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Yankees tried to protect signs before accusations against Astros surfaced

Alex Trautwig / Major League Baseball / Getty

The New York Yankees had their suspicions that teams were up to no good before an investigation confirmed the sign-stealing accusations made against the Houston Astros last fall.

General manager Brian Cashman told YES Network that the club was actively trying to prevent the theft of their signs. He also credited former Astros right-hander - and current Oakland Athletics hurler - Mike Fiers for going public with the scandal.

"(We) have done everything we can to try to protect our signs as much as possible," Cashman said. "We've continued to evolve over the course of time because of concerns. Baseball's now determined, with the strong assistance of Mike Fiers coming forward being a whistle-blower, to really shed a light on some of the things that were occurring down in Houston."

He didn't indicate if their "due diligence" was in practice during the 2017 campaign, when the Astros were found to have implemented the scheme, or this past season.

Cashman added that the Yankees have not discussed the fallout as a group while a concurrent investigation into the Red Sox is ongoing. Boston has also been accused of cheating during its run to the 2018 World Series.

"Clearly, this story hasn't been fully resolved at this point," Cashman said.

The Yankees may have cause to be upset since they were eliminated from the postseason by the Astros in 2017 and 2019 as well as by the Red Sox in 2018.

Manager Aaron Boone expressed hope that the scandal would give rise to a more even playing field.

"It's disappointing, frustrating," Boone said. "Frankly, I spent a couple days kind of trying to get my head wrapped around the emotions I was feeling about it because there's people you care about involved, but in the end, you hope these are significant steps and I believe that they are (and) that will get us to a point where we have a much cleaner, much more fair game between the lines and that's where we want things decided anyway.

"Hopefully we've put an end to this."

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