Blue Jays insider finally opens up on reality behind Yankees' legal sign-stealing

The New York Yankees have been widely acknowledged this year as one of the teams at the forefront of picking up pitchers' tells. They've made no secret of it, often wildly gesticulating at second base like the Red Sox celebrating a turbulent flight to let the batters know they've got something. The Yankees' methods have resulted in mass pitcher paranoia and, naturally, fan suspicion. After all, with everything communicated via PitchCom ... how can they still be doing this? And how can their tips be transmitted so quickly?

The hysteria wasn't helped whatsoever by Toronto reporter Ben Nicholson-Smith, who floated a downright sinister-sounding explanation for the Yankees' superhuman abilities (possibly meant to deflect from some real nonsensical stuff coming out of the Bronx about the Jays' "suspicious" home record).

On the field after Game 2 (the Yankees had some signals, still lost and looked like garbage, more at 11), Nicholson-Smith noted, "This (Yankees) is (one of) the best offenses in baseball and one of the reasons is they prepare their hitters very well. They have AI looking into this stuff to try to find tells.... He can then relay some of that to the other hitters..."

AI? Doesn't that sound dangerously close to technologically-based sign-stealing with a real-time component? Jays fans were immediately up in arms, our other rivals heard it, too, and pitchforks were drawn before the follow-up column was printed. It's entirely on the level, according to Major League Baseball, and it makes a lot more sense than some of the other methods that have been theorized about all year.

Blue Jays insider finally reveals what Yankees, other MLB teams have been doing to legally decode signs

"Such gamesmanship is allowed with MLB rules," Nicholson-Smith wrote ahead of Game 3. "If anything, the Yankees deserve credit for their sign-stealing ability, which requires buy-in from players as well as a sophisticated behind-the-scenes system that’s believed to use artificial intelligence to spot patterns."

Now, the question remains: How far behind is the rest of MLB, outside of other tech-forward teams who've been praised for their "keen eye for detail" all year, like the Red Sox and their shuffling first base coach? How long before the rest of the league catches up? And, during the interstitial period where teams are still getting used to the new reality, can they at least stop whining now? The cat's out of the bag. We know what's being done. Like Michael Kay said in his rant linked above, the time is now to fix it and move on ... or don't and fall back.