Pitch tipping and sign stealing seem to be the hot topics of the 2025 MLB postseason.
But what one Mariners slugger did on Wednesday afternoon to seemingly relay signals to his teammates was a little too obvious, according to two former big leaguers announcing the game.
In the fourth inning of the Tigers’ 9-3 home win over the Mariners in ALDS Game 4, Josh Naylor was on second base with Detroit reliever Tyler Holton on the mound.
With Mitch Garver batting, Naylor held his arms in various positions before Holton delivered a pitch to the plate, either in an attempt to relay signs or make the Tigers think he knew what pitchers were coming.
Play-by-play announcer Adam Amin pointed it out early in the at-bat, telling viewers to “keep an eye” on Naylor’s arm motions.
Analyst Adam Wainwright, a former All-Star pitcher for the Cardinals, was beside himself over what he thought was “blatant.” He urged the Tigers to do something different to change things up on Seattle.
“I mean, what in the world? … I’ve never seen it so blatant in my whole life,” Wainwright said, also adding that the signals could have been “for show.”
“You haven’t watched a lot of games this year because it’s getting crazy,” fellow analyst and former MLB catcher A.J. Pierzynski replied. “And some guys say, ‘Oh, I’m doing it for show,’ but why are you doing it for show? Just to make someone think you’re doing something? I’ve never seen that.”
Wainwright added: “I don’t know, I don’t like it.”
As Pierzynski and Amin added, there is nothing illegal about stealing signs from second base like what Naylor appeared to be doing, but the former backstop said that during his days as a player, teams would make it less obvious if they had something from the opponent.
Former big leaguer Trevor Plouffe chimed in on X, saying he thought Naylor’s signals were “dummy” signs but that teams refrained from doing it when he played (2010-18) because of one reason — someone would get beaned.
“I love the discussion on Naylor being so blatant about signaling signs from 2B,” he wrote. “But back in the day it wasn’t ‘a gentleman’s agreement’ that kept the signals more discreet. IT WAS THAT GUYS WOULD DRILL YOU! Haha we’ve gotten away from that, thank goodness. But that’s what it was. And you also didn’t want the other team to know that you had something, so that you could keep doing it.”
In the end, Naylor ended up scoring a run that inning, but the Mariners got crushed, setting up a winner-take-all Game 5 in Seattle.
With the increase in cameras and videos on each player, pitch tipping and decoding-tells have become even more prominent in the game.
In September, when the Yankees played the Blue Jays a month before they faced off in the ALDS, the Bombers seemingly picked up on what Max Scherzer was throwing before Ben Rice connected on a three-run homer that helped decide the game.
Toronto manager John Schneider opened up after that Sept. 8 game about the Yankees being notably good at getting their opponents’ signs.
“They were relaying pitches, they’re good at it. Major League Baseball knows the Yankees are good when they have something,” Schneider said. “Maybe I’m the only one that’s going to say it publicly. But we have to do a better job of making sure we’re not giving anything away.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
