What the Astros Might Deserve

“I do not see a great parallel between the Red Sox situation and the St. Louis situation, principally for these reasons: The Red Sox, to their credit, accepted organization responsibility for what went on,” Manfred said.

“We don’t have all of the facts in the St. Louis-Houston situation. To date, there has been no implication that this was an organizational problem but there has been an indication that it was one employee, (who) did something inappropriate, the organization found out about it, and fired the employee. Those are very, very different things.”

When discussing the Braves’ international violations, Manfred indicated the Braves were cooperative, but that Coppolella was not. That likely played a role in the severity of the punishment Coppolella received. The Braves hired a new general manager in Alex Anthopolous, while former President of Baseball Operations John Hart also left the organization. Cleaning house helped shift some penalties from the organization to individuals; Manfred cited new leadership in Atlanta as a positive:

“The senior Baseball Operations officials responsible for the misconduct are no longer employed by the Braves,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “I am confident that Terry McGuirk, John Schuerholz, Alex Anthopoulos and their staffs have and will put in place procedures to ensure that this type of conduct never occurs again and which will allow the Club to emerge from this difficult period as the strong and respected franchise that it has always been.”

Similarly, Chris Correa was uncooperative with MLB and received a lifetime ban, though Manfred indicated the organization should still be held responsible:

“Although Mr Correa’s conduct was not authorized by the Cardinals, as a matter of MLB policy, I am holding the Cardinals responsible for his conduct,” Manfred wrote. “A club suffers material harm when an employee of another club illegally accesses its confidential and propriety information, particularly intrusions of the nature and scope present here. In addition, as a result of Mr Correa’s conduct, the Astros suffered substantial negative publicity and had to endure the time, expense and distraction of both a lengthy government investigation and an MLB investigation.”

MLB opted for restitution in that case, awarding the Astros two Cardinals’ draft picks and $2 million; the league presumably believed that Correa going to prison would serve as a sufficient deterrent to future misconduct. That MLB’s investigation didn’t go any higher than Correa likely prevented a front-office shakeup or more severe penalties. That leads to the final factor from above. The last time penalties were meted out for sign-stealing, the lack of organizational knowledge was deemed a plus by Manfred. When the league set down a fine for the Red Sox in 2017, he noted the following:

“In assessing the significance of this violation, the investigation established three relevant points. First, the violation in question occurred without the knowledge of ownership or front office personnel. Second, when the Red Sox learned of the Yankees’ complaint, they immediately halted the conduct in question and then cooperated completely in my investigation. I have received absolute assurances from the Red Sox that there will be no future violations of this type. Third, our investigation revealed that Clubs have employed various strategies to decode signs that do not violate our rules. The Red Sox’ strategy violated our rules because of the use of an electronic device.

“Taking all of these factors as well as past precedent into account, I have decided to fine the Red Sox an undisclosed amount which in turn will be donated by my office to hurricane relief efforts in Florida. Moreover, all 30 Clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.

When we consider the precedent and statements from above, things don’t look especially great for Houston. Manfred issued his statement concerning the Red Sox’s sign-stealing about a week before the Danny Farquhar incident described in the Rosenthal/Drellich piece, so even if the cheating didn’t extend into the playoffs (and the television monitor being removed after a World Series game makes that claim seem dubious), there’s still evidence of the Astros cheating after Manfred announced that more severe penalties would follow future incidents. Emails from special assistant to the general manager Kevin Goldstein to scouts about stealing signs with cameras further would seem to indicate an organizational problem. And an incident involving the Astros in the 2018 postseason, which Jeff Luhnow’s attributed to the team being on the lookout for illegal sign-stealing, would make it difficult for Luhnow to claim he was unaware that his own organization might be engaging in their own sign-stealing when he was constantly watching other teams for the same behavior. MLB solidifying other rules around the practice heading into the 2019 season shows further efforts by the Commissioner to clean up electronic sign-stealing, efforts of which the Astros were surely aware.

As for the current scope of the investigation, Manfred took a position ahead of the owner’s meetings yesterday, indicating that the investigation is currently focused on the Astros and issuing some strong statements on potential penalties:

While the investigation could eventually cover others teams and players, that will probably be of little help to Houston. Much of the coverage of the scandal hints at other teams engaging in sign-stealing themselves, and Ken Rosenthal has advocated for a very broad investigation based on what he’s heard, but has not yet been able to confirm. How pervasive the practice is, and how closely the behavior of other teams resembles that of the Astros is still unknown, and is likely important context through which to consider possible punishment. The Commissioner will need to exact penalties that are consistent and repeatable for other teams, players, and executives, but likely won’t be eager to mete out penalties without significant testimony and evidence. If MLB isn’t looking beyond Houston, the Commissioner is unlikely to find much that contextualizes the Astros’ actions unless the Astros themselves turn over what they’ve found about other teams’ behavior.

With the Astros, we have obvious cheating with prior precedent for penalties, repeated efforts by baseball to prevent this behavior, and the entire organization, at a minimum, cognizant of potential sign-stealing issues. Ultimately, even if the Astros organization tells the truth about what happened, they are going to be hit hard. If individual employees don’t cooperate, or are found to be lying, they are going to be hit harder. The Astros’ reputation as an organization willing to do anything to win is going to hurt them publicly, but looking solely at the actual evidence will probably be plenty to bring about significant penalties. While some forms of stealing signs are largely accepted as part of baseball, there’s too much in the way of bright-line rules, clear precedent, and brazen disregard for the same to think the Astros’ behavior isn’t going to be easily seen as cheating when the Commissioner’s office conducts their analysis. If the investigation reveals continued illegal efforts to steal signs in 2018 and 2019, harsh penalties are warranted. An excuse of “everyone is doing it” isn’t going to hold water when teams were put on notice of the risk of getting caught. When commenting on Chris Correa’s behavior, Manfred said:

“I am intolerant with respect to the violation of our rules.”

When the investigation concludes, we’ll find out more than just the Astros sign-stealing scheme. We’ll find out if that statement is true.