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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed Tuesday that the Boston Red Sox used electronic communication from the dugout to steal opponents' signs and relay them to Boston players during games.

The New York Yankees informally reached out to the commissioner's office on Aug. 19 and filed a formal complaint against the Red Sox on Aug. 23, sources told ESPN's Buster Olney. Baseball's investigation of the Red Sox is ongoing, Manfred said from Fenway Park ahead of Boston's game against Toronto, but he expects it will be completed before the end of the regular season.

News of the investigation was first reported by the New York Times.

Major League Baseball does not have a policy against sign stealing, per se, Manfred said. The issue is the use of an electronic device in the dugout, which is against league rules.
"We actually do not have a rule against sign-stealing," Manfred said. "It has been a part of the game for a very, very long time. To the extent that there was a violation of the rule here, it was a violation by one or the other [team] that involved the use of electronic equipment. It's the electronic equipment that creates the violation. I think the rule against electronic equipment has a number of policy reasons behind it, but one of them is we don't want to escalate attempts to figure out what a pitcher is going to throw by introducing electronics into that mix.

"To the extent there was a violation on either side, we are 100 percent comfortable that it's not an ongoing issue, that if it happened, it is no longer. I think that's important from an integrity perspective going forward."

The league investigation is being conducted by Bryan Seeley, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington who now heads MLB's department of investigations.

After MLB corroborated the claims with its own video, the commissioner's office confronted the Red Sox, who admitted that video replay personnel were getting signs and that those were relayed to some players, The Times reported. The scheme had been ongoing for some weeks.

The Red Sox's scheme came to MLB's attention when New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman filed a complaint with Manfred's office last month. He supplied video of what the team contended was a Red Sox trainer looking at his Apple Watch, the Times reported, and then relaying information to players -- in one instance outfielder Brock Holt and in another infielder Dustin Pedroia -- during a series between the teams in Boston.

Red Sox manager John Farrell, whose team is hosting Toronto, said that Boston is "aware of the rule [that] electronic devices are not to be used in the dugout." When asked to comment further, he said it's "a league matter."

Regarding the potential for penalties, sources told Olney it is highly unlikely the Red Sox would be docked draft picks, but that fines and suspensions are possible.
Manfred said that, "under the major league constitution," the league has the authority to strip one or both teams of wins, but he acknowledged it has never happened in a case like this, because "it's just very hard to know what the actual impact in any particular game was of an alleged violation like this."

Asked whether a potential punishment for Boston could be used to deter future incidents, Manfred acknowledged it was a factor that would be weighed.
"When I think about punishment, I think you need to think about deterrents," he said. "I think you need to think about how the violation has affected the play on the field, and I think you need to think about how it's affected the perception of the game publicly. All of those things are something that you have to weigh in terms of trying to get to appropriate discipline."

Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski declined to comment on the matter of electronic devices, but he said stealing signs has been part of the game for many years.

"I don't really want to comment on any analysis of anybody. But I will say I think sign stealing has been going on in baseball for a long time," Dombrowski said. "I've been in the game for 40 years, I've known of it for 40 years, sign stealing, itself. People I've talked to that played back in the '50s talk to me about sign stealing. So I do think sign stealing has been taking place for a long time. I will acknowledge that.

"Do I think sign stealing is wrong? No, I don't. I guess it depends how you do it. But no, I never thought it was wrong. I guess everybody in the game has been involved with it throughout the years. People are trying to win however they can. It's an edge they are trying to gain. Sometimes your sophistication of signs can make a difference. So no, I never felt like it's wrong. Put it this way, I was never brought up that it was wrong."
Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, who is in Baltimore for a game against the Orioles, said of the sign stealing, "It was something we expected was going on."

During Yankees-Red Sox games this year, Yankees catchers increasingly and repeatedly visited the mound to go through the signs or change sequences verbally -- and this was related partly to the Yankees' concerns about how the Red Sox were relaying information, sources told Olney.

Sources with knowledge of the situation told ESPN's Andrew Marchand that the Yankees have suspected the Red Sox were using illegal methods to steal signs for a while, but they could not prove it until the last series in Boston. The Yankees thought something was not right because the Red Sox repeatedly hit pitches hard that the Yankees felt would normally be unhittable -- especially with runners in scoring position.

A source also questioned how Farrell and Dombrowski did not know about the scheme, considering the Yankees were able to figure it out, and so many players were involved.
The Red Sox have since filed their own complaint, alleging that the Yankees use a camera from their YES Network exclusively for stealing signs.

Sources denied the substance of the Red Sox's counterclaim, with one saying it was a public relations move to try to muddy the waters.

"There is no meat on the bone," the source said.

"No chance," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

LINK

WTF is it about teams from the New England area? The Patriots. The Red Sox. Somebody better check the Bruins and Celtics.

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Olney

The New York Yankees suspected for weeks that the Boston Red Sox had illicitly stolen signs in some way because of the comfort in the swings of the Boston hitters. One of New York’s hard-throwing relievers would try an off-speed pitch, and time and again, it seemed that the Red Sox hitter at the plate would dial down and taken an aggressive, healthy hack -- as if the batter had been lucky and guessed right.

But it happened again. And again. And again.

So the Yankees searched for answers about how this might be taking place, and on the evening of Aug. 18, the Yankees’ staff discovered in video review what it determined to be incontrovertible evidence -- as first detailed in the New York Times on Tuesday afternoon. An assistant trainer received a message on his watch; the trainer informed a Red Sox player in the dugout; the player relayed that information to the runner at second base, indicating which pitch signal in the sequence of signs was real; the runner at second, instantly armed with the key to breaking the Yankees’ signal-calling code, could detail the identity of the forthcoming pitch for the hitter at the plate.

David Dombrowski, the president of Boston’s baseball operations, noted Tuesday that sign-stealing has been a part of the game for decades. But this was something different than the good ol’ fashion cat-and-mouse game between the pitcher and catcher and the baserunner at second base.

If what the Yankees believe to be true is fully verified by Major League Baseball, this was like sign-stealing on steroids -- using technology to accelerate the process of decoding catchers’ signs and giving the Red Sox a competitive advantage over teams that respected MLB’s no-technology rules. If what the Yankees believe to be true is verified, Boston hitters had advance knowledge of markedly more pitches they were about to see than their opponents, because members of the organization ignored MLB's guidelines.
It’s basically the same type of advantage a student would have over peers if he or she received the questions to a college exam before the test.

If Major League Baseball wants teams to take its no-technology rules seriously, it needs to come down hard on the Red Sox. If commissioner Rob Manfred lightly fines Boston, or renders some other toothless punishment, then he’ll essentially greenlight other teams to try to replicate the Red Sox crime -- and guarantee that a game he is trying to speed up will instead be even further bogged down by mound meetings and infield conferences, as teams combat an even more complicated version of sign-stealing.

If what the Yankees allege is verified, then what the Red Sox did was brazen, and continued even after the Yankees initially reached out to the commissioner’s office with an unofficial complaint.

The day after the Yankees identified the video evidence that they felt demonstrated Red Sox cheating, sources say, they reached out to the commissioner’s office and were informed that they would be contacted by Dombrowski. That did not happen. A Red Sox source maintained that nobody within the commissioner’s office reached out to Dombrowski at that time and that the Red Sox were told that Yankees GM Brian Cashman intended to call Dombrowski.

In that day’s game -- after the Yankees had first been in touch with MLB -- the Yankees again collected video of what they believed to be the same sequence of events:
Athletic trainer checks his watch; athletic trainer speaks to a player in the dugout; player in the dugout communicates with a runner at second; and with the clear view of the catcher, the runner decodes the signals for the batter and relays that information to the hitter.

When the Yankees front office had still not heard from Dombrowski by Aug. 23, four days after their initial contact with MLB, it filed a formal complaint, along with the video evidence.

On Tuesday, neither Dombrowski nor John Farrell addressed the specifics of what the Yankees alleged. But the Red Sox did file their version of a countersuit against the Yankees with MLB, suggesting that the Yankees have been using a YES Network camera to steal signs. Yankees manager Joe Girardi dismissed that possibility, and if MLB finds no credibility to the Red Sox allegation, that should be a factor in determining a penalty against Boston.

Because that will mean that given the choice between being accountable and acknowledging a transgression -- a clear violation of a written rule -- the Red Sox instead tried to obfuscate, to muddy the conversation about sign-stealing. Everybody’s doing it is not an acceptable response because, quite frankly, not everybody’s doing it -- and certainly not in the manner the Red Sox were.

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Sure sign stealing is a way of life in sports. It's part of the competition. So MLB says, it's okay to try and decipher signals from the manager, 3rd base coach and catcher but not if you're using electronic equipment. I'm all for that. If you can steal a sign to gain an advantage, good for you. You're working hard. Why is it okay? If a pitcher is tipping his pitches, nobody says "oh you can't use that to your advantage". Sure you can. It's part of the game. It's his fault for tipping you off.

Which brings me to one of my biggest complaints about MLB. Replay. I love replay. It's only right to make sure things are called the way they truly happen. If you're out, you're out even if the umpire gets it wrong and calls you safe. But it's the electronic/video part that I don't think is right. You should have to come out of the dugout immediately and ask for a challenge. No waiting for your "replay room" to play it back and check. The umpire has no replay room to make the call. He does it in real time, with his own two eyes and their collective averages are pretty good. Really good in fact. So the manager should either have to trust his eyes or his player's opinion who involved in the play. Not some "video bench coach".

But I also believe, given some umpires (Angel Hernandez, et al), there should be no limit on the number of replays. Each manager should get 2, a 3rd if they get both right, just like football. And the plays that can be challenged should be expanded slightly. In particular, check swings. Strikes and balls shouldn't be a challenged call but MLB should take great effort in their evaluation of umpires to make sure only the best get to call balls and strikes. But check swings? It's not a strike/ball call, it's a swing call. Teams should be allowed to challenge the home plate umpire who calls the swing without the aid of a base ump. Like I've heard many times, it's almost impossible to watch the ball and the bat and determine a swing in the instances where it is extremely close. Many times they are dead on (so they are pretty talented anyway) but it's those close calls that are the most difficult.

Another of my (and many other fans) complaints are about catchers going to the mound. Two an inning max.

Batters calling timeout at the last second. That's annoying but sometimes it's warranted. Give em that but eliminate the strolls around the batting area outside the box in between every pitch. The Nomar Garciapara superstition routine (and others) should be done while in the box waiting for the pitch......and you can't call timeout just because that routine is interrupted by the pitcher going into his wind or stretch.

MLB is a great game with many embedded traditions. I'm not asking for those to be eliminated (like the NFL is trying to eliminate contact), just regulated a bit more. Eliminate the "walk up" music. Guys wait in the on deck circle for the pitcher to get the ball after a play before they slowly walk to the plate with their theme music. When the pitcher gets the ball back, you need to be one step from the box. Hell that alone would shorten games by 30 minutes!

Rant over.

[Hacksaw]

LINK

WTF is it about teams from the New England area? The Patriots. The Red Sox. Somebody better check the Bruins and Celtics.

We already know about the Celtics. They've just been losing to much to care...