The Houston Astros have been hit with a series of huge penalties after a Major League Baseball investigation concluded the club cheated during their 2017 World Series winning season.
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.
MLB’s investigation found the team had used technology to gain an unfair advantage by stealing signs from opponents during the 2017 season, when the team 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. 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.
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”, no players are expected to be punished.
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.