J.T. Watkins' Timeline with Red Sox Amid Sign-Stealing Suspension, Controversy

J.T. Watkins has moved through the Boston Red Sox system from player to staffer, but now he's best known for his role in the team's sign-stealing scandal in 2018. 

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced Wednesday Watkins will be suspended through the 2020 playoffs after an investigation determined he "utilized the game feeds in the replay room, in violation of MLB regulations, to revise sign sequence information that he had permissibly provided to players prior to the game."

The video replay system operator also will not be able to return to the replay room in 2021.

Manager Alex Cora was the only other person in the organization to face discipline, although this was due to his role with the Houston Astros in 2017. The report determined Watkins alone broke the rules, while the players didn't know for certain where he gathered information.

It's a significant burden for Watkins, a 30-year-old who is listed as an advance scouting assistant on the team's official site.

The West Point graduate was drafted by the team in the 10th round of the 2012 draft but served two years in the Army before returning to professional baseball.

He played 67 games of full-season ball with the Salem Red Sox and Greenville Drive in 2015-16, splitting time between catcher and first base, but produced just a .184 batting average and one home run in this span.

As he explained to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe in 2019, being 26 years old in Single-A provided him little chance to reach the big leagues as a player. Watkins still did enough to impress the organization to earn a role on the staff:

"I feel like I worked hard as a player and I think they saw that. I do the same thing here now—work hard, do my job, and help out where I can. But certainly, going from Greenville and Salem to here is a different jump, a steep learning curve. I learned so much in my first year from [the Red Sox coaches] about what it takes to prepare for each series. I’ve been lucky to have people helping me out along the way."

He was offered a position in 2017 and remained part of the advance scouting staff for the major league squad.

According to Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic, part of his role was to decode signs before and after games, which is allowed. However, witnesses said he decoded signs during games and communicated it to players, which broke league rules.

In the commissioner's report, one player said he had "no doubt that Watkins utilized the replay room to decode signs on occasion."

He was also considered a "key participant in the 'Apple Watch Incident'" during the 2017 season, which also violated MLB rules.

Watkins denied these actions while noting 30 players said they had no knowledge of his behavior.