Major League Baseball fined the New York Yankees $100,000 in 2017 for using their replay room and dugout phone to steal opponents’ signs during the 2015 and 2016 seasons in what commissioner Rob Manfred described as a “material violation” of rules governing the replay room.
The ruling was made public Tuesday, when courts unsealed a letter Manfred sent to Yankees general manager Brian Cashman on Sept. 14, 2017.
The letter’s revelation — a copy of which was obtained by the Chronicle and SportsNet New York — came after the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals last week denied to rehear an appeal from the Yankees to keep it sealed. The letter was obtained during the discovery phase of a $5 million class-action lawsuit brought by DraftKings players against Major League Baseball, the Astros and Boston Red Sox in the wake of the sign-stealing revelations in early 2020.
The two-page document provided few specifics and rehashed much of what Manfred already acknowledged in a Sept. 15, 2017, statement, one in which he disciplined the Red Sox for using their replay room to decode signs and warned that “future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”
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“The Yankees vigorously fought the production of this letter, not only for the legal principle involved, but to prevent the incorrect equating of events that occurred before the establishment of the commissioner’s sign-stealing rules with those that took place after,” the team said in a statement Tuesday.
“What should be made vibrantly clear is this: The fine noted in Major League Baseballs letter was imposed before MLB’s new regulations and standards were issued.”
The Astros continued to use their electronic sign-stealing scheme and trash can banging at Minute Maid Park after Manfred’s Sept. 15, 2017 decree. Owner Jim Crane fired manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow after the system became public in Jan. 2020. The league also fined the franchise $5 million and took away its first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021.
Prior to the Astros’ game against the Rangers at Globe Life Field on Tuesday, Crane declined comment on Manfred’s letter to Cashman, An Astros spokesperson also declined comment on behalf of the team.
Manfred’s letter to Cashman helps reinforce two long-held beliefs: Electronic sign-stealing predated the Astros’ infamous trash can banging scheme and ran rampant throughout the sport before stricter enforcement arrived in September 2017. Multiple players across baseball have acknowledged it since the Astros were punished and became pariahs. No other publicly known sign-stealing schemes — including the one detailed in Manfred’s letter to Cashman — approach the severity of Houston’s trash can banging scheme.
“If the Astros were the only team doing it, then yeah, give (the 2017 World Series championship) back — take it back. I know for a fact they weren’t,” Red Sox ace Chris Sale said earlier this month. “All these people pointing fingers: Well, hey, take a check in the mirror real quick. Make sure that you and your team weren’t doing something.”
ALSO SEE: How Astros’ penalties compared to Red Sox’s, Yankees’
Sale joined the Red Sox in 2017, the same season the Yankees alleged Boston had violated the league’s electronic sign-stealing rules by illegally using an Apple Watch.
In a letter dated Sept. 14, 2017, Manfred wrote to Cashman that within the course of the league’s investigation into the Red Sox, an unnamed Boston player told investigators the Yankees used a similar scheme to decode signs.
According to the letter, a Yankees baseball operations assistant admitted to league investigators that he provided information about opponents’ signs to members of the team’s replay room during the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
The staffer’s name is redacted in the letter. The Boston player, who had played for the Yankees earlier in his career, is also not named.
The staff in the replay room “physically relayed the information” to the Yankees dugout, but the letter did not specify how it happened. The team also tried its tactics during road games, according to the letter. At ballparks where the dugout was farther from the replay room, the Yankees sometimes used a dugout phone line to “orally provide real-time information” about the opponent’s signs, the letter said.
“At that time, use of the replay room to decode signs was not expressly prohibited by MLB rules as long as the information was not communicated electronically to the dugout,” MLB said in a statement Tuesday. “Because rules regarding use of replay had evolved, many clubs moved their video equipment to close proximity to the field, giving personnel the potential ability to quickly relay signs to the field. MLB clarified the rules regarding the use of electronic equipment on September 15, 2017.”
Manfred wrote that the Yankees’ wrongdoing “constitutes a material violation of the replay review regulations” and had “the same objective of the Red Sox’s scheme that was the subject of the Yankees complaint.”
In his public statement on Sept. 15, 2017, Manfred acknowledged that the Yankees “had violated a rule governing the use of the dugout phone” during a season prior to 2017.
“The substance of the communications that took place on the dugout phone was not a violation of any rule or regulation in and of itself,” Manfred said in that announcement. “Rather, the violation occurred because the dugout phone technically cannot be used for such a communication.”
Both the 2017 Astros and 2018 Red Sox were cited for sign-stealing schemes that originated in their teams’ replay rooms. The Astros ran a far more egregious operation: positioning a camera in center field at Minute Maid Park, pointing it at the catcher and banging trash cans to relay the signs he flashed with Houston hitters at the plate.
Manfred’s letter to Cashman mentioned nothing about cameras. It also does not accuse the Yankees of illicit activity after Sept. 15, 2017 — the day Manfred promised harsher punishment for sign-stealing.
The 2018 Red Sox scheme was “far more limited in scope and impact” than the Astros’ 2017 actions, according to the league’s findings. Alex Cora, Boston’s manager that season, incurred a one-year suspension for only his actions as the Astros’ bench coach in 2017.
Cora returned to manage the Red Sox in 2021. He, along with veteran outfielder Carlos Beltrán, were painted as ringleaders of the Astros’ scheme in 2017. Beltrán played for the Yankees in 2015 and 2016.
Following the 2018 season, in response to concerns permeating the game, Major League Baseball implemented a stricter sign-stealing policy and protocols at all of its ballparks. The league put video room monitors to patrol areas around the clubhouse, replay room and dugout in search of any nefarious activity.
“Since Major League Baseball clarified its regulations regarding the use of video room equipment on September 15, 2017, the Yankees have had no infractions or violations,” the team said Tuesday.
Staff writers Jerome Solomon and Danielle Lerner contributed to this report.
