Houston Astros GM and coach are banned/fired for cheating way to 2017 World Series title

if it's not an advantage then why did they do it?

Astros fan here. Hinch should be banned from baseball for life. The players who knew that Hinch was stealing signs should also get banned for life. MLB's punishment is just an admission that this goes on all the time and the Astros just went too far with it. Baseball is the fastest growing youth sport right now. It is the most accessible pro sport for families with cheap week day tickets. Of all the pro sports out there, baseball needs to actually walk the walk on the integrity of the game.

"How can we make baseball even more boring than it already is?"

"I know! Let's know what the pitch will be!"

Precious Roy wrote:

Astros fan here. Hinch should be banned from baseball for life. The players who knew that Hinch was stealing signs should also get banned for life. MLB's punishment is just an admission that this goes on all the time and the Astros just went too far with it. Baseball is the fastest growing youth sport right now. It is the most accessible pro sport for families with cheap week day tickets. Of all the pro sports out there, baseball needs to actually walk the walk on the integrity of the game.

Hinch was not stealing signs. He knew that signs were being stolen and broke the monitor twice to keep it from happening. He still deserves to be punished. The main person responsible for the sign-stealing was the former Astros bench coach and current Red Sox manager, Alex Cora. Cora is going to hammered by MLB for his role in sign-stealing both with the Astros and more recently with the Red Sox. MLB is still investigating the Red Sox. He is a two-time offender and I would be surprised if he gets anything less than a 2-year suspension.

Also, sign-stealing goes on all the time by players in the field. It is accepted. What the Astros did and what caused the severe punishment is they brought electronics in. That is not accepted.

Fattttty B wrote:

The World Series title was not stripped. The big punishments were the one-year bans of the coach and GM, AJ Hinch and Jeff Luhnow. Those were huge. Ever more huge is Jim Crane fired them. Luhnow is the best GM in MLB. Major loss to the Astros. They also lost first 2 picks in 2020 and 2021. Not really the SMU death penalty but close

Stripping the World Series title would be huge.

These bans and such are nothing.

Any team would trade coaches, managers and a couple draft picks for a World Series.

If this is your thought process than your "when we played ball" opening sentence is 100% bs. This would be a tremendous advantage for any team and, as another poster pointed out, it was the use of electronics which the commish had expressly warned against using which brought about the punishment.

Feel free to carry on the facade that either you played or have a clue what you're talking about.

Hinch protected Cora and the rest of the team by trying to put a lid on it and not letting MLB know about it. Cora definitely deserves to be banned for life. But I would ban Hinch too. He knew about it and just tried to sweep it under the rug. That is as bad as participating because it lets all the other teams know that they just need to be sure they do a better job of covering up their cheating in the future. If you ban these guys for life, everyone in the club house will know that they have no choice on what to do when they find out about cheating.

Star wrote:

Stripping the World Series title would be huge.

These bans and such are nothing.

Any team would trade coaches, managers and a couple draft picks for a World Series.

I would agree that MLBs penalty to the Astros is basically a slap on the wrist. It's a "see, we are all about integrity" type of move.

A $5 million fine for the Astros is nothing. From baseball-reference(dot)com:

"In Major League Baseball, 48% of local revenues are subject to revenue sharing and are distributed equally among all 30 teams, with each team receiving 3.3% of the total sum generated. As a result, in 2018, each team received $118 million from this pot. Teams also receive a share of national revenues, which were estimated to be $91 million per team, also in 2018."

So JUST in revenue sharing, the Astros pulled in over $200 million. Wow, hit 'em hard with that $5 million.

The loss of a first and second round pick in 2020 and 2021? This is actually more meaningful for one reason: trades. It's the lack of early round picks and "dealing" those guys in future trades to improve your team that will hurt to the most...that being said, it's still not a HUGE impact because the MLB Amateur Draft is the most unpredictable of all the major sports, as far as future success. The Astros would have picked 29th in the 1st round of the 2020 draft.

Do I feel the World Series title should be taken? Ehhh, that is debatable. THAT would send the ultimate message to the other teams, managers, front offices and fans that you really do care about the integrity of the game.

I think if the Astros had won a second World Series title this past year then one or two of the titles may have been stripped. 2 titles from cheating would have been too much.

ESPN article talking about the five biggest losers from this whole situation...and it mentions a few of the things I did in my post, like how the $5 million is nothing to the Astros (ESPN points out that not paying the salary of the Coach and GM will easily cover this!)

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28482487/the-five-biggest-victims-astros-sign-stealing-scandal

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

ESPN article talking about the five biggest losers from this whole situation...and it mentions a few of the things I did in my post, like how the $5 million is nothing to the Astros (ESPN points out that not paying the salary of the Coach and GM will easily cover this!)

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28482487/the-five-biggest-victims-astros-sign-stealing-scandal

Do you mean that they will not hire any GM or manager and the voided contracts of Hinch and Luhnow will cover this? This Astros will play next season without a GM and without a coach? Seriously?

Imagine the buzz if the 2020 Astros - after losing their 2 top draft picks, losing their GM and coach, losing $5 million, losing their reputation, losing Gerritt Cole, probably the best pitcher in baseball, regroup and go on to win the 2020 World Series title. Just imagine the hostility from fans across the league as they make their historic drive to their second World Title. They still have the Cy Young winner from last year, they have Zach Greinke who had the 4th best WHIP in the league last year, they have Lance McCullough, Jr., returning from Tommy John surgery and a host of other top-level pitching candidates, the best 3rd baseman in the league, the best 2nd baseman in the league, a top relief corps and many other positives on their team.

I thought the punishment would be worse. Manfried has already handed down two lifetime bans during his tenure and this thing is more public and damaging to the game than either of those infractions. It seems he puts a ton of weight on cooperating with the investigation and will definitely go a good deal lighter if you do. Cora will probably wind up with at least two years, maybe more.

I think if they really wanted to hurt the franchise they could have taken away more draft picks for more years, maybe first 5 rounds for 3 years or something like that. Losing 1 & 2 rounds a couple years isn't ideal, but it's not insurmountable either. Top 5 rounds at 3 years would pretty much guarantee the Astros putting together the worst farm system in baseball. That would mean after this current group of guys are done in 2 or 3 years, they would be stuck losing for probably the next 6 or 7 years. So hard to win in baseball without developing a solid farm system. You got to have that cheap, controllable talent. (Royals, Cubs, Astros, Yankees etc. see you soon White Sox and Padres) It's not a sexy punishment but it would set the franchise back years and effectively work as a post season ban for at least a few seasons after this group is done, especially when you consider the Astros traded three of their top prospects to land Greinke - all of which were in the high minors and will likely become contributing major leaguers.

They mostly throw fastballs in your average town Little League game, so knowing the pitch beforehand was not that helpful to him.

Joe Jackson is still in his bare feet, and these guy will be back in a couple of years.

Slap on the wrist. At the end of the day, all that matters is the WS Championship and the talent on the field, both of which they're keeping.

Fattttty B wrote:

The World Series title was not stripped. The big punishments were the one-year bans of the coach and GM, AJ Hinch and Jeff Luhnow. Those were huge. Ever more huge is Jim Crane fired them. Luhnow is the best GM in MLB. Major loss to the Astros. They also lost first 2 picks in 2020 and 2021. Not really the SMU death penalty but close

Nothing like SMU. The astros can win the world series moving forward, smu was banned from post season play

uuuuuuuuv wrote:

Not "World Series", USA Series.

Do a trademark search.