CARLSBAD, Calif. — Major League Baseball’s central leadership doesn’t care for spy tales, as least when it involves its teams. So commissioner Rob Manfred and his lieutenants will do what they can to remove that storyline from the sport’s consciousness.
In the wake of sign-stealing controversies, primarily involving the Astros, hovering over the postseason, MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem said Thursday at the close of the general managers’ meetings that the league was discussing myriad measures to stop teams from illegal actions. The GMs collectively discussed the issue this past week.
“I think the real issue here is giving clubs comfort that other clubs are not using electronic technology to steal signs,” Halem said in a news conference. “As the commissioner has stated in the past, stealing signs, in and of itself, does not violate our rules. Our rules prohibit the use of electronic information to steal signs. So we took a variety of measures in the postseason to give clubs comfort that the rules were being enforced.
“We got some additional suggestions on things we can do at the more granular level. I’m going to go back and talk to the commissioner, and he’ll make a decision whether we should continue the protocols we put in place for the postseason or whether we should add anything.”
As The Post’s Joel Sherman reported last month, baseball banned postseason contestants from using their center-field cameras to try to steal signs to the extent that an MLB employee sat in the replay room with teams’ designated replay officials. Baseball also stationed security personnel in other locales around the ballpark to try to block electronic spying.
“Those sets of issues, we’re going to talk to the commissioner about,” Halem said. “He’s going to make a decision on what we should do next year just so we can tamp down this conversation of whether ball clubs are playing by the rules. …
“From this group [of GMs], all clubs claim they’re playing by the rules. So I really think it’s more of an issue of giving everybody comfort that the rules are being enforced.”
In other matters:
— Concerning the Mets’ hiring of former agent Brodie Van Wagenen to be their general manager, Halem pointed out that this very issue is addressed in the current Basic Agreement. As stated in a letter from former Players Association general counsel David Prouty to Halem, the PA “will amend its Regulations Governing Player Agents … to state that a certified Player Agent who has accepted a position in senior management of a Major League Club or the Office of the Commissioner shall be prohibited from maintaining a direct or indirect financial interest in an agency while he or she is employed by the Club or by the Commissioner’s Office.”
That’s why, as Mets COO Jeff Wilpon explained last week at the introductory news conference for Van Wagenen, the Mets’ new GM had to divest himself of all financial connections to CAA, his former agency.
— “All issues are on the table right now” regarding pace-of-play changes for 2019, Halem said, and that includes the institution of a play clock. Manfred can unilaterally impose changes, although he historically has preferred to collectively bargain changes with the players. A nine-inning regular-season game in 2018 averaged 3:00:44, a drop from 3:05:11 in 2017.