J.D. Martinez Chimes In On MLB's Red Sox Investigation: 'They Really Didn't Find Anything'
BOSTON (CBS) -- It took Major League Baseball more than three months to complete its investigation into allegations of the Red Sox illegally using the video replay room to steal sign sequences from opponents during the 2018 regular season. In the end, MLB didn't discover a whole lot, but that didn't stop the league from deeming the Red Sox guilty, stripping the team of a draft pick, and banning the replay operator from MLB for a year.
It's that last part -- the suspension of J.T. Watkins -- that seems to be bothering Red Sox designated hitter J.D. Martinez the most.
"That pissed me off. It wasn't right," Martinez told The Boston Globe's Peter Abraham. "They just ruined this guy's career with no evidence."
Watkins was suspended by commissioner Rob Manfred from working in MLB in 2020, and he was banned from working as the replay operator in 2021.
Overall, Martinez does not think MLB found much of anything, despite taking more than 100 days to release a report.
"If they went to court with that, it would get thrown out," Martinez told the Globe. "There was nothing there. The judge would laugh."
Martinez also told the Globe that MLB likely felt compelled to determine that some illegal activity had gone on, considering the reports from The Athletic had made their way to the public's eye.
"They had to do something," Martinez said of MLB. "They really didn't find anything."