*Photo from Yahoo! Sports*
Major League Baseball has suspended Houston Astros manager AJ Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow for one year following their investigation into sign stealing by the 2017 world series winning team. Astros owner Jim Crane took another step forward and fired both Hinch and Luhnow. Crane will serve as interim GM until the team can find a new one. Commissioner Rob Manfred also announced that the Astros will lose their first and second round draft picks for 2020 and 2021, and will be fined $5 million, the max amount allowed in the major league constitution. If Luhnow or Hinch engages in further violation of MLB rules at any time, they will be placed on the permanently ineligible list.
Manfred said at the press conference that "I find that the conduct of the Astros, and its senior baseball operations executives, merits significant discipline, 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."
The investigation found that Crane had no knowledge of what was happening. Crane said in his press conference that "There are two very important points I want to make today: I have higher standards for the city and the franchise, and I am going above and beyond MLB's penalty, today, I have made the decision to dismiss AJ Hinch and Jeff Luhnow. We need to move forward with a clean slate, and the Astros will become a stronger organization because of this today. Neither one of them started this, but neither one of them did anything about it, we will not have this happen again on my watch." Crane also added that the Astros would not suspend any players as a result of the investigation.
The suspensions for Hinch and Luhnow begin immediately and will expire one day after the world series concludes. Former Astros assistant GM Brandon Taubman, who was fired in October after a clubhouse outburst, has also been suspended for one year. Carlos Beltran, who is now the manager of the New York Mets, escaped punishment despite being the only player named in the report. Former Astros bench coach Alex Cora, who now manages the Boston Red Sox, is credited as the mastermind of the scheme, and is expected to be severely punished. His punishment hasn't come yet, as the Red Sox are being separately investigated for sign stealing in 2018. Former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers spoke publicly about sign stealing in November, which led to the investigation.
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