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This has already been a horrible offseason for the Red Sox, even putting aside that whole, ya know, pandemic thing that is affecting our lives so much outside of the game. The winter has been made even worse by the sign-stealing investigation hanging over everything. The release of MLB’s findings have been pushed back time after time, suggesting that they still don’t really know the scope of their findings nor the punishments. On Friday, a report from the Athletic’s Daniel Kaplan suggests that’s not really true.
The linked story focuses on a legal case brought forth by DFS (daily fantasy) players who are suing MLB, the Astros and the Red Sox. The specifics of that case aren’t important here, but basically they believe DFS players are owed for participating in contests that involves baseball games that were apparently not above board.
In the midst of arguments about that case, Lauren Moskowitz, the lawyer representing the Red Sox in the case, was asked whether or not she admitted that the Red Sox broke the rules in 2018. She declined to admit that. The judge then asked if she believes the commissioner was off-base, to which she responded “Your Honor, I think that there are distinctions between what the Red Sox believe occurred and what the commissioner found.”
There are a couple of notable things to take away here. First is that there are findings at all from the commissioner’s office. There has been no public indication to this point that the investigation was complete. Additionally, the fact that the Red Sox disagree with said findings means that the report is likely not going to be in their favor.
There is a lot more information about some Moskowitz’s comments and the legal case as a whole in the linked article above, but as far as the Red Sox investigation goes, we may be in for some more bad news relatively quickly. Possible punishments are, of course, still totally up in the air.
Update