If you’re going to torch your baseball career, at least do it spying on a team worth spying on.
As first reported by The Athletic, the Los Angeles Angels fired advance scout Justin Prinstein after he was caught filming the Colorado Rockies’ coaching staff from the stands during their June series at Coors Field.
This story somehow gets even funnier once you learn the details.
Prinstein unironically referred to himself as “The Baseball Spy” on social media, and, to reiterate, he threw away his entire professional career spying on the Colorado Rockies.
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Think about that for a second. This wasn’t the Dodgers. It wasn’t the Yankees. It’s a squad more than 20 games behind the division lead.
It was the Rockies, a franchise so bad that whatever he filmed probably hurt the Angels more than it helped. Imagine burning down your life’s work just to gain an insider edge against a team that barely knows how to play fundamental baseball.
According to The Athletic, Prinstein sat in the designated scout section in Denver, pulled out his smartphone, and started recording Rockies coaches in broad daylight.
He wasn’t using covert equipment à la Conor Stalions. The “spy” was just holding up a cellphone in the middle of a packed ballpark, making him perhaps the least subtle sleuth in baseball history. Someone in the stadium spotted him, notified MLB, and the league office quickly alerted Anaheim.
Since the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal, MLB strictly bans using personal electronics to record coaches or decode signals.
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Former GM Perry Minasian, who was fired in late June, acted fast and fired Prinstein on the spot.
Minasian then had to make one of the most embarrassing phone calls of his life, reaching out to Rockies management to apologize for trying to steal secrets from a team that has no secrets worth stealing.
MLB concluded Prinstein acted alone, sparing the Angels any fines or lost draft picks.
To top it all off, the stolen intel did not even work.
The awful Rockies still went out and won two out of three games in the series anyway.
Risking your entire career to break MLB rules while spying on Colorado, getting caught immediately, and still losing the series … the only secret he uncovered was how fast you can get fired.
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