Tuesday, January 14, 2020

The Verdict is In

The 2017 Astros have been found guilty of using technological means to enable stealing signs from the opposing team's catcher.

The punishment is as follows: Fine of $5MM, the maximum allowable fine under baseball's rules; one year suspensions for General Manager Jeff Luhhow and Manager AJ Hinch; forfeiture of 1st and 2nd round draft picks in 2020 and 2021.

The Astros went on to further punish both Luhnow and Hinch by terminating their contracts altogether.

Notably, not punished by the ruling: Alex Cora, former Astros bench coach and current head coach of the Boston Red Sox, or any of the multitude of players who orchestrated and benefited from the ever evolving cheating scheme.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred stated “Assessing discipline of players for this type of conduct is both difficult and impractical. It is difficult, because 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. It is impractical given the large number of players involved, and the fact that many of those players now play for other clubs.”

As a diehard White Sox fan, this portion of the ruling is disturbing. In 1919, the Chicago White Sox were acquitted of charges of conspiring to throw the World Series against Cincinnati. The Commissioner of Major League Baseball, Kenesaw "Mountain" Landis (appointed following the scandal by the owners of MLB as a way to ensure that the game would maintain its integrity) banned eight White Sox players (and a St. Louis Browns player Joe Gedeon who knew of the fix and bet on the Reds) from ever playing in the Major Leagues again, including "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and George "Buck" Weaver. In his ruling, Landis stated: "Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked ballplayers and gamblers, where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball again."

Buck Weaver had 11 hits for a .324 batting average in the series. Joe Jackson batted .375, with the series' only homerun, and was errorless in 30 chances on the field. Both players were banned nonetheless for knowing about the scheme and failing to report it to their manager, Kid Gleason, or the team owner, Charles Comiskey.

With no evidence that Jackson and Weaver took part in the fix, and evidence that they played to their utmost, they were still banned for life for knowing about it and not reporting it. So why are these modern day players being given far more leniency?

Money. I guarantee you it's about money.

Were Rob Manfred to ban every player involved, even for a year, the Astros would likely be decimated by the ruling. It is highly unlikely that any player on that team (with the possible (yet still unlikely) exception of the relievers in the bullpen) was unaware of what was transpiring. Even a day-one rookie would likely be curious as to why there was someone just down the tunnel banging on garbage cans like they were auditioning on drums for the Fat Albert Junkyard Band.

Manfred could have fined the players half of their 2017 salaries (they only benefited at home, after all), and if you truly want to punish a player, their pocket is the place to do it. Forcing players to turn over their World Series rings would be some measure of justice, but those rings are awarded by the club, not Major League Baseball.

The entire team would need to be suspended, including players who are now playing for other teams. Why should the other teams be penalized? Suspending the players, even for just a year, would be catastrophic. Rob Manfred is not Judge Landis. Houston is the fourth largest city in America and there is no way he wants to be the guy who destroys a franchise in such a large market. The $5 million is a drop in the bucket. Luhnow can be replaced. Hinch can be replaced (and there are a plethora of qualified coaches looking for work). The draft picks are the part that will hurt the team the most; not being able to draft high quality, controllable prospects for two years will potentially take a big bite out of the team's competitiveness over the next five to ten years. At some point, I expect the draft penalties will cause a drop in win totals, and I can see them becoming a 90 loss team again for a few years (unless their new GM gets crazy lucky with late draft picks and is a savvy trader). That's bad enough to punish a fan base that technically did nothing wrong.

The absence of Alex Cora in any of the punishment language, to me, is telling. Why punish the Red Sox for something the Astros did? It's not like Cora's very next team won the World Series the following year- oh, wait, that's exactly what happened. The Red Sox won the World Series in 2018 (Cora's first year as head coach), and now they are being investigated in a sign stealing scandal. Quelle surprise!

I think the reason Cora was not mentioned is that Mandfred knows what happened with the Red Sox in '18, and he's just waiting for the evidence to be presented. I think at the conclusion of that investigation, Cora will be banned from baseball for life, and I hope that is what happens. The danger is what if the investigation into the Red Sox somehow finds no evidence of sign stealing; does Cora get away scot free?

I don't think so, and I hope not. You know what they say, "Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, yer ass is getting torn up."

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