BREAKING: The Yankees Infamous Sign-Stealing Letter Has Been Revealed And There's About To Be a Whole Lot Of Disappointed People Out There
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For a while now we've heard about this infamous sealed letter that MLB sent to the Yankees after their sign stealing investigation. Everyone Yankee hater alive hoped it would embarrass the franchise beyond belief and put them in the same category as the Astros. Yeah….not even close.
You had that Ryan Spaeder dude who WSD loves, accusing the Yankees of pointing their cameras to the catcher's glove. He pointed to Aaron Judge's splits in 2017-2018 and alluded to a whole scandal about to be uncovered. He immediately deleted everything saying he'll just stick to tweeting stats. All time bizarre tweet.
Then a few days ago he came out of his shell to puff out his chest one more time.
Well, here are Martino's bullet points from the letter…
- The letter does not implicate the Yankees in a sign-stealing scheme similar to the one for which the Houston Astros were punished, when batters received the signs in real time without the help of a runner on second base.
-It does reveal -- as SNY has previously reported it would -- that the Yanks used the video replay room in 2015 and 2016 to decode sign sequences and pass them to a runner on second base, who would then relay them to the batter.
- For that, the Yankees received a fine of $100,000, a previously unreported amount.
-The letter clears the Yankees of using YES Network cameras to steal signs, which the Red Sox alleged.
-The letter does not accuse the Yankees of sign-stealing after the crucial date of September 15, 2017, when Manfred announced that from that day forward electronic sign stealing would be subject to more severe punishments. In fact, the letter does not accuse the team of stealing signs at any point during the 2017 season.
We knew literally all of this. So you've got nothing that says they used YES cameras to steal signs. They improperly used the replay room in 2015 and 2016, something that was seemingly happening across the league as baseball tried to set rules for something they had let get out of control. Nothing happened after Manfred enforced rules and said it would not be tolerated moving forward. That's what got the Red Sox and Astros in trouble.
Anyone hoping this letter was going to reveal anything close to the Astros cheating scandal is going to be really disappointed. This is a good ol' nothing burger through and through.
As for why Cashman and other Yankee executives made it a big to-do to keep this letter sealed? Seems like it really had to do with legal precedent more than the actual content of the findings. Lot of blue balls for the haters for which there are many. There is no new added info from this letter, as the judge added during the appeals process.
Sorry folks. Sorry Mick Man
P.S. Now that we're done with the sealed letter bullshit can we focus on the fact that Manfred had two different baseballs in the game last year and manipulated scores throughout the whole season?