San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Players, coaches barred from video room
A comprehensive collection of health and safety protocols means ballplayers must cope without many of their many vices during the 2020 season, presuming one can even be completed. Spitting is banned. So, too, are chewing tobacco and sunflower seeds. Pitchers who lick their fingers to achieve a better grip must replace their saliva with a soaked rag.
Away from the field, a more critical absence looms. Players and coaches are prohibited from entering the video replay room during the 2020 season, potentially depriving them of technology some need to make midgame adjustments.
Technically, the measure is implemented for medical reasons. Framework for it began long before the pandemic arrived, though, as a response to rampant electronic sign stealing during the 2017-18 seasons. The Astros are the poster boys for that era, handed one of the harshest punishments in major league history for their trashcan-banging scheme during their 2017 World Series-winning season.
The 2018 Boston Red Sox were investigated and punished for illegally decoding signs from their replay room, too, but their wrongdoing was nowhere near as widespread or serious as the Astros’ scheme.
Daily fantasy players who filed suit against the Red Sox, Astros and Major League Baseball claim a sealed letter from commissioner Rob Manfred to New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman in 2017 details a “more serious, sign-stealing scheme” than what the league originally uncovered.
“I can speak for the Astros. I’m not doing the investigations and I’m not in the courthouse, and I don’t want to be,” Astros owner Jim Crane said Wednesday. “We broke the rules. We got punished. We accepted the punishment and we did what we did.”
As animus flew from all sides of the sport this spring — players, managers and executives excoriating the Astros — Manfred promised changes to the availability of in-game technology.
“I do expect that we will, for 2020, have really serious restrictions on player and player personnel access to video in-game,” Manfred told ESPN in February. “I think it was really important to us to send a message to our fans that not only did we investigate and punish, but we altered our policies in a way to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.”
Before the pandemic, the league and its players association were discussing a strict policy.
Both sides must agree upon it to take effect. Yankees reliever Zack Britton told reporters in February the league proposed “a blackout” with “no access.” The union proposed a plan that allowed hitters or pitchers to study video during a game.
“That’s a pretty extreme stance because of one team, that everyone else is punished,” Britton said of MLB’s proposal. “So, hopefully, we can find some common ground but definitely before opening day. Guys would like to understand what we’re going to be allowed to use and what we’re not going to be allowed to use before opening day.”
Now, if opening day does arrive, such an extreme may be reality. For purposes of access inside ballparks during the pandemic, the league is dividing personnel into three tiers. Players, coaches and other on-field personnel are included in Tier 1. Replay operators are in Tier 3.
Provided they are symptomfree, Tier 1 and Tier 2 individuals have access to restricted areas that others in the ballpark do not. According to Major League Baseball’s operations manual, the replay room is a non-restricted area, given the Tier 3 individuals who will be inside working. Tier 3 personnel are not covered under the same COVID-19 testing or health screenings as those in Tier 1 and Tier 2.
And so, “replay rooms are off limits to Tier 1 Individuals at all times,” the league’s operations manual says.
Stating a rule and enforcing it are two separate matters. MLB’s operations manual for 2020 did not mention “video monitors” or whether they’d still be utilized as they were in 2019. Given the desire to restrict as many people as possible from entering the ballpark or being near the players, having designated individuals solely to apply this rule seems farfetched.
Before last season, the league implemented volunteers in each ballpark to track video access and report any wrongdoing. These “video monitors” were instructed to write up any player who went where he was not allowed during a game or if he saw any part of a live telecast of that game.
Televisions in and around a clubhouse or dugout must show the game on an 8-second delay. The only place live video is permitted is inside the replay room.
Manfred’s investigation into the Astros found no wrongdoing during the 2019 season. In spring training, Astros players unanimously echoed that sentiment. Most of the industry did not believe them.
“I can’t manage how the other teams are investigated and treated,” Crane said. “That’s handled at the (Major League Baseball) office, the central office. That’s the commissioner’s job to do that.
“What happens, we’ll see. I think the story will continue for a long time. It will always be discussed, and it’s unfortunate that we were right in the middle of that. I’m not happy about it, and I’ve apologized numerous times. It shouldn’t have happened, and we shouldn’t have done it.”