Fiers mum on sign stealing

Astros’ Correa says A’s pitcher can clear Altuve

MESA, Ariz. — On Saturday, Houston shortstop Carlos Correa insisted that A’s starter Mike Fiers specify that 2017 AL MVP Jose Altuve did not take part in the Astros’ systematic signstealing that season.

On Sunday, The Chronicle asked Fiers, the public whistleblower in the Astros’ cheating scandal, if he’d like to respond to Correa’s prompting, and Fiers politely declined comment.

Then, before walking away, Fiers said, “We did it as a team.”

Correa’s comments the previous day were in response to reigning NL MVP Cody Bellinger’s contention Friday that Altuve “stole the MVP” award from Aaron Judge of the Yankees in 2017.

On Saturday, Correa said that Altuve did not use the trashcan banging scheme that relayed pitch type to hitters, and, he said, “Mike Fiers knows that Altuve didn’t use the trash can,” Correa said. “You guys are gonna find out because I’m sure somebody is gonna ask him, and he’s gonna tell everybody.

“If he’s man enough to tell the truth and tell his story and break this story, he should be man enough to say that the MVP of 2017 didn’t use it.”

Fiers has not spoken publicly about the scandal since his comments to the Athletic website in November helped spark an investigation that led to sanctions against the Astros and cost manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luh

now their jobs (Mets manager Carlos Beltran and Red Sox manager Alex Cora lost their jobs as well). Fiers repeatedly has said that he wants to focus on the coming season and not be a distraction to his teammates.

Fiers informed the Tigers, the team with which he signed after leaving Houston, about the scheme, as well as the A’s. Oakland manager Bob Melvin and general manager David Forst confirmed that last week when The Chronicle asked if the A’s were among the teams to file a formal complaint about the Astros’ cheating. MLB took no action, however, until Fiers’ comments were made public.

Fiers did not discuss any Houston players by name in his comments to the Athletic last fall. Video analysis indicates that the trashcan bangs can be heard in only 2.8% of Altuve’s 2017 atbats, and Correa said that Altuve got mad when the bangs happened because he didn’t want to know what was coming.

Even if Altuve did not take part in the scheme, however, it’s evident he still would have benefited from it because he would have had more runners on base in front of him who did cheat and protection in the lineup behind him from players with numbers inflated by the system.