Chatting with Danny Farquhar about Houston's sign stealing

Danny Farquhar (and me)

Danny Farquhar's career as a pitcher is sadly over. As all White Sox fans and most baseball fans are aware, Farquhar suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm April 20, 2018, in the dugout during a game against the Houston Astros at Guaranteed Rate Field.

That would be the last time Farquhar would pitch in a major-league game. He pitched in two games at Triple-A in the New York Yankees organization in 2019, before retiring as a player.

Now, Farquhar is back in the Sox organization. He will be the pitching coach for Class-A Winston-Salem during the 2020 season, and it was good to see him make an appearance at SoxFest.

I got in Farquhar's photo line Friday night, and I had a chance to talk to him about a different game against the Astros -- this one a 3-1 Sox victory on Sept. 21, 2017.

Farquhar worked a 1-2-3 eighth inning in this game, but most notably, it was one of the games where the Astros were clearly stealing signs. In this video, Farquhar calls Sox catcher Kevan Smith to the mound to change the signs in the middle of an at-bat against Houston's Evan Gattis.

Turns out, Farquhar heard the Astros banging trash cans every time Smith signaled for a changeup. (Farquhar was mostly a two-pitch pitcher, fastball and changeup.)

“There was a banging from the dugout, almost like a bat hitting the bat rack every time a changeup signal got put down,” Farquhar said in this story in The Athletic. “After the third one, I stepped off. I was throwing some really good changeups and they were getting fouled off. After the third bang, I stepped off.”

So, when I met Farquhar, I asked him if anyone from the media had asked him about the incident immediately after that game. He said no, and he added that it was talked about in the clubhouse that night, so to him, it was somewhat surprising that it took so long for Houston's shenanigans to come to the forefront.

Nobody in the press interviewed Farquhar after his outing. As I stood there talking to him, I noted that relief pitchers don't get many interview requests on days when they do their job effectively, as was the case here. Farquhar agreed and said that had he given up a 3-run homer and lost the game for the Sox, he probably would have had to answer reporters' questions after the game.

The SoxFest police grew tired of me visiting with Farquhar, so they asked me to move along. As we parted, Farquhar said as a player you need to be careful before you accuse another team of doing something wrong -- nobody wants to be known as someone who falsely accuses others, and there's a fine line you have to walk.

The sign-stealing situation came up multiple times at SoxFest, and new Sox reliever Steve Cishek said the Cubs reworked their signs after they lost a game to the Astros in Houston last season.

Cishek wouldn't name names, but said a ridiculous opposite-field home run was hit on a first-pitch slider. The home run ended up boosting the Astros to a 9-6 victory over the Cubs.

I will name names: Alex Bregman hit that home run off Brad Brach.

We haven't addressed the sign-stealing scandal much on this blog, because everyone else is talking about it, and what else is there to say?

I was always taught, if you think someone has your signs, change them. That's what Farquhar did in his scenario in September 2017, and it was fun to chat informally with him about the incident. And, it's good to see him healthy and back with the Sox organization.

We wish Farquhar well in his new endeavor as a pitching coach. He's a smart guy, and I think he'll have a lot to offer for the young pitchers in the Sox organization.