Yahoo Finance Astros players take jabs at Yankees after judge orders unsealing of MLB sign-stealing letter
Members of the Houston Astros took not-so-subtle jabs at the New York Yankees on Saturday morning just hours after a federal judge ordered the unsealing of a 2017 letter that allegedly details “more serious” sign-stealing infractions by New York.
According to the The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff ordered that letter to be unsealed Friday. The ruling came after the plaintiffs, a group of DraftKings players who are accusing Major League Baseball, the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros of defrauding them in the recent sign-stealing scandal, alleged the letter proves commissioner Rob Manfred’s duplicity in regards to illegal sign-stealing activity.
At this time, no details of the letter have been revealed publicly.
Judge Rakoff is on record stating much of the letter’s contents were already revealed in a league-issued press release dated Sept. 15, 2017. In fact, it was reported by SNY’s Andy Martino later Saturday that the letter contains no actual allegations of sign-stealing.
That still didn’t stop some high-profile members of the Astros from taking a victory lap over the supposedly incoming headlines.
— Josh Reddick (@RealJoshReddick) June 13, 2020
— Lance McCullers Jr. (@lmccullers43) June 13, 2020
Wait... what? ....?
— Carlos Correa (@TeamCJCorrea) June 13, 2020
No Yankees references needed. We got the message loud and clear, even though it’s hard to expect any vindicating information coming from the letter.
It’s also worth noting that Alex Bregman quickly deleted a tweet that appeared to reference the Yankees around the time of Martino’s report.
For MLB’s sake, it might be better if these teams don’t meet during a potential 2020 season. Though if they do, it will almost certainly come in a playoff series.
As for that September 2017 press release, Manfred announced the Yankees had been fined for illegal use of a dugout phone during the 2015-2016 seasons. In the same release, the Red Sox were hit with a larger fine for illegally using an Apple Watch to steal and decipher a Yankees catcher’s signs.
It’s a story that went away much faster than the Astros’ scandal. In fact, the details of stealing signs and banging trash cans will almost certainly hover over Houston for as long as the current core of players remain intact.
The Astros won’t win any points for their reaction here, either. Not with the general consensus being the players let manager A.J. Hinch, former coach Alex Cora and general manager Jeff Luhnow take the fall while they’ve taken little responsibility for their own roles in the scheme. If ever there was a time to mind their own business, this was probably that time.
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