The Yankees cheated. The Yankees and the league tried to keep this letter out of the public eye for years. The national sports media decided long ago that none of this would ever matter. They’ve barely covered it. Of course hacks like Passan are going to call this a “nothing burger.” This reminds me of college sports in the past when the big schools always got a slap on the wrist while the smaller schools got hammered for similar violations.
If you (and all the people who like your comment) don't see how a runner at 2nd reading and transmitting signs to a batter is different than some dude in a dugout looking at a monitor and then transmitting signs to a batter, then I don't know what to say.
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah...nothing is going to change, their could be video evidence of every single team stealing signs electronically and all that will be echoed throughout the masses is the Astro's did it. The Astro's used a trash can...nobody else used a trash can. Why? Because it's the Astros...like what happened with the human trafficking allegations and the Dodgers, isn't that a little more egregious. Oh well, like they say it is what it is.
So we see how “sign-stealing” using technology evolves…. But has to start somewhere. They’ve already pointed out other teams that started relaying signs in real time, regardless of men on base. But things starting from 2015-2016 make sense as to the overall timeline/evolution. The fact that MLB didn’t make this public back then speaks volumes as to them being complicit. This is almost like the steroid scandal all over again… something that was known amongst all, in large part ‘benefitted’ the game due to all the HR chases, but ultimately gets cracked down upon with a ‘holier than though’ MLB-led announcement after external forces make it so.
I think the criterion is the amount of competitive advantage gained through breaking the rule. If one team gains a greater competitive advantage from breaking the same rule as others then that team should be punished most severely irrespective of whether or not that team practiced their scheme as often as other teams. With electronic sign stealing there is virtually no competitive advantage to be gained and thus I don't see how one can be substantially more egregious than other. Maybe the Astros should have been punished twice as severely as the Yankees or Red Sox or something, but the penalties enforced against the Astros are orders of magnitude more severe than the punishment received by those teams.
I love how Cashman makes the point to say that it wasn't against the rules until late in the 2017 season, and that other teams used it during that time span...two crucial facts that everyone that hates the Astros conveniently forgets. Further, it makes what the Red Sox did in 2018 WORSE than what anyone else did because it was done long after it was specifically codified as being against the rules, and they were REPEAT offenders at that point. F*** MLB.
But the Astros are the only team that cheated they said. Of course it's going to be looked at as nothing because it's the Yankees. Every baseball fan for decades has known baseball teams have always tried to gain an advantage somehow. That's not the problem to me. The issue is the Astros being the only team viewed as cheaters and punished for a league wide thing.
LOL Passan is a hack. HACK! (But you already knew that) THREAD: Let’s start with some facts. The New York Yankees cheated. The Boston Red Sox cheated. The Houston Astros cheated. All of them used technology in real time to steal signs. (1/9) Now if you want to be the person who says cheating is cheating, it’s all bad, they’re all the same — you do you. If you’re rational and understand that cheating in sport exists on a continuum, then you understand the differences among the three teams that have been proven. (2/9) The Yankees in 2015-16 used their replay room to decode catchers’ signs and, on the road, used a replay-room phone to relay them to a dugout phone. These decoded signs were given to runners on second base, who could peek at the catcher and relay the coming pitch to hitters. (3/9) The Red Sox did essentially the same thing as the Yankees' replay room — except in 2018, after commissioner Rob Manfred had threatened penalty for use of technology to steal signs as well as after Boston in 2017 was fined for illicitly using an Apple Watch to relay signs. (4/9) The Astros used technology to steal signs. They then relayed the coming pitch to batters — even with the bases empty — in real time by banging on a trash can. Manfred’s report said this was done during the World Series run in 2017, including in the postseason. (5/9) These are different things. Very, very different things. Players have been trying to steal and relay signs from second base forever. That doesn’t excuse the Yankees and Red Sox, but context matters. Relaying pitches with such specificity as the Astros did was entirely new. (6/9) Now, if MLB comes down harder on the Yankees or Red Sox in 2017, does that change things? Perhaps. Maybe the Astros are scared straight. But let’s remember: Manfred warned the Red Sox in 2017 after using the Apple Watch. And they won the World Series in 2018 while cheating. (7/9) The Yankees Letter gives one piece of previously unreported information: MLB fined the team $100,000. Everything else has been reported. This doesn’t lessen the deed. But nothing in the letter damns the Yankees beyond what we’ve long known about them — and cheating in MLB. (8/9) Using technology to steal signs was rampant in baseball. The Yankees, Red Sox and Astros — and others whose indiscretions have not been proven publicly — did it. It’s simply facile to treat them as the same. It’s factual to say that there are different levels of cheating. (9/9)
TLDR version: Astros bad, Yankees good. Facts that support this conclusion listed, other facts omitted as inconvenient. *irrelevant.
Nothing burgers don’t usually lead to 9 page tweets having to rationalize his use of the word nothing-burger. I’m all for the backlash against all holier-than-thou baseball writers. They partially made this bed for themselves when they unilaterally decided to crucify one team… continuously… even when the story wasn’t about said team… and they rode the sensationalism in the name of web clicks (and in terms of Passan, a tv gig). The Astros scandal may have single-handedly kept these baseball writers (and the Athletic) afloat.
