'Yankee Letter' doesn't spell C-H-E-A-T-I-N-G
In this file photo, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman listens as Gerrit Cole is introduced as the newest Yankees player during a baseball media availability, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019 in New York. Credit: AP
The mega-hyped “Yankee Letter” was suddenly revealed Tuesday -- ahead of the court’s schedule, thanks initially to SNY.
Quick summation of the (source confirmed) contents: It’s nothing that hadn’t already been reported, more or less.
Yes, the Yankees broke the rules -- let’s say cheated, my phrasing not the commissioner’s -- during the 2015 and ’16 seasons by using the replay room and dugout phone to relay information about the catcher’s sign sequences to batters. While that specific behavior was not banned by MLB before 2017, using the equipment for those purposes was illegal, and the Yankees were fined $100,000 as punishment.
No, the letter does not incriminate the Yankees in a sign-stealing scandal to the magnitude of what both the Red Sox and Astros were able to pull off during their championship seasons after the critical tipping point of Sept. 15, 2017 -- when commissioner Rob Manfred explicitly outlawed such conduct, with severe penalties attached.
Consider yourself up to date.
As for the meaning of it all, well, that probably depends on whether or not you have pinstriped bedsheets and a dog named Jeter. For that crowd, the unveiling of the “Yankee Letter” -- which team president Randy Levine battled for years to suppress -- feels like exoneration.
As long as the Yankees weren’t rung up for spying with YES cameras as the Red Sox alleged (they weren’t) or banging on trash cans like the Astros (nope), then they’re pretty much in the clear. I mean, who hasn’t used a dugout phone improperly from time to time? And it’s got to be awfully tough to resist using all that video tech for a competitive edge, right? Isn’t that what it’s there for anyway?
“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 Tuesday in a statement. “What should be made vibrantly clear is this: the fine noted in Major League Baseball’s letter was imposed before MLB’s new regulations and standards were issued.
“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.”
This isn’t to excuse the Yankees’ behavior, but there’s a reason why teams invest millions in bleeding-edge data-gathering resources, and it’s to press their noses against the window of breaking the rules (mostly) without actually doing so. Along those lines, here’s the relevant paragraph from the “Yankee Letter” that Manfred sent to GM Brian Cashman back in 2017:
“The Yankees' use of the dugout phone to relay information about an opposing Club's signs during the 2015 season, and part of the 2016 season, constitutes a material violation of the Replay Review Regulations. By using the phone in the video review room to instantaneously transmit information regarding signs to the dugout in violation of the Regulations, the Yankees were able to provide real-time information to their players regarding an opposing Club's sign sequence - the same objective of the Red Sox's scheme that was the subject of the Yankees' complaint.”
Not quite as scandalous as mounting a TV in the dugout runway and banging trash cans with a bat, as the Astros did at Minute Maid Park. But not exactly kosher either. And in the minds of Yankee Haters, that’s still plenty for an indictment. “Material violation” doesn’t move the needle like CHEATING but it should be enough to keep the Yankees from setting up camp on the moral high ground in this argument.
The “Yankee Letter” doesn’t freshly stamp Cashman as a hypocrite in citing the Astros’ “horrific” cheating for costing the Yankees a World Series trip in 2017, as the Haters hoped it might. But we already had been told Cashman & Co. weren’t entirely clean.
The Yankees just pumped the brakes -- again, according to Manfred’s version of events -- rather than blow through the stop signs eventually put in place by MLB. That didn’t get them a 28th World Series trophy, but Manfred didn’t drop the hammer on the franchise like the Astros and Red Sox. Nor do the Yankees deserve to be lumped in with the more egregious cheaters. MLB always backed that claim, and said as much with Tuesday’s statement on the matter.
“As previously made public in 2017, the New York Yankees were fined for improper use of the dugout phone because the Replay Review Regulations prohibited the use of the replay phone to transmit any information other than whether to challenge a play,” MLB’s statement said. “The Yankees did not violate MLB’s rules at the time governing sign stealing.
As we now know, things got messy after that, necessitating MLB to “draw a clear line” between legal behavior and cheating with the game’s newest tech. Based on those directives, the “Yankee Letter” didn’t turn out to be the Scarlet Letter many speculated it might for the franchise.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
