Sign stealing has long been an element of baseball strategy. When a batter is hitting, his teammates rigorously watch a catcher’s fingers or body language to determine what pitch is about to be thrown. That’s all fair play so long as teams don’t use any electronic devices, reminiscent of cameras or computers, to facilitate the method.
During past seasons — in line with a newly released, partially redacted letter from Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman sent in 2017 — the Yankees used electronic devices to decipher and share opposing teams’ signs. The letter got here after the Yankees had accused the Boston Red Sox of using an analogous process.
“The Yankees’ use of the dugout phone to relay details about an opposing Club’s signs throughout the 2015 season, and a part of the 2016 season, constitutes a cloth violation of the Replay Review Regulations,” Manfred wrote to Cashman.
“Through the use of the phone within the video review room to instantaneously transmit information regarding signs to the dugout in violation of the Regulations, the Yankees were capable of provide real-time information to their players regarding an opposing Club’s sign sequence — the identical objective of the Red Sox’s scheme that was the topic of the Yankees’ grievance.”
The rationale the Yankees were punished in a less severe way (a $100,000 nice earmarked for a charitable cause) than the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox, World Series-winning teams that were dealt suspensions, fines, a lack of draft picks and public scorn? Those teams continued their sign-stealing ways after M.L.B. began cracking down on it and instituted clear terms of punishment.
The contents of that M.L.B. letter to the Yankees — which became public on Tuesday, and were first reported by SNY, ahead of an expected unsealing in court — weren’t exactly recent or surprising. Paranoia about opponents stealing signs between pitchers and catchers has existed throughout baseball history, however the influx of technology in the sport had introduced recent fears.
Recent ways to skirt the principles emerged in 2014, when M.L.B. expanded its use of quick replay review, which established rooms near each team’s dugout with live video feeds to assist coaches determine whether or to not challenge a play. Players were also allowed to go to these rooms during games to seek the advice of video of their pitching or hitting. But any use of technology to decode or relay opponents’ signs during a game was still prohibited.
Although concern had been constructing amongst many teams that their opponents were going too far, the primary big public sign that technology was being abused got here in 2017, when The Recent York Times reported that the Yankees had filed a grievance with M.L.B. accusing the Red Sox of relaying signs from video replay personnel to the dugout via an Apple Watch. After an investigation of the Red Sox, which led to a nice, M.L.B. admitted that it had turn into increasingly difficult to observe the inappropriate use of electronics.
“At that cut-off date, sign stealing was utilized as a competitive tool by quite a few teams throughout Major League Baseball and only became illegal after the Commissioner’s specific delineation of the principles on September 15, 2017,” the Yankees said in a press release on Tuesday, later adding that they’ve had “no infractions or violations” since.
The 2022 M.L.B. Season
A season that was doubtful is suddenly in full gear.
That day, Manfred sent a memorandum to all 30 teams warning them about illegal sign-stealing and stating that club management, not players, could be held accountable for any such cheating. In March 2018, M.L.B. sent one other memorandum to groups that made clear that replay rooms and video feeds weren’t allowed for use for stealing signs during games.
(M.L.B. has since taken further steps to attempt to curb such behavior.)
This where the Yankees’ story, though, veers from those of the Astros and the Red Sox.
The Astros were found, in line with a M.L.B. investigation released in January 2020, to have employed a scheme through the 2017 playoffs and for no less than a part of the 2018 season that involved using cameras and monitors to decode opposing teams’ signs and tip off Houston’s batters, often by banging on a trash can just outside the dugout.
Manfred punished the Astros by issuing one-year suspensions to General Manager Jeff Luhnow and Manager A.J. Hinch, each of whom were subsequently fired by the team owner Jim Crane, and by fining the team $5 million and docking a first- and second-round draft pick in 2020 and 2021.
The Red Sox were found, in line with a separate M.L.B. investigation released in April 2020, to have used a scheme in 2018 that was more limited in scope than the Astros’ but still involved decoding opponents’ signs while watching live video during games and passing that information along to players.
Manfred punished the Red Sox by issuing one-year suspensions to Manager Alex Cora, who was also a part of the 2017 Astros’ scheme, and J.T. Watkins, Boston’s video replay operator. The team also lost its second-round pick in 2020.
Manfred’s once-private letter to the Yankees got here out now due to a court case, dismissed by U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in April 2020, between fantasy sports contestants who claimed they were damaged by sign stealing in M.L.B. The fans, who sued M.L.B., the Astros and Red Sox, claimed that Manfred’s 2017 letter to Cashman, which emerged during discovery, contradicted the league’s public statements on the time.
The Yankees tried to maintain the letter sealed, arguing that they weren’t a celebration to the case and that it will harm their popularity. Multiple judges disagreed and argued that the majority of the letter had already been disclosed by M.L.B. in its 2017 statement. The Second U.S. Court of Appeals last week denied a request by the Yankees to rehear the team’s case to maintain the letter sealed.
The three-page letter from Manfred to Cashman explained how M.L.B. had found that the Red Sox had violated league rules. Manfred wrote that throughout the investigation into the Red Sox, the league was told (by an individual or group whose identity was redacted) that the Yankees “used an analogous scheme to that of the Red Sox” to decode opposing teams’ signs and relay them to the batter when a runner was on second base.
Manfred also wrote that a redacted person or group, who noticed the Red Sox using the Apple Watch, told the league that throughout the 2015 season and a part of the 2016 season that they provided information on opponents’ signs to players and coaches within the Yankee Stadium replay room, and so they in turn took that to the dugout. At certain stadiums on the road, he wrote, the data was conveyed through the dugout phone.
Finally, Manfred wrote that his office didn’t find any merit to a proper grievance by the Red Sox that accused the Yankees of pointing their YES Network cameras at Boston’s dugout when coaches and players gave signs. He also noted a minor unauthorized use of an iPad by a Yankees coach during a game.
Of their statements on Tuesday, M.L.B. and the Yankees identified that much of the contents of the letter had been known for a while.
“The Yankees didn’t violate M.L.B.’s rules on the time governing sign stealing,” M.L.B. said. “At the moment, use of the replay room to decode signs was not expressly prohibited by M.L.B. rules so long as the data was not communicated electronically to the dugout. Because rules regarding use of replay had evolved, many clubs moved their video equipment to shut proximity to the sphere, giving personnel the potential ability to quickly relay signs to the sphere.”
M.L.B. said that it clarified its rules regarding electronic equipment in that Manfred memorandum on Sept. 15, 2017 and drew “a transparent line” on March 27, 2018 that no clubhouse or video room equipment could possibly be used to decode signs.
“The Yankees vigorously fought the production of this letter, not just for the legal principle involved, but to forestall the inaccurate equating of events that occurred before the establishment of the Commissioner’s sign-stealing rules with those who took place after,” the Yankees said. “What needs to be made vibrantly clear is that this: the nice noted in Major League Baseball’s letter was imposed before M.L.B.’s recent regulations and standards were issued.”
