Who is J.T. Watkins? More about the lone person disciplined in Red Sox scandal

Major League Baseball’s investigation into the Boston Red Sox resulted in far lighter punishments than what was doled out three months ago to the Houston Astros. MLB docked the team a second-round pick, but steered clear of discipline for players or front office personnel. It mandated that former manager Alex Cora would serve a one-year suspension from baseball for his dealings in the Astros’ scandal, but would face no further punishment for what occurred in Boston.

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Instead, MLB effectively chose to punish just one person for the goings-on in Boston: Red Sox advance scouting assistant and video replay coordinator J.T. Watkins.

In his report, commissioner Rob Manfred found that Watkins, on at least some occasions during the 2018 regular season, illegally utilized game feeds in the replay room to help players determine opposing teams’ signs during games. He made it clear that he found Watkins’ conduct, and any efforts by the Red Sox, to be on a different level from the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing operation.

Nevertheless, Watkins has been suspended for the 2020 season and prohibited from working as a replay room operator for the 2021 season.

So who is J.T. Watkins?

A former minor league player and U.S. Army artillery officer, Watkins maintained a largely behind-the-scenes presence for the Red Sox over the last few years, working in the scouting arm of the team’s baseball operations department.

Watkins originally joined the Red Sox organization when he was drafted in the 10th round in 2012 out of West Point. After playing that year in short-season Lowell, Watkins served two years in the Army as a field artillery officer at Fort Stewart in Georgia before returning to the Red Sox in 2015.

A catcher, Watkins played two more seasons in the minors at Single-A Greenville and High-A Salem alongside Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers and Michael Chavis. But he decided his playing days were over following the 2016 season. In 88 games, he hit .184 with a .363 OPS.

In 2017, Watkins was hired as an advance scouting assistant for the Red Sox. The scouting genes run in his family as his father Danny has worked as an area scout in the Red Sox system since 2004. Danny Watkins was responsible for discovering Betts and convincing the Red Sox to draft the future MVP in 2011.

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Over the last three-plus seasons, the 30-year-old Watkins has worked with the major league coaching staff preparing the club for opponents while also serving as the team’s in-game instant replay coordinator. Anytime a play needed to be challenged, Watkins would be the one the manager relied upon for a quick decision. But he also had another job: decoding the signs used by other teams before and after games. He was not supposed to extend that work into the games themselves. But as he sat in the replay room with the feed in front of him, Manfred’s said, sometimes, with some players, he passed along additional information “utilizing in-game video to update the information that he had learned from his pregame analysis.”

Manfred added, “communication of these violations was episodic and isolated to Watkins and a limited number of Red Sox players only.”

It was rare, Manfred said in the report, but it happened, despite Watkins’ denials to MLB investigators.

In the report, Manfred seemed to have some sympathy for Watkins due to his dual role as both replay coordinator and pre-game sign decoder.

“In my view, Watkins was placed in a very difficult position by virtue of his dual role as the person responsible for decoding signs pregame and as the person responsible for operating the Red Sox’ replay system,” Manfred wrote. “Thus, he was placed in the difficult position of often knowing what the correct sequences were but being prohibited by rule from assisting the players by providing the correct information. While this does not excuse or justify his conduct, I do believe that it created a situation in which he felt pressure as the Club’s primary expert on decoding sign sequences to relay information that was consistent with what he naturally observed on the in-game video.”

Watkins was often praised by Cora for his keen eye and ability to handle the pressure of relaying quick decisions on video replay. Even Manfred’s report stated that “virtually all of the witnesses described Watkins as a hard-working and diligent employee.”

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Now he’s the lone person being punished for wrongdoing MLB found on the 2018 Red Sox.

(Photo of Watkins, left: Billie Weiss / Boston Red Sox / Getty Images)

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