Jose Altuve and the Presumption of Guilt

In the court of public opinion, one tweet is all it takes to reach a guilty verdict.

By: An Astros Fan

The investigation into the Astros and subsequent findings of foul play was largely viewed as the most controversial event since the steroid era. Then Thursday, January 16th happened. The timeline is important:

January 16, 2020: Jose Altuve releases a statement through his agent, Scott Boras, stating that “I have never worn an electronic device in my performance as a major league player.”

In sum, after a tweet from a burner account alleged, without any evidence, that Altuve and Bregman wore illegal electronic devices and two MLB personalities tweeted that each had heard the same from unnamed sources, the MLB world went into a frenzy.

Even with the MLB’s announcement, many questions remained — why would Altuve be thinking about his jersey in the midst of such a huge moment? Part of his explanation regarded his wife’s displeasure with him going shirtless in the ballpark — did this happen in the past? Did Altuve resist then? If the allegations are true, were other players wearing buzzers? And how long had they been doing so?

One might also be curious about the role Altuve played in the 2017 and 2018 sign-stealing methods employed by the Astros. A player on the Astros 2017 World Series team who wishes to remain unnamed stated that Altuve did not participate in the trash can sign-stealing method the Astros were found guilty of using in 2017 and 2018. Below is a video that details 25 minutes worth of the Astros stealing signs in the 2017 regular season. Included in the video are: Carlos Correa, Marwin Gonzales, George Springer, Yuli Gurriel, Carlos Beltran, Alex Bregman, Juan Centeno, J.D. Davis, Tyler White, Brian McCann and Evan Gattis. Not included: Jose Altuve.

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