Yankees angered, validated over Astros’ ‘cheating drama’
James Wagner
In the days after Major League Baseball delivered its damning report on the Houston Astros’ cheating scheme last month, a complex mix of emotions began flowing for the players and staff of the New York Yankees.
The scandal rocked the baseball world, but only one team had lost to the Astros twice in the postseason since they implemented their sign-stealing operation: The Yankees, who fell to Houston in the American League Championship Series in 2017 and 2019.
There was, of course, anger over the postseason losses to a deceitful opponent, and a clear sense of schadenfreude: Aroldis Chapman, who gave up key runs to Astros hitters during both those series, posted a meme of Michael Jackson eating popcorn and smiling with the caption, “ME WATCHING ALL THE ASTROS CHEATING DRAMA GO DOWN.” His teammates Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres and Luis Severino all piled on with laughter emojis.
But for many in the organization, there was a strong sense of validation, because MLB’s report confirmed what the Yankees, among other teams, had been trying to figure out about the Astros.
Fears that the Astros were skirting the rules had bubbled under the surface for years, including in the Bronx, after Houston rapidly transformed itself from one of the worst teams in baseball to a perennial contender.
Paranoia about opponents stealing signs has existed throughout baseball history, but the explosion of technology and instant replay in the game introduced new fears, as well as new ways to exploit the rules. All teams were looking to gain an edge, and the Astros had cultivated a reputation as being on the cutting edge of technology in nearly every aspect of organization.
So teams such as the Yankees had been vigilant about their rivals. During the 2017 regular season, they told MLB about video that showed a member of the Boston Red Sox training staff looking at an Apple Watch in the dugout during a game, and then relaying a message to players who, in turn, signaled teammates on the field about what type of pitch was about to be thrown. Any use of technology to decode or relay opponents’ signs is illegal.
That relatively minor scandal ultimately had huge implications. After investigating and fining the Red
Sox — and the Yankees for a lesser infraction involving the use of a dugout phone — MLB sent a strong warning that team leaders would be held accountable for such behavior.
That provided the basis for the yearlong bans for A.J. Hinch, the Astros’ former manager, and Jeff Luhnow, the former general manager, both of whom were subsequently fired by Jim Crane, the team’s owner. The scandal could also ensnare Alex Cora, who was fired as manager of the Boston Red Sox over his role in the cheating scheme as the Astros’ bench coach. (Cora is awaiting his punishment while MLB investigates the Red Sox for potential illegal use of live video feeds to steal signs.)
The Yankees had been particularly wary of the Astros, at least since their World Series victory in 2017. So were several other teams: Executives from Houston’s rivals were comparing notes on how they thought the Astros might be cheating. Though the Yankees could not quite figure out how it might be happening, they had been sending any evidence they deemed fishy about the Astros to MLB over the past few seasons.
It took Oakland Athletics pitcher Mike Fiers going on the record with The Athletic in November about his former team’s misdeeds to break the dam and spark MLB’s investigation.
There were a few clues before Fiers went public. In August 2018, the Athletics reported to MLB that the Astros were clapping before pitches, with Oakland believing it was an attempt to relay stolen signs to batters, according to a Yahoo Sports report that year that also mentioned trash can banging.
Earlier that season, during a series at Yankee Stadium, Brandon Taubman, then Houston’s senior director of baseball operations, confronted a Yankees employee who was filming with a hightech camera from center field. The Yankees had MLB permission to use the camera since it was non-live footage for scouting, but Taubman, as part of the Astros’ de facto anti-surveillance team, was playing defense against rivals’ potential sign stealing. (A year later, Taubman was fired by the Astros and banned from MLB for inappropriate comments he made toward female reporters after Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS.)
The Astros’ behavior worried the Yankees enough to prompt extra caution on the field. The Yankees instructed their pitchers to frequently change their signs, and gave them cards to place under their caps as reminders of the variations to cycle through during games.When the Yankees noticed whistling coming from the area of the Astros’ dugout during the same playoff series, they thought it was being used as a way to pass signs to batters, and they immediately alerted MLB. The league investigated that case but said it had found nothing awry.
Even though a few Yankees coaches were angry, Yankees manager Aaron Boone struck a calmer tone publicly, insisting he was not concerned. But in December, after the story in The Athletic came out, Boone admitted the allegations were “eye-popping” and “eye-opening.”