New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman calls comments by Houston Astros owner Jim Crane 'deflection'

CHICAGO — Nice try, Jim.

That was Brian Cashman's sarcastic response when addressing Astros owner Jim Crane's comments against the Yankees general manager concerning Houston's sign-stealing scandal.

«I don't think anybody's going to dance to the tune he's singing,» Cashman said before the first game of a four-game set against the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field on Thursday. «I'd say it's called deflection, him trying to equate probably… an equivalent of a parking ticket to maybe 162 felonies.»

Cashman was responding to Crane's comments to USA Today earlier this week. Crane disputed the New York executive singling out the Astros' sign-stealing scandal as one of the reasons for the Yankees' recent championship dry spell in an interview with The Athletic during the spring.

«The only thing that stopped [the 2017 Yankees] was something that was so illegal and horrific,» Cashman said earlier this spring. «So I get offended when I start hearing we haven't been to the World Series since '09'… The only thing that derailed us was a cheating circumstance that threw us off.»

Crane categorized Cashman's comments as «extremely strange,» particularly in light of the infamous letter MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sent to the Yankees in 2017, which became public last month.

In the letter, Manfred said an MLB investigation found the Yankees to have engaged in illegal use of their video replay room to steal signs and then relay them to the dugout in 2015 and 2016. The letter also stated the Yankees' illegal use of an iPad to watch a live game broadcast from the bullpen in June 2017. MLB fined the Yankees $100,000, and the funds were allocated for Hurricane Irma relief.

«There's the letter, and you were doing it, too,» Crane told USA