What do you think of the way that Major League Baseball is handling the sign stealing situation?
The Houston Astros where fined $5 million dollars which is the maximum fine a team can be accessed. The Astros also have to forfeit their 1st and 2nd round draft picks in the 2020 and 20201 draft. General Manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch where also given one year suspensions without pay as part of Houston’s penalty.
In the wake of these penalties where announced Astros owner Jim Crane decided to fired Luhrow and Hinch. With spring training about a month away it outs the Astros in an odd position. Remember they fired their assistant general manager Brandon Taubman after an odd outburst at some female reporters. Taubman is also on MLB’s ineligible list; so he is unable to move into the general managers role if that’s the way the Astros choose to go.
With the Astros investigation wrapped up MLB will move on to the Boston Red Sox and their use of technology to steal signs.
The Red Sox have already made a preemptive and removed Alex Cora as their manager. Cora was the Astros bench coach in 2017 when the Astros where accused of stealing signs. He was hired by the Red Sox after Houston won the World Series in 2017 and led the Red Sox to the a World Series win in 2018. In Houston Cora appears to be the coach who put all of the sign stealing systems in place. Now there hasn’t been any reports on what his involvement with the Red Sox sign stealing system was, but as the old saying goes where there’s smoke there’s fire.
With Cora being involved in both of these sign stealing situation and the fact that Hinch got a year suspension; what should Cora get? Would Major League Baseball go as far as suspending him for multiple years?
Now the Red Sox parted way with Dave Dombrowski who had the job title of President of Baseball Operations which included handling general manager duties. To this point I haven’t heard anything on if Dombrowski will face sanctions like Luhnow did, but you have to think that’s a possibility. Dombrowski isn’t currently working for a major league team, but any type of penalty might prevent a team from hiring him.
I have to say that I’m pretty much in agreement with the penalties that where handed down to the Astros. I think the only thing that I would’ve liked to have seen Major League Baseball do was take away some of the teams international pool money along with the other penalties they where accessed.
The most difficult decision Major League Baseball has to make is what if anything happens to Carlos Beltran. There have been and there appears that no players will be penalized for the sign stealing scandal and while Beltran is currently the manager of the New York Mets he was a player and according to reports the leader of the sign stealing system.
This leads to the questions. Should Beltran be penalized? Should the Mets fire Beltran? Who they just hired November 1st and hasn’t managed a game for them.
The other thing that may be of some interest especially to Los Angeles Dodgers fans. Don’t forget that the Astros beat the Dodgers in the 2017 World Series and the Red Sox beat the Dodgers in the 2018 World Series. Could he Dodgers have been back to back World Series winners if not for the teams they where playing stealing signs?
I’m not sure if there’s an actual way to take away a World Series title from a team, but maybe they could add an asterisk next to the teams name in history and let the fans decide for themselves.
Then there comes the question of the American League Most Valuable Player award. In 2017 Jose Altuve of the Astros won the award and then in 2018 Mookie Betts of the Red Sox won the award. Was it easier for them to hit because they knew what pitches where coming? Now Major League Baseball didn’t strip either Ryan Braun or Jason Giambi of the MVP awards they won after it was learned that they where both use performance enhancing drugs. So there is a bit of a history here.
Just for the record in 2017 Aaron Judge of the Yankees finished 2nd to Altuve in the MVP voting and then in 2018 it was Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels who finished 2nd to Betts in the MVP voting.
In some other baseball news earlier in the week Miguel Sano signed a 3 year $30 million dollar extension to stay with the Minnesota Twins. With this signing it appeared that the Twins might be out of the race to sign Josh Donaldson. Anybody who thought that was wrong as yesterday the Twins inked Donaldson to a 4 year $92 million dollar deal with a 5th year option.
Donaldson’s deal is the largest free agent signing in Twins history and it’s the second largest contract the franchise has ever handed out. The largest contract in Twins history was Joe Mauer’s 8 year $184 million dollar deal he signed in 2011.
With the signing of Donaldson and Nelson Cruz locked in as the DH it appears as though Sano will make the move across the diamond and play 1st base for the Twins this season.
Donaldson was what was being describe as the last “big name” free agent on the markets, but there still are some quality players still available in free agency. The two hot names now seem to be outfielders Nicholas Castellanos and Marcel Ozuna, but don’t forget that Yasil Puig is also still a free agent. It will be interesting to see where these three free agents end up along with the remainder of the available players still out there.
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