For years, the New York Yankees tried to hide the letter that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred sent general manager Brian Cashman about sign-stealing.
Their attempts were all unsuccessful, and the letter was unsealed.
SNY’s Andy Martino obtained the letter and explained that while it doesn’t implicate the Yankees in a similar, real-time scheme like the 2017 Houston Astros, it says they did use the video replay room in 2015 and 2016 to decode sign sequences and pass them to a runner on second base, and he would, in turn, relay them to the hitter.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale summed up Martino’s article in a tweet.
The Yankees Did Steal Some Signs, According To Andy Martino
“The #Yankees used the video replay room in 2015-2016 to steal signs, costing them $100,000 fine, but there was no illegal sign stealing by the club in 2017 when MLB began its crackdown, according to the sealed letter between Commissioner Rob Manfred and #Yankees GM Brian Cashman,” he tweeted.
The #Yankees used the video replay room in 2015-2016 to steal signs, costing them $100,000 fine, but there was no illegal sign stealing by the club in 2017 when MLB began its crackdown, according to the sealed letter between Commissioner Rob Manfred and #Yankees GM Brian Cashman. https://t.co/AsaRcL8P2S
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) April 26, 2022
While it wasn’t a complex, real-time scheme in which most of the team was implicated (like it happened with the 2017 Astros), the Yankees using the video replay room to decode sign sequences was also not right.
MLB started to pay more attention to the issue after the 2017 season, which is why the Astros’ scheme was more prominent.
The Boston Red Sox’s 2018 offense was also of the real-time variety, and it was also a scandal.
It remains to be seen how mainstream media reacts to the content of the Yankees’ letter being publicly available, and of course, the nature of that content.
But it’s clear that there were some things the Yankees wish they done differently.
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