The Boston Red Sox became the latest to get punished for their alleged sign-stealing scandal that involved former manager Alex Cora.
Ken Rosenthal dropped the report on Wednesday.
“Major League Baseball’s ruling on the Boston Red Sox’s illegal sign stealing in 2018 determined the primary culprit was not the front office, manager Alex Cora or the players, but the team’s video replay system operator.
The league, in findings that will be released Wednesday afternoon, suspended the operator, J.T. Watkins, and docked the Red Sox a second-round pick in the 2020 draft. It also suspended Cora through the conclusion of the 2020 postseason, but only for his conduct as Astros bench coach in 2017, not as Red Sox manager in ’18, when the team won 108 games and the World Series.
Following a January report from The Athletic on the Red Sox’s conduct, Commissioner Rob Manfred found that Watkins, on at least some occasions during the 2018 regular season, illegally utilized game feeds in the replay room to help players during games — an undertaking less egregious than the Astros’ famed 2017 sign-stealing…”
No players will be punished, and those that used the system were not identified.
The Boston Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora back in January after he was involved in multiple sign-stealing controversies that dominated headlines this offseason.
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The team released a statement from its top executives, as well as Cora:
The Astros fired both Hinch and Luhnow in the aftermath of the announcement.
