The Ideal Punishments for the Astros, Red Sox

In a move that was somehow both totally unprecedented and not at all unexpected, Major League Baseball laid the hammer on the Houston Astros organization following the completion of their investigation of the team’s sign-stealing scandal from their 2017 Championship season. Over the course of the past several months, the inside information began to trickle out from various sources on the heels of the original bombshell report by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic.

The Athletic’s report included the basics of the operation that allegedly helped the Astros to their first World Series victory in franchise history in 2017. It reported that a camera in centerfield would relay the catcher’s signals to a monitor in a hallway adjacent to the ‘Stros’ dugout, where an attendant would bang a trash can to alert the hitter of certain pitches.

Throughout the period of rumors, the Astros as a team denied the allegations, with manager AJ Hinch calling the cheating accusations “a joke.”

After several weeks of an official investigation, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred released an official report on the league’s conclusions. Cleary the result of a thorough and diligent investigation, Manfred’s report detailed many of the key characters’ roles in the scandal. Most notably, Hinch (Who was opposed to the idea, even going as far as to smash one of the monitors, but was out-ruled and didn’t report any wrong-doing to his higher-ups), General Manager Jeff Luhnow (Who, per Manfred’s memorandum to teams after a somewhat minor sign-stealing incident with Boston in 2017, was to be held accountable for all electronic sign-stealing due to his GM role), and Bench Coach Alex Cora (Who organized, assembled, and operated a large part of the scheme). The report noted that the scandal was “player-driven” and “player-operated,” (with the exception of Cora) but only names one player in particular: since-retired outfielder Carlos Beltrán, who was in the midst of his 20th and final MLB season during the scandal and was brought in as manager of the New York Mets under two months ago. Also mentioned in the report is former Astros Assistant GM Brandon Taubman, who was fired in November following an incident in the clubhouse following one of the team’s postseason wins during which he “acted inappropriately towards one or more female reporters.” Taubman, like Lunhow, was reported to have had at least some knowledge of the sign-stealing.

Several punishments were handed out in Monday’s report. Hinch and Luhnow were each suspended one year without pay and were subsequently fired by Astros Owner Jim Crane. Taubman was placed on the Commissioner’s Ineligible List, where he is required to stay until next season’s end. The Club was fined $5M, the highest allowed under the Major League Baseball Constitution, and they were stripped of their 1st and 2nd round draft picks in both 2020 and 2021. Sticking with the 2017 memorandum, Manfred elected not to bestow any punishment upon the players.

The one name that appears to be most obviously missing from the list of those punished is Cora’s, but according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, Cora’s punishment is coming soon and will be even harsher than the penalties assessed on Hinch and Luhnow - in part because Rosenthal and Drellich followed up their original report with another that claimed the 2018 Red Sox — managed by Cora — also used the Fenway Park replay room to relay stolen signs. With a stake in both scandals, a more severe punishment seems like a logical sanction for Cora, but did others deserve worse for their roles?

The Astros, Red Sox, and all other Major League Baseball Clubs were warned about the illegality of using technology to steal signs. Their blatant ignorance of the league’s memos, coupled with the bald-faced lies they told the media, should’ve led to more severe punishments all around for the Astros. If it had been up to me, the league would’ve:

- Suspended Jeff Lunhow 1 year without pay or involvement of any kind with MLB (Done)

- Suspended AJ Hinch 1 year without pay or involvement of any kind with MLB (Done)

- Placed Brandon Taubman on the Commissioner’s Ineligible List, where he would stay for 1 year (Done)

- Fined the Astros $5M (Done)

- Stripped the Astros of their 1st and 2nd round Draft Picks in both 2020 and 2021 (Done)

- Fined Carlos Beltran $750,000

- Fined all Astros players who batted in more than 15 home games in 2017 $500,000

- Stripped any batting records, league or team, set during the 2017 season by the Astros as a team or by individuals as a member of the team

- Nullified all Astros batting statistics at Minute Maid Park from the 2017 season

- Nullified all opponent pitching statistics at Minute Maid Park from the 2017 season

- Stripped the Astros of the 2017 AL West Championship and retroactively award it to the Angels without a postseason do-over of any kind

- Stripped the Astros of the 2017 AL Championship and retroactively awarded it to the Yankees without a postseason do-over of any kind

- Stripped the Astros of the 2017 World Series Championship and retroactively operated without a 2017 World Series Champion

- Stripped Astros players, coaches, and executives of their postseason earnings and redistribute them between the players, coaches, and executives of the Yankees and Dodgers

As for Alex Cora and the 2018 Red Sox, a league run by me would’ve:

- Placed Alex Cora on the Commissioner’s Ineligible List, where he would stay for 3 years before he became eligible for reinstatement

- Suspended former GM Dave Dombrowski 1 year without pay or involvement of any kind with MLB

- Fined the Red Sox $5M

- Stripped the Red Sox of their 1st and 2nd round draft picks in both 2020 and 2021

Harsh? Yes, probably, but if Major League Baseball has any hope of maintaining the reputation that they just got done rebuilding less than two decades removed from the steroid era, they’re going to need to prove to the public that what the 2017 Astros and 2018 Red Sox did has no place in the game of baseball. Plus, a penalty so severe just might be enough to worry other teams and managers (*cough* Beltrán *cough*) to make them reconsider using similar tactics.