FORT MYERS, Fla. -- To new Red Sox catcher Jonathan Lucroy, the news of egregious cheating by the Astros came as no surprise when it came to light this winter. In Lucroy’s mind, it was just a matter of time before someone went public with Houston’s cheating methods.
Lucroy, who joined the Sox on a minor-league deal earlier this week, played for three American League West teams (the Rangers, Athletics and Angels) in the last three seasons. He said Thursday that he first learned about Houston’s scheme back in 2018, when his Oakland teammate (and future whistleblower) Mike Fiers informed him of Houston’s infamous trashcan-banging system after Fiers was traded from the Tigers to the A’s in August.
“I knew about that two years ago, that it was going on,” Lucroy said. “I know it just recently came out. Everybody in baseball, especially in the division playing against them, we were all aware of the Astros doing those things. It was up to us to outsmart them, which is kind of hard when you have a computer program that breaks your signs. We actively changed signs, almost every pitch. You had to because they had them, they were relaying them from second and stealing them from first, too, from between your legs. They had a very intricate system going on. We were well aware of it.”
Lucroy said the A’s told Major League Baseball about their suspicions back in 2018 but said the league did nothing but warn the Astros. Last week, Athletics general manager David Forst confirmed to The Mercury News that Oakland had complained to the league well before MLB began its thorough investigation in November.
“Some of the pitches they would take, it was like, ‘Man, these guys are the best hitters I’ve ever seen,'" Lucroy said. “It all made sense whenever we found out how they were doing it. Then, it was like, ‘What are we going to do?’ I was with Oakland then, and we had let MLB know and they had just called and said something. They just said something to them. They didn’t go through the whole investigation. It wasn’t until Fiers came out publicly that they looked at it really hard.”
Lucroy said Houston’s methods were not a well-kept secret in baseball circles. When he first saw Fiers had spoken to The Athletic about the Astros in November, he knew a firestorm was about to begin.
“Whenever I saw it, I read it and was like, ‘Oh, boy. Here we go,’” Lucroy said. “And people were calling me and I was like, ‘Look, I’ve known about this for two years.’ When guys were playing against them, I’d text them like, ‘Just so you know, this is what’s going on.’ It got around baseball pretty quick.”
Throughout his 10 major league seasons, Lucroy has seen teams employ plenty of systems to steal signs. Almost all of them included methods within the game’s rules, like relaying signals from second base or whistling to alert hitters of incoming pitches. But the use of electronics, like what went on in Houston, crossed a clear line.
“If they’re out there breaking these complex set of signs with no one on base and they’re doing that, there’s something wrong with that,” Lucroy said. “That’s not right.”
Lucroy said he never specifically heard a trashcan being banged at Minute Maid Park but said he would have never been listening for one. Once Fiers told him what was going on in 2018, he began to mix up his signals even more.
“It was a mental workout,” he said. “We were switching signs every single pitch, because you had to. If you didn’t, they were going to get it and they were going to go up there and take advantage of it.”
Though Lucroy is glad Major League Baseball finally stepped in and punished the Astros, he’s unhappy with how Houston’s players have handled the backlash. Shortstop Carlos Correa and other players have defended some of the team’s methods in response to criticism
“I’m hearing a lot of excuses in the media,” Lucroy said. “That’s what I’m hearing. I think that they could do a better job at being humble about it.”
Lucroy has a hard time understanding how all of Houston’s players went unpunished as a result of the league’s findings. Every player interviewed by the league was granted immunity for cooperating with investigators.
“Guys do steroids, they get punished,” he said. “Guys cheat, they get punished.”