Astros hit with huge penalties for cheating during World Series winning season
- MLB investigation finds team stole signs from opponents
- Astros fire manager and GM; club fined $5m for wrngdoingTom Lutzom_lutz
The Astros’ manager, AJ Hinch, and general manager, Jeff Luhnow, have been suspended for a year while the club have been fined $5m and deprived of their first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021.
Shortly after the punishments were handed down, the Astros announced they had fired Hinch and Luhnow. “When I found out, I was very upset. We want to be known as playing by the rules,” the club’s owner, Jim Crane, said. “Neither one of those guys implemented this or pushed it through the system ... but neither one of them did anything about it. That’s unfortunate and the consequences are severe.”
MLB’s investigation found the team had used technology to gain an unfair advantage by stealing signs from opponents during the 2017 season, when they won their first-ever World Series. MLB said that if Hinch or Luhnow “engage in any future material violations” the pair face a permanent ban from baseball. The MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred, said Hinch was aware of the sign stealing system but did not bring it to the attention of Luhnow. Luhnow said he had no knowledge of the cheating but MLB held him responsible for his team’s wrongdoings.
“Although Luhnow denies having any awareness that his replay review room staff was decoding and transmitting signs, there is both documentary and testimonial evidence that indicates Luhnow had some knowledge of those efforts, but he did not give it much attention,” Manfred said. “Irrespective of Luhnow’s knowledge of his club’s violations of the rules, I will hold him personally accountable for the conduct of his club.”
A former Houston player, pitcher Mike Fiers, prompted the investigation after telling The Athletic the team had used cameras to steal signs from opponents. Sign stealing allows teams to give batters a huge advantage by telling them which pitches to expect from the opposition. Manfred’s investigation found the team used video-replay staff to decode opponents’ signs. The findings were then sent to the Astros bench by phone or text message. Players in the dugout would eventually hit a trash can with a bat to tell the batter which pitch to expect. While Manfred concluded the relay of information was “player driven”, none of them will be punished.
“Virtually all of the Astros’ players had some involvement or knowledge of the scheme, and I am not in a position based on the investigative record to determine with any degree of certainty every player who should be held accountable, or their relative degree of culpability,” Manfred said. “It is impractical given the large number of players involved, and the fact that many of those players now play for other clubs.”
The investigation’s findings will not only affect the Astros. Alex Cora, who was the manager of the Boston Red Sox when they won the World Series in 2018, was the bench coach for the Astros in 2017. He, along with then Astros player Carlos Beltran, was found to have played a key role in the wrongdoing. Beltran is now the manager of the New York Mets but is not expected to face punishment as he was a player at the time. The Red Sox are part of an ongoing MLB investigation into allegations they stole signs from opponents during their own title-winning season in 2018. Manfred hinted that Cora will be punished for his actions with the Astros.
The Astros’ 2017 win was as a feelgood story at the time, with the victory bringing joy to a city that had been hit by serious floods earlier that year. However, scandal has hit the team since. Although the Astros reached the World Series again this year, where they lost to the Washington Nationals, the club was forced to apologise after falsely accusing a reporter of fabricating a story in which she accused a member of the team’s staff of verbally abusing a group of female reporters. The staff member was also fired.
Former Houston Astros manager A.J. Hinch was fired for his part in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal. (David Zalubowski/APIs it illegal to steal signs in MLB?
Nope. It’s accepted tradition. Players and coaches try to steal their opponents’ signs, but they’ve traditionally done so mostly by watching the other team and trying to recognize patterns or sequences. Sign-stealing is as old as baseball itself. But stealing signs using camera, binoculars or other objects foreign to the game is illegal. Major League Baseball took steps to curtain sign-stealing in the digital age during the most recent offseason, according to multiple media reports. That followed a series of allegations of teams stealing signs using electronic means. In 2017, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred had warned teams about electronic sign-stealing, while fining the Boston Red Sox for “sending electronic communications from their video replay room to an athletic trainer in the dugout.”
How did the Astros steal signs?
The Astros used a camera positioned in center field at Minute Maid Park to decode the signs from the catcher to the pitcher and inform the batter what kind of pitch was on the way. That camera was used by the team’s replay room, whose operators were supposed to help Manager A.J. Hinch decide whether to challenge an umpire’s call. But in addition to those duties, former bench coach Alex Cora (the current manager of the Boston Red Sox) instructed the replay room to relay the decoded information to a player, who would share it with teammates. That information was variously shared using the dugout phone, the cellphone of a staff member on the bench or another cellphone stored nearby.
Eventually, the Astros installed a video monitor displaying the same footage just outside the dugout so players could look at the video themselves. Players would bang on a trash can with a bat to signal to the hitter at the plate what pitch was coming. “Generally, one or two bangs corresponded to certain off-speed pitches,” according to Manfred’s investigative report, “while no bang corresponded to a fastball.”
When did the Astros start stealing signs?
The Astros started stealing signs using the replay room at the beginning of the 2017 season, the same season they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, four games to three, to win Houston’s first World Series. The team began using the monitor outside the dugout two months into the season.
The replay room scheme was revived during the 2018 season, but stopped sometime before the playoffs began. MLB’s investigation did not find any evidence that the sign-stealing racket continued into the 2019 season, when the Astros lost the World Series to the Washington Nationals, four games to three.
How did the Astros get caught?
A number of teams had suspicions about the Astros, but the sign-stealing only became public in November, when former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers told Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of the Athletic about the scheme.
“That’s not playing the game the right way,” Fiers said. “They were advanced and willing to go above and beyond to win.”
But unnamed sources who spoke with the Athletic said Houston was far from the only club breaking MLB’s rules by using technology to steal signs.
“It’s an issue that permeates through the whole league,” one major league manager said. “The league has done a very poor job of policing or discouraging it.”
Who got fired from the Astros?
Let’s start with who got punished. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred suspended Manager Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow for the 2020 season. Manfred also banned Brandon Taubman, the team’s former assistant general manager, from working for MLB or any of its clubs for the 2020 season, after which he can apply for reinstatement, over a separate matter. Manfred also stripped the Astros of their first- and second-round selections in the 2020 and 2021 drafts, and fined the franchise $5 million.
Shortly after Hinch and Luhnow’s suspensions were announced, they were both fired by Astros owner Jim Crane.
Who else in baseball might be implicated?
Mainly, attention has focused on Boston Red Sox Manager Alex Cora. He was the Astros bench coach in 2017 and the architect of the illicit sign-stealing scheme, according to the commissioner’s report. Manfred chose not to discipline Cora yet, because MLB is conducting a separate investigation into alleged illegal sign-stealing by the Red Sox in 2018, the year the team defeated the Dodgers, four games to one, in the World Series. Manfred said he was withholding punishment on Cora until that inquiry concludes.
The reverberations of the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal reached Boston on Tuesday night when Alex Cora — the former Houston bench coach who was implicated as a mastermind of the scheme in an M.L.B. report on the matter — lost his job as manager of the Red Sox.
Cora helped the Astros win the World Series in 2017, then joined the Red Sox and immediately led them to the 2018 title. Now he is gone, with the team announcing that its ownership and Cora had “mutually agreed to part ways.”
M.L.B. investigators identified Cora as a central figure in an illicit scheme to steal opposing catchers’ signs via a video feed and communicate them to the Astros’ hitters, according to a report issued Monday by Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Cora’s departure — which came a day after the announcement of yearlong suspensions for Astros Manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow, who were subsequently fired — further clouded the future of the Mets’ new manager, Carlos Beltran. An outfielder with Houston in 2017, Beltran was the only the Astros player implicated in the report.
The report called the operation “player driven” — with the exception of Cora’s efforts. While Manfred spared Beltran by deciding not to discipline players, the Astros and the Red Sox have now acted independently of M.L.B., and the Mets could face pressure to do so as well. The report cited Beltran as a member of a group of players who “discussed that the team could improve on decoding opposing teams’ signs and communicating the signs to the batter.”
A Mets spokesman said the team had no comment on Tuesday night, leaving Beltran in a precarious sort of status quo. The Red Sox said they would hold a news conference on Wednesday at Fenway Park in Boston to expand on their Tuesday statement.
Mets agree to part ways with manager Carlos Beltran
Carlos Beltran, the only player named in MLB's investigation of the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal, is out as manager of the New York Mets before beginning his first season with the team, it was announced Thursday.
"We met with Carlos last night and again this morning and agreed to mutually part ways," Mets COO Jeff Wilpon and general manager Brodie Van Wagenen said in a statement Thursday. "This was not an easy decision. Considering the circumstances, it became clear to all parties that it was not in anyone's best interest for Carlos to move forward as Manager of the New York Mets.
"We believe Carlos was honest and forthcoming with us. We are confident that this will not be the final chapter in his baseball career. We remain excited about the talent on this team and are committed to reaching our goals of winning now and in the future."