The New York Yankees lost a crucial appeal regarding the team’s surreptitious letter involving MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. The letter concerns an array of accusations regarding dishonest conduct dating as far back as 2017 and concerns the New York Yankees as well as the Boston Red Sox.

We are now finding out why the New York Yankees fought so hard to not have this letter released.

According to the Houston Chronicle, the Yankees stole signs in 2015-2016 and were fined $100,000.

MLB

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“Major League Baseball fined the New York Yankees $100,000 in 2017 for using their replay room and dugout phone to steal their opponent’s signs during the 2015 and 2016 seasons in what commissioner Rob Manfred described as a “material violation” of rules governing the replay room.

The two-page document provided few specifics and rehashed much of what Manfred already acknowledged in a Sept. 15, 2017 statement, one in which he disciplined the Red Sox for using their replay room to decode signs and warned “future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”

According to the letter, a Yankees baseball operations assistant admitted to league investigators that he provided information about opponent’s signs to members of the team’s replay room during the 2015 and 2016 seasons.