Major League Baseball has lowered the boom on the Houston Astros. Can the Red Sox, and specifically manager Alex Cora, be next?
MLB announced Monday that it would penalize the Astros for illegally stealing signs during their World Series championship season in 2017. The penalties include a one-year suspension for manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow; the forfeitures of first- and second-round draft picks in both 2020 and '21; a fine of $5 million, the maximum allowed under the MLB's constitution.
Just minutes after the MLB's announcement, Astros owner Jim Crane said he was firing Hinch and Luhnow, saying "we need to move forward with a clean slate and the Astros will become a stronger organization because of this today."
Cora was Houston's bench coach in 2017 and intricately involved in the alleged sign stealing with the Astros, according to a nine-page MLB report. The report says that the illegal sign-stealing was mostly player-driven, though it states that Cora was involved in setting it up.
"Cora was involved in developing both the (Astros) scheme and utilizing the replay review room to decode and transmit signs. Cora participated in both schemes, and through his active participation, implicitly condoned the players' conduct," commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in the report.
Cora was not disciplined as part of the investigation but he could face similar penalties to Hinch's once the MLB's ongoing investigation into allegations of illegal sign-stealing by the Red Sox during the 2018 season concludes.
The suspensions of Hinch, Luhnow and assistant general manager Brandon Taubman were set to begin immediately and end on the day following the completion of the 2020 World Series. Now the Astros will be looking for new baseball leadership with the opening of spring training only a month away.
"I find that the conduct of the Astros, and its senior baseball operations executives, merits significant discipline," Commissioner Rob Manfred said as part of the nine-page ruling. "I base this finding on the fact that the club's senior baseball operations executives were given express notice in September 2017 that I would hold them accountable for violations of our policies covering sign stealing, and those individuals took no action to ensure that the club's players and staff complied with those policies during the 2017 postseason and the 2018 regular season.
"The conduct described herein has caused fans, players, executives at other MLB clubs, and members of the media to raise questions about the integrity of games in which the Astros participated. And while it is impossible to determine whether the conduct actually impacted the results on the field, the perception of some that it did causes significant harm to the game."
