Was Aaron Judge Cheating? Why Sign-Stealing Shouldn’t Be a Controversy in Today’s MLB | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

The last thing Major League Baseball needs is a conspiracy theory that the reigning American League MVP isn’t operating on a level playing field.

But as specious as it may be, such a conspiracy is out there right now.

It all started Monday in the eighth inning of the New York Yankees’ 7-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays. Right before Aaron Judge cranked a 462-foot shot off Jay Jackson for his second home run of the night, Blue Jays’ broadcasters Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez were questioning why the 31-year-old slugger kept looking into the Yankees dugout:

Judge, who set an American League record with 62 home runs in 2022, told reporters (including Bryan Hoch of MLB.com) that he was merely looking to see “who was chirping in the dugout” after manager Aaron Boone had been ejected by home-plate umpire Clint Vondrak for arguing balls and strikes minutes before.

The Blue Jays, though, had their suspicions.

“It’s kind of odd that a hitter would be looking in that direction,” manager John Schneider said. “He’s obviously looking in that direction for a reason. I think we’ll dive into that a little bit more tonight and tomorrow, and make sure that we’re doing everything we can to not make ourselves susceptible to tendencies, locations, pitches or anything like that.”

Let the record show that the Blue Jays didn’t specifically accuse Judge or the Yankees of stealing signs. That is, however, at the center of the aforementioned conspiracy theory.

As is the case with most conspiracy theories, this one is mildly compelling but also ridiculous.

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There’s Obviously History Here

In case anyone needs a refresher on what “sign-stealing” even is, it involves one team decoding the opposition’s hand signals and using the resulting information to its advantage.

It can center on hand signals from coaches, but more typically involves finger signals put down by the catcher as he and the pitcher determine which pitch to throw. For the batter, there are obvious benefits of having that information before the pitch is on its way.

The simple act of stealing signs, such as when a runner on second base sees the catcher’s signs and reveals them to the batter in some way, is frowned upon but not technically illegal. But that changes when technology is involved, and there are obviously some infamous examples of that happening.

The worst of the worst was the Houston Astros using the video replay room to decode signs and relay them in real-time to batters in 2017 and 2018, for which they were punished in 2020. The Boston Red Sox had their own replay-room scheme in 2018, and one that revolved around Apple Watches before that.

And then there’s the Yankees’ place in this history. They also got busted for “misusing” Apple Watches in 2017, and it came out just last year that they had previously had their own scheme involving the video replay room in 2015 and 2016.

Context like this could make even a calm, rational person look at the Judge situation and go “Hmmm.” For less calm, less rational people, it seems to be enough cause to shout “Cheater!”

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But Times Have Changed

But how, exactly, are teams supposed to steal signs in this day and age?

For one thing, there’s no longer a wild west attitude about in-game video. Access to and communication with replay rooms is now strictly regulated. And while hitters can watch fresh video on iPads in the dugout, it’s video in which the catcher’s signals are edited out.

For another thing, how many catchers even give signs anymore?

The introduction of PitchCom—with which catchers call pitches with a remote control-like device that transmits signals to receivers in pitchers’ caps—in 2022 eliminated the need for finger signs. And now in 2023, pitchers can even have their own transmitters.

Granted, PitchCom isn’t in use 100 percent of the time. It’s thus hard to blame former infielder Will Middlebrooks for wondering if Yankees first base coach Travis Chapman was picking up Alejandro Kirk’s signs to Jackson:

But as Middlebrooks himself later realized, Jackson and Kirk were indeed using PitchCom. It would have been impossible for the Yankees to steal signs, as there were no signs to steal.

While this specific incident only exonerates Judge and the Yankees, it’s worth keeping in mind the next time accusations of sign-stealing are getting thrown around. Though not entirely impossible, such a crime is highly unlikely in today’s MLB.

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What Actually Happened Wasn’t a Major Crime

As to what did happen on Monday, there’s an innocent explanation and two less innocent, but not quite incriminating explanations.

To the latter, Gregor Chisholm of the Toronto Star reported Tuesday that Schneider and the Blue Jays took issue with where Yankees coaches were positioned during Judge’s at-bat. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet has a tweet showing they were outside the coach’s boxes, hypothetically allowing them a better vantage point at where Kirk was setting up.

However, there won’t even be an investigation into the matter. And as the rules already allow umpires to force coaches to return to their boxes if they stray out of them, the league shouldn’t have a looming crisis of wandering coaches on its hands.

As to the other less innocent, but not quite incriminating explanation, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported on Tuesday that the Blue Jays suspect they were tipping pitches:

If there’s any connective tissue between pitch tipping and sign-stealing, it’s that both involve decoding body language for the purpose of gaining an edge. But whereas the latter involves the theft of confidential information, the former is about basic observation.

Just as poker players can have tells, so can pitchers. A guy might do something differently before he’s about to throw a fastball than he does when he’s about to throw, say, a slider. This might have been the case with Jackson, whether the tell was in how he was holding the ball or in which direction he was looking before throwing.

As to whether picking up tipped pitches is illegal or even frowned upon, the answers are no and no. Pitchers don’t enjoy getting clobbered as a result of having tipped their pitches, but they do tend to view it as their own fault.

As to the innocent explanation for Judge’s blast off Jackson, maybe it really was a case of him looking into the dugout for the sake of identifying chirpers?

It’s not as if he really needed any help in his matchup with Jackson. And we don’t say that just because Judge is a history-making slugger and Jackson is a 35-year-old journeyman reliever. Far from some elaborate pitch sequence, what Judge got was slider, slider, slider, slider, slider, slider. The last one simply caught too much of the zone.

Ultimately, the optics of what happened before Judge took Jackson deep are a lot more scandalous than the actual reality of the situation. Whatever edge he had is one that MLB doesn’t need to worry about with him or any other hitter on a regular basis.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.