What's a word that means deflect blame?

I'm looking for a word that means someone is redirecting the blame or attention of something. I have a feeling it starts with an "a" or "i", but I'm not sure.

By the way, it's not "divert", I already thought of that.

Here's an example sentence:

"The Yankees Management had instituted a way of ___ to the players..."

Scapegoating

The practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment (From Wiki link above)

In your context:

The Yankees Management had instituted a way of scapegoating the players...

Implicating

From American Heritage:

To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly

or Incriminating

To cause to appear guilty of a crime or fault; implicate

(Again from American Heritage)

I have to change your sentence slightly to:

The Yankees Management had instituted a way of incriminating the players.

This would mean they had a way of making it look like the players were wrong and thus shift the blame for any wrong doing on to the players.