The tell-all book on the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal by baseball journalist Evan Drellich was released earlier this month and, boy, let me tell you, it’s a read-and-a-half. Drellich works as a senior baseball writer for The Athletic, having previously covered the Astros for the Houston Chronicle from 2013-2016, and was the reporter, along with Ken Rosenthal, to break the sign-stealing scandal in 2019. Drellich's new book, which he’s been working on since the pandemic, is awesome, not only because it goes into detail as to how the Astros, and many other teams in Major League Baseball, cheated their way to the top, but also looks at the Astros from an operational standpoint, with in-depth reporting from Drellich that divulges the secrets of what you might plainly call, at the end of the day, a dysfunctional business. You’ll hear more from Evan next week on Baseball with Matt, but for now, here are some things I learned from reading “Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess”, the story of how the 2017 Houston Astros cheated to win the franchise's first World Series title.
That great title
Jeff Luhnow, the former GM and President of Baseball Ops in Houston (pictured below), along with Astros owner Jim Crane, ransacked Houston’s front office when they each joined the franchise in the early 2010s. Accounts in the book talk about a massive culture shift at the club, how the previous “mom-and-pop” feeling beloved by Houston staffers was replaced with a bottom-line, cutthroat approach that rubbed people the wrong way. This was actually what most of the book was about, how the figureheads running the Astros in suits and ties created a hostile environment where the only things that mattered were profits and victories. To be frank, because of how baseball franchises are set up, this should be the focuses of a team, but Drellich emphasizes how Luhnow, Crane, and others were inefficient and impatient in their methods of creating a winning attitude, manifesting a negative reputation that was looked down upon from across the league.
I appreciated Drellich taking time to illustrate this part of the scandal, mostly because I was an accounting major at Binghamton (Drellich’s alma mater as well, coincidentally) and took many classes in Rumble Ponies country on the operational effectiveness of corporations. Let’s just say the Astros didn’t have that, so much so that even though you can’t blame the entire sign-stealing scandal on the top brass, they set the groundwork for such a scandal to germinate, so they deserve just as much blame as the ones stealing signs.
Moneyball to an extreme
What I find ironic about the whole story is that you can attribute much of the statistical explosion that MLB has experienced over the last decade to the Astros. The front office of the Astros consisted of many figures who got their careers started outside of baseball, with varying types of expertise and baseball fandom. Those unique perspectives led to outside ways of looking at the game, which started Houston down a path of analytical savviness that, yes, did indeed culminate in the sign-stealing scandal, but also inspired the whole league to evaluate baseball differently. These were smart people that let power go to their heads, but you can’t deny how talented they were with evaluating baseball metrics that no one had even considered important for the first 150 years of baseball’s storied history.
Yes, they did it
And they did it proudly. The 2017 Houston Astros cheated to win the World Series. Other teams cheated, too, like the Red Sox and Yankees, but Houston did it the most egregiously, devoting tons of effort and thought power (and trash cans) for the winning cause. Drellich goes into detail as to how everything was set up, from the cameras to the video room to the analytical Excel tools to the trash cans, giving insight into how each player in the lineup was affected and who else was involved. It’s pretty gruesome to read, honestly, but it’s worth it. Understanding how systemic this all was is interesting beyond belief.
And it all goes back to the commish
To say that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred fumbled the bag on dealing with the Astros after the scandal broke would be an understatement, but I thought what was more interesting in the book was the greater story at play that Drellich discusses regarding Commissioner Manfred. Scandal after scandal has impacted Major League Baseball in various ways, going back to the steroid era, and slowly but surely, the commissioner has moved closer towards a pure alliance with the owners. I understand there are a lot of people to please in any crisis, but the impartiality that used to come from the commissioner’s office is declining rapidly. And at a time when “sticky stuff” is back in the news and the anti-trust exemption is still impacting baseball, who knows how Manfred sticks the landing. There are a lot of people at fault when it comes to letting the Astros devolve, but I certainly did not expect to read about the commish as much as I did. All I have to say on this is that this stuff is important and will continue to be so for the rest of baseball's future.
Next week, you’ll hear from Evan Drellich himself on how baseball moves forward after the events of “Winning Fixes Everything” and into the 2023 MLB regular season. I’m super excited to get Evan’s perspective on the game of baseball, and I hope you are, too. Stick around until next weekend, why don’t ya, for a new interview on Baseball with Matt!
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