New details regarding brief former New York Mets manager Carlos Beltran‘s involvement in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing operation were revealed by The Athletic on Tuesday afternoon via Ken Rosenthal, Evan Drellich, and Marc Carig.
Per the report, many anonymous sources close to the situation pointed to Beltran’s veteran authority within the clubhouse as a tool that the 20-year MLB vet used to keep any potential internal dissension at bay, noting “some Astros players, even manager A.J. Hinch, felt powerless to stop him.”
An anonymous Astros player told The Athletic that after veteran backstop Brian McCann “approached Beltran and asked him to stop” the operation during their World Series championship 2017 season, Beltran “disregarded it and steamrolled everybody.”
Per the report:
“What happened was Cora and Beltrán decided that this video room stuff Koch-Weser was doing (with Codebreaker) was just not working, inefficient, too slow,” a person with direct knowledge of the investigation said. “They just had some lower-level guy put up this monitor and did it themselves.”
Following his retirement as a player, while as a member of the New York Yankees’ front office in 2018, the report states, “One Yankees official said whenever he would ask what the Astros ‘were doing down there,’ Beltran would chuckle and say, ‘Nothing no one else is doing,'” possibly alluding to leaguewide shenanigans.
We’ll keep you updated with new information as it becomes available.
The Athletic is a pay-wall site, but if you can access it, the entire article is absolutely eye-opening and highly recommended reading.
