Yankees Sign-Stealing? Pathetic $5 Million Lawsuit Against DraftKings Threatens to Expose Team

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4 years ago

Full disclosure before we get started, I’m a Yankees fan and they don’t need to cheat to beat your team.

You may remember hearing about a lawsuit in connection with the sign-stealing scandals involving the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox from earlier in the year. The limp $5,000,000 case on behalf of 100 DraftKings players was already dismissed outright in April. Now the dismissal is being appealed in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, and a new request under scrutiny in the Southern District of New York may expose the degree to which the New York Yankees were also utilizing technology to their advantage through the course of the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

The sad original lawsuit was brought against DraftKings as a class-action on behalf of 100 participants in DraftKings MLB contests during the seasons in question. The complaint was filed by a DraftKings player named Kristopher Olson in Manhattan and implicated MLB, MLB Advanced Media, the Astros and the Red Sox. The new request is asking the court to unseal a letter from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman. The contents of the letter allegedly relate to MLB’s investigation into the Yankees’ use of technology to steal signs similarly to what their rivals have been found guilty of in the court of public opinion.

All this over 226 entries. In a two-year period. Awesemo himself probably has five times that many entries just in this weekend’s PGA contests alone. Anyone who would be low enough to potentially damage DFS by suing because he wasn’t good enough at it to win money over 226 entries was definitely the type of kid to go get his mom when he didn’t get his way during the neighborhood wiffle-ball game.

The suit weakly claimed that “Olson would not have entered into DraftKings’ MLB DFS contests during the Class Period had he known that the Houston Astros were engaged in the Trash Can Scheme and Astros Replay Room Scheme … (or that) the Boston Red Sox were engaged in the Red Sox Replay Room Scheme … (or that) the honesty of the player performance statistics on which his wagers were based and the results of his wagers were determined was comprised by MLB teams’ and players’ electronic sign stealing.”

So the expectation here is that DraftKings and MLB were supposed to have been applying a “* Caution, teams are cheating.” warning to every contest? Of course the case ignores that the contests were still equal for all entrants. You can read the entire lawsuit and judge for yourself.

The case is now being made that the Yankees were also cheating during this period, and that the MLB letter to the team proves it. There is no disputing that the Yankees were involved in some shady business during these seasons. Mark Teixeira is on record with the NY Post, telling the tabloid in February that the Yankees would routinely use replay monitors to decipher signs which could be relayed to runners at second base. If the signs being used were the same, the runner would then let the hitter know what pitch to expect.

The question at bar is really the use of technology to do what teams have been doing for more than 100 years. As “Tex” put it, “This is what every team has done over the past few years with video rooms being close to the dugout and [it is] not against the rules.”

The SDNY judge has set a deadline of Noon on Monday for the Yankees and MLB to submit a “minimally redacted” version of the letter that protects allegations against individuals. The Yankees have filed a motion against this decision, stating that revealing the contents of the letter would be injurious to the team’s reputation. Which to me reads like something injurious to the team’s reputation on its own. Fueling that feeling, a team official reportedly told The Athletic “We’re not doing this to cover up some smoking gun.”

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