Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 1/17/20

The Ringer | Michael Baumann: The crisis regarding sign stealing only deepened yesterday, if you spend any time at all on Twitter. A burner account attributed to Carlos Beltran’s niece leaked both his firing and then that Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman were using buzzers under their jerseys, which set off a firestorm of speculation, though MLB claims that there was no evidence players were wearing devices. We know that there will be more to come.

ESPN | Alden Gonzalez: MLB has vehemently denied these accusation, even though Jose Altuve’s explanation—that he was too shy to take off his shirt—looks suspect when watching both other videos of him taking his shirt off, and in that ALCS game in particular, when he holds his shirt closed and immediately runs to the dugout. The sign-stealing report only references the trashcan banging and sticks to that, but it’s hard to believe there won’t be more investigations after this.