts and quants as “The Nerd Cave.” When the 2017 season began, they were hard at work decoding signs from the video replay room behind the dugout using a live feed. Two months into the season, DH Carlos Beltrán wanted an even better system. The trash can scheme was born. It did not emerge out of nowhere. It emerged from the behavior and culture of the front office.
In August, with the trash can system in full force, according to reports, director of pro scouting Kevin Goldstein sent an e-mail to his scouts asking them to spy on potential postseason opponents with electronics. That same month the Astros laid off eight scouts as they transitioned to a team that relied more on data and video for information than human observation.
Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports
Two months later, the Astros trailed Boston, 3-2, in the top of the eighth inning of ALDS Game 4 when Bregman pulled a 2-1 slider from ace Chris Sale for a home run. Vigoa was in the clubhouse with players at the time watching on various screens. “As soon as he hit it, we all erupted,” Vigoa told The Pennsylvania Gazette. Houston would go on to win, 5-4, to clinch the series.
The Astros won the World Series. Vigoa and Hogan received promotions. Vigoa was promoted again last November to director of team operations, just as the scandal was about to break. Koch-Weser, Goldstein, Vigoa and Hogan all remain with the club.
The next year, 2018, the Astros stationed someone named Kyle McLaughlin in camera wells near the dugouts of the Indians (their ALDS opponent) and Red Sox (their ALCS opponent) to surveille those teams with a cellphone camera. The Astros claimed to have done so as a means of “playing defense” against sign stealing. McLaughlin was not listed as an Astros employee, but did have connections to Crane.
McLaughlin (University of Florida Online, ’19) is from Palm City, Fla., where he was recruited to pitch for Farleigh Dickinson. After suffering a shoulder injury, he transferred to Central Florida. According to UF Online, McLaughlin then enrolled in online classes at Florida, which allowed him to work “in operations in Palm City and Texas.” Palm City is home to The Floridian, an exclusive golf club owned by Crane. McLaughlin has been photographed with Crane and in front of an airplane bearing the logos of Crane’s businesses.
The money quote from Manfred’s report, which got lost in the noise over the low-tech absurdity of the trash can and the suspensions of Hinch and Luhnow, is this, with emphasis added:
“The baseball operations department’s insular culture – one that valued and rewarded results over other considerations, combined with a staff of individuals who often lacked direction or sufficient oversight, led, at least in part … to an environment that allowed the conduct described in this report to have occurred.”
***
As much as we want baseball to be a refuge, it can be a mirror on society. Jackie Robinson took the field at Ebbets Field five years before the Supreme Court began to hear Brown vs. Board of Education. Cocaine and performance-enhancing drugs took root in clubhouses as they did so outside of them. Now the fight for the game’s soul is not unlike our struggle to grasp how quickly technology is changing society, in which being “liked” by strangers can hold more social value than being liked (without quotes) by known persons.
Ask front office executives about the style of baseball they have wrought and they will talk proudly about its improved “efficiency.” (The stolen base becomes the rotary phone.) But in truthful moments they also admit as an entertainment option the product is awful. It is the dilemma of the age: executives, who have seized power from managers, are motivated by ruthless efficiency but draw no motivation from aesthetics.
“Analytics have come into the game not because it’s a championship-driven dynamic,” Boras said. “It’s a cost-savings dynamic and in my mind is about how we better use the less talented players.”
Baseball set an all-time home run record last year. Runs per game increased by more than three-quarters of a run. It marked the eighth time since 1970 that runs per game jumped by 0.60 or more. But this was the first time that attendance went down with such a sharp increase in offense:
Highest Runs Per Game Increase Since 1970
Year
Runs Per Game Increase
Attendance Per Game Percent Change
1973
1.04
Up 6.8%
1993
0.96
Up 16.7%
1977
0.96
Up 12.3%
2019
0.76
Down 1.6%
1976
0.72
Up 4.9%
1994
0.64
Up 0.9%
1987
0.62
Up 9.4%
1982
0.60
Up 11.1%
Here’s what that means: the game needs so much fixing that not even more offense alone can save it. The biggest crisis facing baseball is the slowing of the pace of action—one ball put in play every three minutes, 42 seconds. Players dawdle, but here again the growth of information is at work. Pitchers carry cards in their hat with numbered sign systems to use with the catcher, guarding against the technology-driven espionage in every clubhouse. Teams use multiple signs sometimes even with nobody on base.
“It takes a lot out of you,” Vogt said. “It takes a lot more thinking. It takes the pitcher off his game a little bit and the catcher. You’re thinking about what sign and what system to give them, not just the next pitch. And the pitcher is looking in trying to remember what sign system you’re using in every situation. It definitely takes a lot more mental focus. It definitely changes the mindset and changes the emotion. It changes a lot.”
Manfred has nipped and tucked at the pace problem with insignificant results. Worse, this year he crossed the Rubicon by messing with the strategy of the game. He is tying a manager’s hands with an illogical risk:reward equation: pitchers must face at least three batters, up from one, even though the use of such specialty relievers has declined steadily and the net time saved is about 30 seconds per game.
“These one-offs are not doing anything to the game,” said one executive. “I have told the commissioner’s office I am in favor of any comprehensive proposal that gets the game down to like 2:45. I personally think the time of game thing is real, not just pace or action. Time is a big deal.
“So let’s put a comprehensive plan together in which we can prove within some margin of error how much time we’re taking off the game. It’s going to include some things players aren’t going to like. It’s going to include pitch clocks. It’s going to include batter’s box rules. But you sell it as a way to get to 2:45. Going from 3:05 to 3:02 does nothing.”
Astros players are in for a miserable season. They will expect the blowback to stop, but it will not. The choices made by the players, regardless of the front office culture around them, are so injurious to the integrity of the game that they must wear the questions, scrutiny and ridicule without complaint.
“To me it was unfathomable,” Vogt said. “I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the fact that that actually happened. I couldn’t. It blew my mind. The fact that it was actually happening … it’s just so far from my radar, so far from any thought I’ve had, I literally could not believe it.”
Vogt began to think about a game on April 28, 2017, in Houston, when he was behind the plate as the Astros pounded three Oakland pitchers for nine runs and 14 hits.
“I remember specific pitches where I was like, ‘Man, there’s no way a human being can take that pitch,’” Vogt said. “Stuff like that. It’s not the hitting—well, obviously, it is—but to me it’s the 1-2 slider that gets taken that everybody in baseball swings at. That makes the catcher and the pitcher wonder if something is going on.”
The 2017 Astros led the majors in runs. They hit nine points higher than any other team, including a major league high .294 with runners in scoring position. They hit eight points higher against breaking pitches than any team. They had the lowest swing and miss rate.
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
“Looking back on it, I feel bad,” said one executive, “because we went through some hitting coaches, like a lot of teams did. We wondered why we weren’t getting results the way Houston did.”
In the coming weeks Manfred and Clark need to sit together at a news conference and give fans confidence this cannot happen again. The first step is confining technology to a tool to prepare for games, not a “dark art” to decide them in real time.
“Turn it off,” Cubs manager David Ross said. “I understand why guys go back there. But I also know it’s a powerful thing to have teammates all out there on the bench cheering you on, knowing that they are more invested in your at-bat in the moment than they are in their own at-bat from the last inning.”
Said Kershaw, “I wish it was that black and white. Me personally, I don’t need it a bit. I know what I’m trying to do and it’s not going to make sense for me to use it there. I just need to go compete. Some guys just love to see their swing and see how they approach the ball, and that helps them in whatever way. I don’t think you should take that away from them.
“That stuff is valuable, so to me it’s not super black and white. What is black and white is no ability to relay signs in real time to the hitter. We do away with that. Whatever it may be—put the TVs on a delay, take away the centerfield Hawkeye camera for that game and let them see it after the game … But once the game starts it’s off. Whatever it is. I don’t know the answer, but to me that’s plenty. I’m great with that and it’ll get back to the way it was.”
Vogt and Kershaw are not talking about getting back to an age of flannel uniforms. It was only 10 years ago that the average nine-inning game took 15 fewer minutes than one from last year. It was only five years ago that Kershaw and catcher A.J. Ellis had the Dodgers’ video room virtually to themselves, pouring over hitters to see who had trouble with a down-and-in slider, for instance. Now the room is filled with non-uniformed wizards scouring data and video for the smallest incremental edge.
As Clark said, the next several decades of baseball are on the line in the next few weeks. Manfred and Clark must decide what kind of game they want. Do they want R&D departments, click-clacking on laptops and dissecting video, to be part of the in-game competition, like bullpens and benches? Do they want championships decided by who can build the next Codebreaker? Do they want players hanging out in video rooms when in the course of looking at their swing they can pick up signs? Do they want a game that continues to lose fans by giving them less action over a longer period of time?
These are complicated times. But baseball’s guiding principle through this crisis must be simple. It should be the most basic demand we have of all sporting competition: that the outcome is decided by the players in the arena, all in full view of us.
Okafor told him how, after their game against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday, Williamson became the first player since Michael Jordan to have four consecutive games of at least 25 points while shooting at least 57% from the field as a rookie.
"Mike?!" an incredulous Williamson said.
When a reporter later mentioned the stat to him at the postgame news conference, Williamson turned to Pelicans security officer Chico Robinson for confirmation.
"Chico, my name's next to Michael Jordan?" Williamson, a Jordan Brand athlete, asked with a big smile.
After the stat was explained, Williamson said, "Wow, Jahlil was for real."
Even though the feat happened a couple of games before Friday's win, Williamson still understood what it meant.
"I mean, it's dope. I can't even lie," Williamson said. "One of my favorite players growing up. I said in some interview, my mom told me to study film of him so to be in that category, it means a lot."
Williamson's 25-point streak came to an end Friday night, when he finished with 24 against the Cavs, but he extended another one in the process, posting his 10th straight game with at least 20 points. Not only did Williamson, 19, become the first teenager in NBA history to pull off that feat, he broke a tie with another scoring great in Carmelo Anthony, who scored 20 points or more in nine consecutive games as a 19-year-old.
Williamson talked about watching clips of Jordan and Anthony growing up and said it was exciting to see his name next to theirs. But after he was asked about passing Anthony, he looked more toward the team's success.
"I think the world and the media, I think, is more happy for me than myself," Williamson said with another laugh. "Honestly, I don't even think much of it if I'm being honest. I just want to get the win. You know, my stepdad taught me growing up, you know, if the team has success then the individual things will follow. So I guess it's just one of those things."
The team success has come for the Pelicans lately. They were 5½ games out of the Western Conference's eighth playoff seed after the All-Star break, but Friday night's win coupled with Memphis' loss to Sacramento has the Pelicans sitting just two games behind the Grizzlies and in sole possession of ninth place in the West.
New Orleans has won six of eight games, and during that span the Pelicans have had at least 34 assists in five of those contests -- after only three games of 34 assists or more prior to that.
Pelicans point guard Lonzo Ball led the way with 12 assists on Friday, including a couple of full-court passes that Williamson converted at the rim.
"That's the great part about Lonzo," Williamson said. "He shows his IQ for the game. For him to come in every game with the threats and depth we have, and to facilitate the offense the way he does, you have to respect that. Hats off to him. He does a great job at it."
After getting off to rocky starts in the previous two games, Ball said it was an emphasis to start fast against Cleveland.
"The last couple of games we've come out pretty slow, so we wanted to change that tonight and I felt like that carried us throughout the game," Ball said.
To go along with the assists, Ball added 5 points, 6 rebounds, 4 steals and 2 blocks in what was one of his better all-around games of the season -- something Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry saw as well.
"I thought he did exactly what we would like to see him do as a point guard," Gentry said. "I thought he controlled the game. ... The pace of the game ... he dictated the whole thing. I thought he got out and did a great job with that, and as you said, I thought he did a great job of finding players. I thought we all did tonight."
Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram, who played with Ball in Los Angeles the past two seasons before the trade that brought them and Josh Hart to New Orleans, said he thought Ball's efforts on the defensive end also helped.
"Well, it goes unnoticed sometimes because he does it night in and night out and he's always anticipating the pass, he's always in the right spot, and his on-ball defense is really, really good," Ingram said. "So that's something that he's done every night and we kind of expect it out of him every night."
