Forget about the juiced ball and sluggish pace of play. Baseball’s biggest crisis this offseason is the cheating accusations levied against two recent World Series champions — the Astros and the Red Sox — that they illegally used technology to steal signs during their title seasons.
Commissioner Rob Manfred is close to announcing a decision regarding punishment for Houston, which was outed in a November article in The Athletic that outlined an intricate system the team used to relay pitch types to batters in 2017.
And now the Red Sox are under the microscope, too, after Tuesday’s story in The Athletic explained how Boston used its video replay room to steal signs during its 2018 championship season.