The Manfred Report: What the Astros Sign-Stealing Findings Meant for the Yankees

On January 13, 2020, Commissioner Rob Manfred released a nine-page report confirming the Houston Astros stole signs with a center-field camera and a trash can during the 2017 season, postseason included. That covers the ALCS the New York Yankees lost to Houston in seven games. The Astros paid $5 million and four draft picks. MLB didn't punish a single player.

The Yankees scored three runs in four games at Minute Maid Park that October. For two years, I called that a slump.

How It Came Out

Mike Fiers lit the fuse. On November 12, 2019, the former Astros pitcher told Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic that Houston had piped a center-field camera feed to a monitor near its dugout in 2017. MLB's investigators spent the next two months on it and interviewed 68 witnesses, 23 of them current or former Astros players.

Here's what they found. About two months into the 2017 season, bench coach Alex Cora had a video room technician put a monitor showing that feed right outside the Astros' dugout. Players decoded the catcher's signs and banged a trash can in the tunnel. One or two bangs meant something soft. No bang meant fastball.

(Center-field camera, garbage-can delivery system. You almost have to admire the arts-and-crafts energy. Almost.)

And the line every Yankee fan read twice: the Astros kept decoding signs "for the remainder of the regular season and throughout the Postseason."

The Punishment

Manfred suspended GM Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch for a year. Astros owner Jim Crane fired both of them a few hours later. Houston got the maximum $5 million fine and lost its first- and second-round picks in 2020 and 2021. Carlos Beltran was the only player the report named.

The players got immunity in exchange for talking. I get the logic -- MLB needed testimony. But the active players who heard the bangs kept their rings, their stats and their jobs. The front office took the fall for a scheme the report itself called player-driven.

That part still freakin' bugs me.

2017: The Series We Thought We Understood

The 2017 Yankees took Houston the distance in the 2017 ALCS. They lost 2-1 twice at Minute Maid Park, then came home and won 8-1, 6-4 and 5-0. Game 4 was the best of it: Aaron Judge homered in the seventh, tied it with a double in the eighth, and Gary Sanchez doubled home the go-ahead runs.

Then they flew back to Houston and lost 7-1 and 4-0. The home team won all seven games, and the Astros beat the Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series on November 1.

Now the honest part. The scheme helped Houston's hitters, not its pitchers, so the three runs we scored down there don't prove anything. The number that matters is Houston's: 15 runs in four games at home, five runs in three games in the Bronx. That's a split worth staring at. It's also seven games, with good pitching on both sides, and nobody can tell you which runs the bangs produced.

I'm not saying the trash can won that pennant. I'm saying we'll never know it didn't.

Judge, Altuve and an MVP Vote That Aged Badly

Jose Altuve won the 2017 AL MVP with 27 of 30 first-place votes, 405 points to Judge's 279. Judge had congratulated him on Instagram. After the scandal broke, the post vanished.

Judge finally talked about it on February 18, 2020, after the first full-squad workout in Tampa. He said he'd felt sick to his stomach since learning about the scheme, and he said Houston's title should be stripped.

You cheated and you didn't earn it.

On the MVP, he took the high road. He didn't want to relitigate it and said the fix was on him: win the next one by enough that nobody could argue. (Classic Judge. He'll call you a cheater, then blame himself for the vote count.)

In fairness to Altuve, Andy Martino's book "Cheated" reported that Astros players told investigators Altuve "didn't want the pitches." The vote still doesn't get a do-over.

2019: Officially Clean

The 2019 ALCS had its own weirdness. The Yankees complained to MLB about whistling from the Astros' dugout in Game 1 in Houston. The league found nothing, and Hinch said the question "made me laugh because it's ridiculous."

Then came Game 6 on October 19. DJ LeMahieu tied it with a two-run homer off Roberto Osuna in the ninth. Aroldis Chapman walked George Springer, and Altuve hit a 2-1 slider out for the pennant. Rounding third, he waved his teammates off his jersey.

His explanation that night: "I'm too shy. Last time they did that I got in trouble with my wife."

Here's where I have to be fair, even though I don't want to be. Manfred's report found no violations in the 2019 regular season or postseason, and MLB said it found no evidence of wearable devices. Chapman called the jersey thing "a little suspicious," and plenty of us agreed. But suspicious isn't proof. The official record says 2019 was clean, and I don't have anything that says otherwise.

The Clubhouse Reacts

By the time camp opened in February 2020, nobody in Tampa was pretending to be over it. Aaron Boone, who'd watched Altuve's homer from the dugout four months earlier, put it plainly.

The range of emotions has been huge. You're mad, frustrated, disappointed.

Masahiro Tanaka, who pitched in that 2017 series, was asked if he felt cheated. "Yeah, I do feel that way," he said. "It's a competition and the competition should be a fair competition."

The Bronx Got Its Say

The Astros didn't visit Yankee Stadium until May 4, 2021. A COVID-capped crowd booed the Astros from batting practice to the final out, saved the loudest stuff for Altuve, and broke into "cheater" chants. The Yankees won 7-3.

Two months later in Houston, Judge homered off Zack Greinke for the only run of a 1-0 win on July 10 and tugged at his jersey rounding third. His explanation: "Whenever they keep the roof closed here, it's pretty chilly."

The next day, Altuve capped a six-run ninth with a three-run walk-off homer, 8-7, and his teammates tore his jersey clean off. (Fine. That one was funny.)

Then Came Our Letter

The Yankees had their own file, and in 2022 everybody got to read it.

On September 14, 2017, Manfred had sent Brian Cashman a letter. It said the Yankees used their replay room in 2015 and part of 2016 to decode sign sequences and pass them to a runner on second base, and that they used the dugout phone to relay information about opponents' signs. The fine was $100,000 for improper use of the dugout phone. The next day, Manfred publicly fined the Red Sox for their Apple Watch caper, fined the Yankees for the phone, and warned all 30 clubs that tougher penalties were coming.

The letter sat under seal in a lawsuit fantasy players filed against MLB. The Yankees fought to keep it that way and lost, and it came out on April 26, 2022.

Crane didn't wait long. "There's the letter, and you were doing it, too," he said. Cashman, who'd already called Houston's scheme "illegal and horrific," answered that Crane was trying to equate "an equivalent of a parking ticket to maybe 162 felonies."

Here's my honest read. The Yankees broke a rule, paid for it, and we don't get to pretend that away. But a replay-room decode passed along by a runner on second isn't a live camera feed and a trash can in the tunnel, and MLB's own statement says the Yankees didn't break its sign-stealing rules at the time. "Parking ticket" flatters us a little. "162 felonies" flatters them a lot less than they'd like.

The Yankees didn't win a pennant again until October 19, 2024, their first since 2009. Cashman blamed the cheating for derailing the 2017 build, and he's not entirely wrong.

Three runs in four games in Houston. For two years, I called it a slump.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did MLB release the Astros sign-stealing report?

Commissioner Rob Manfred released the nine-page report on January 13, 2020. It found the Astros used a center-field camera feed and a trash can to relay stolen signs during the 2017 regular season and postseason.

Did the Astros cheat against the Yankees in the 2017 ALCS?

MLB's report said the Astros kept decoding signs "throughout the Postseason" in 2017, which includes the ALCS against the Yankees. The trash-can setup was at Minute Maid Park, where Houston won all four games. Nobody can say exactly how many runs it produced.

Did the Astros cheat in the 2019 ALCS?

MLB's investigation found no violations in the 2019 regular season or postseason and no evidence of wearable devices. Yankees players, including Aroldis Chapman, called Jose Altuve's jersey celebration after his series-ending homer suspicious, but nothing was ever proven.

What punishment did the Astros get for sign stealing?

MLB hit Houston with a $5 million fine, the maximum allowed, plus the loss of their first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. MLB suspended GM Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch for a year, and the Astros fired both the same day. Players got immunity in exchange for testimony.

Were the Yankees punished for sign stealing?

Yes, for a lesser offense. Manfred fined the Yankees $100,000 in a September 14, 2017 letter for improperly using the dugout phone in 2015 and part of 2016 to pass along sign information decoded in the replay room. MLB said the Yankees didn't violate its sign-stealing rules at the time. The letter became public on April 26, 2022.