In 2017, the New York Yankees were fined $100,000 for using their replay room and bullpen phone to steal signs from opponents during the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
MLB determined that the Yankees used their video replay room to decipher the signals and transmit them to a batter through a runner on second base. This according to the letter, which commissioner Rob Manfred wrote to the team’s senior vice president and general manager, Brian Cashman.
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As an away club the club used the bench phone to relay the information from the replay room, the letter said. However, the Yankees maintain that former pitching coach Larry Rothschild would use the phone to ask about balls and strikes, sources told Martino.
“As previously made public in 2017, the New York Yankees were fined for inappropriate use of the dugout phone. Because replay review regulations prohibited the use of the replay phone to transmit any information other than if challenging one play,” MLB said in a statement Tuesday.
Yankees sign stealing
The Yankees’ sign-stealing scheme wasn’t on the same level as the one used by Houston during its 2017 season. The Astros banged on trash cans to notify hitters of what pitch was coming with the help of a dugout monitor. showing the feed from the center field camera.
MLB also determined that New York was not using YES Network cameras to steal signs from the Boston dugout as the Red Sox alleged. He concluded that those claims “had no merit.”
“The Yankees vigorously fought for the production of this letter. Not only because of the legal principle involved, but to avoid inaccurately equating events that occurred prior to the establishment of the commissioner’s sign-stealing rules with those that occurred afterward. “This must be done vibrantly. The fine outlined in Major League Baseball’s letter was imposed before the new MLB regulations and standards were issued,” the Yankees said in a statement.
The league did not suggest the Yankees use the scheme during the 2017 season. Manfred implemented stiff penalties for electronically stealing signs on September 15 of that year. MLB punished the Astros in January 2020 for their indiscretions.
He also suspended an operator of the Red Sox video playback system in April 2020 following an investigation into the 2018 allegations against Boston. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a request by the Yankees last Thursday to keep the letter sealed.
