Bang the Can Slowly: An Investigation into the 2017 Houston Astros

This article is a statistical investigation into the 2017 Major League Baseball scandal involving Houston Astros, World Series championship winner that same year. The Astros were alleged to have stolen their opponents’ pitching signs in order provide batters with potentially unfair advantage. work finds compelling evidence on-field performance was significantly affected by sign-stealing ploy and quantifies effects. three main findings are (i) Astros’ odds of swinging at pitch reduced approximately 27% (OR: 0.725, 95% CI: (0.618, 0.850)) when sign stolen, (ii) an player swung, making contact ball increased roughly 80% 1.805, (1.342, 2.675)) on non-fastball pitches, (iii) made which known, ball’s exit velocity (launch speed) average 2.386 (95% (0.334, 4.451)) miles per hour.