*Photo from Bleacher Report*
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has released the results of MLB's investigation into the 2018 Boston Red Sox over allegations of sign stealing. The Red Sox will lose their second round pick in the 2020 draft, video operator JT Watkins has been suspended for one year, and former manager Alex Cora was also suspended one year. Cora's suspension relates only to his actions with the 2017 Houston Astros, which prompted the investigation into Boston in the first place.
Manfred released his report, which reads as follows:
"I find that J.T. Watkins, the Red Sox video replay system operator, on at least some occasions during the 2018 regular season, utilized the game feeds in the replay room, in violation of MLB regulations, to revise sign sequence information that he had permissibly provided to players prior to the game.
I find that unlike the Houston Astros’ 2017 conduct, in which players communicated to the batter from the dugout area in real time the precise type of pitch about to be thrown, Watkins’s conduct, by its very nature, was far more limited in scope and impact. The information was only relevant when the Red Sox had a runner on second base (which was 19.7% of plate appearances leaguewide in 2018), and Watkins communicated sign sequences in a manner that indicated that he had decoded them from the in-game feed in only a small percentage of those occurrences.
I do not find that then-Manager Alex Cora, the Red Sox coaching staff, the Red Sox front office, or most of the players on the 2018 Red Sox knew or should have known that Watkins was utilizing in-game video to update the information that he had learned from his pregame analysis. Communication of these violations was episodic and isolated to Watkins and a limited number of Red Sox players only.
I find that the Red Sox front office consistently communicated MLB’s sign stealing rules to non-player staff and made commendable efforts toward instilling a culture of compliance in their organization."
After revealing the punishments of Watkins, Cora, and the loss of the draft pick, Manfred said that "No other member of the 2018 Red Sox staff will be disciplined because I do not find that anyone was aware of or should have been aware of Watkins’s conduct. The Club’s front office took more than reasonable steps to ensure that its employees, including Watkins, adhered to the rules. Notwithstanding these good faith efforts to comply with the rules, however, the Red Sox organization ultimately is responsible for the conduct of a member of its advance scouting staff.
As noted above, I feel bound by the agreement not to impose discipline on Red Sox players who testified truthfully in this matter. Even if I were not so bound, I do not believe that the Red Sox players who suspected that Watkins used game feeds to decode sign sequences should be held responsible for his conduct. Watkins knew of the rules and was responsible for not utilizing the replay system to decode sign sequences. Some players may have suspected that Watkins was using the replay system improperly, but they did not know that with certainty. Others had no idea how Watkins obtained the sign information. Moreover, those who suspected that Watkins was using the replay system largely did not understand that it was a violation of the rules because the evolving rules landscape had not been adequately explained to players."
The 2018 Red Sox stormed through the regular season, winning 108 games, and went 11-3 in the postseason and won the World Series. The investigation into the Red Sox was opened after then-manager Alex Cora was named as the main culprit in the 2017 Houston Astros sign stealing scandal. Cora was subsequently fired by the Red Sox front office.
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