Tampa Bay Rays’ Kevan Smith Says Sign-Stealing “Resembles Steroids” – Charlie Morton Regrets

The Tampa Bay Rays have had several players speak their minds on the recent cheating scandal. We hear from a player that was on the 2017 Astros and a player that faced them.

The Tampa Bay Rays‘ Charlie Morton finally spoke about the cheating scandal revolving around his 2017 Houston Astros’ team. The Astros won the World Series that year and Morton recorded the title-clinching out.

I’m sure you are all aware of the story by now if you aren’t then you can read the article below or check out Rayscoloredglasses.com for more takes.

Tampa Bay Rays: Blake Snell Says Astros’ Cheating Worse Than PEDs

Now that you know what’s going on, let’s see what Charlie Morton had to say to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

“Personally, I regret not doing more to stop it, I don’t know what that would have entailed. I think the actions would have been somewhat extreme to stop it. That’s a hypothetical. I certainly have thought about it a lot because it negatively impacted the game, and people’s perception of the game, the fans, opposing players. And that doesn’t sit well with me. What’s wrong is wrong. And I’ll never be absolved of that.”

“Personally, I regret not doing more to stop it.”

Morton has expressed regret over not doing anything to stop the cheating...now that it’s gone public. A teammate on the Rays, Kevan Smith, was at the heart of the public-feeding frenzy when the video of Danny Farquhar facing Evan Gattis began making the rounds.

In the video, White Sox reliever Danny Farquhar became frustrated with the blatant banging sound when the catcher would give a breaking ball sign. Farquhar stepped off the mound and changed the signs with his catcher. That catcher is one of Morton’s newest teammates, Kevan Smith.

Smith broke down the infamous at-bat against Gattis to Tim Benz of Triblive.com.

Smith said he and Farquhar had to script out the next four pitches and abandon the signs. He had this to say about being Morton’s teammate in 2020:

“I’ll ask him all sorts of questions this spring about what he knew,” Smith said with a laugh. “Were these guys OK with it? Did they genuinely know what was going on? Did they just want it to happen so they could get to the World Series?“No one knows the motives. It’s honestly starting to sound like a great Netflix documentary.”

Smith would go on to take a more serious approach:

“For these pitchers, they played their whole careers. They’ve worked hard. They’ve developed their craft. These (hitters) are messing with their families. They are messing with their well-being and how they are providing for their families. The deeper you dig into it, you feel sorry for these guys. It resembles taking steroids.”

I’ve written a few times about implementing a communication system for pitchers and catchers to do away with the signs. Putting a finger or two down is archaic compared to the technology the would-be sign stealers are using. Use that same tech to allow the pitchers and catchers to communicate.

Read more about a sign-stealing solution below:

Tampa Bay Rays: Simple Solution to Sign Stealing

Do you think less of Charlie Morton for his silence? Does his apology feel disingenuous since it only came after the investigation results were made public?

Pitchers and catchers report this week!