A.J. Hinch Technically Didn't Deny the Astros Used Buzzers While Practicing Their 'Dark Arts'
It was a big day for Houston Astros cheating news. Former manager AJ Hinch gave an interview to Sports Illustrated and MLB Network and the Wall Street Journal released a report with new details about how they did it.
According to WSJ, the Astros used a program called Codebreaker to track pitches on a spreadsheet. An intern introduced the program to the club. That intern was Derek Vigoa who is the Astros' current senior manager of team operations. The team also referred to the cheating program as their "dark arts."
As for Hinch's interview, he was asked about the use of buzzers. Instead of flat out saying the Astros didn't use buzzers or anything like that, he said that the MLB investigators never found evidence of any.
Verducci asked A.J. Hinch about whether the team used buzzers in 2019. Listen to what Hinch said. Hinch doesn't say no. Instead, Hinch says he believes in MLB's investigation that said that investigators didn't find anything.
— Brendan Kuty (@BrendanKutyNJ) February 7, 2020
A.J. Hinch also danced around the buzzer theories of 2019. He didn't say no: pic.twitter.com/T6c0hQJvB7
— Brendan Kuty (@BrendanKutyNJ) February 7, 2020
Yes, MLB did say there was no evidence. That doesn't change how it looked when Jose Altuve rounded third yelling "don't rip my jersey." Non-denials aren't going to help and those are as close as we could get to any actual proof that it never happened.