MLB, Rob Manfred lays the gentle hammer on the Houston Astros

WEST PALM BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 17:Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred answers questions Sunday at Spring Training Media Day at the Hilton West Palm Beach on Sunday, February 17, 2019. (Photo by Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 17:Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred answers questions Sunday at Spring Training Media Day at the Hilton West Palm Beach on Sunday, February 17, 2019. (Photo by Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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Houston Astros
Houston Astros /

The Houston Astros day of reckoning finally came, with MLB handing out some of the harshest punishment in sports history.  Was it enough though?

After one of the most thorough investigations in sports history, MLB has come down on the Houston Astros with huge suspensions and fines.  GM Jeff Luhnow and skipper AJ Hinch have been suspended for the 2020 season.

In addition to the 2020 suspensions, the Astros announced that they have fired both men.  The team will also lose their 1st and 2nd round picks (and the pool money that goes with it) along with a $5M fine.  Brandon Taubman, who was already fired by the Astros for making comments about Roberto Osuna to female reporters, is placed on the MLB Ineligible list.

It should be noted Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora is awaiting a suspension of his own since he was the chief architect of this scheme.  New Mets’ skipper Carlos Beltran was technically a player during his time with the Astros so he, like all others involved, has been spared.

There is a lot to unpack in these suspensions.  A lot is going to be written about how MLB laid down the law and nothing like this will happen again.  It sounds like the Astros got hammered but they really didn’t have anything cataclysmic happen that will affect their bottom line or their future.

Let’s start with the fine.  The Houston Astros were fined $5M.  Astros owner Jim Crane is worth a whopping $2.5 BILLION dollars.  He has $5M sitting in his fourth house’s luxury yacht’s bedroom’s couch, this is literally meaningless. The Astros franchise is valued at $1.77B and this will have zero impact on the desirability to buy the franchise or its bottom line.

Lastly, the top payroll a team could have before the competitive balance tax kicks in was $206M.  That $5M fine doesn’t count towards the luxury tax and equates to just over half of an on-field baseball WAR.  In baseball terms, the Houston Astros paid $5M to have a system that upped the offensive output of every player in the lineup that participated which generated a ton of value.  $5M in a billion-dollar league is a joke and will not deter anything.

HOUSTON, TX – APRIL 03: Manager A.J. Hinch
HOUSTON, TX – APRIL 03: Manager A.J. Hinch /

MLB lays the gentle hammer on the Houston Astros

Now lets talk about Luhnow and Hinch.  AJ Hinch has been fired from his post as manager where he has been since 2014.  While we can’t quantify the value or impact of a manager, writing a lineup card is done with input from the front office analytics, with the medical staff advising on players’ health, and the matchups of the day.  The most important part of being an MLB skipper is keeping the locker room in order which there isn’t yet a metric for.  This is a long way of saying the Houston Astros will miss parts of Hinch but his entire coaching staff remains intact so its next man up.

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Bench coach Joe Espada, who has been up for manager positions in the past, could get interviews to become the new manager and Hitting Coach Alex Cintron could move up to Bench Coach.  There is an easy rally cry to unite the 2020 Astros of playing for Hinch and proving all the doubters who think their success is only a result of banging on a trash can.  So the only part that advanced analytics don’t do, managing the locker room, is done.  Hinch’s year-long suspension draws parallels to when New Orleans Saints’ Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended in BountyGate but his suspension matters less since he is fired.  The Astros need a new manager but this job remains appealing and it doesn’t change the Astros win projection for 2020.

For GM Jeff Luhnow, his firing by the Astros changes the entire calculus of how much the suspension matters.  If MLB banned Luhnow from all communication with everyone in the Astros organization, takes away his phone, and constantly monitors any tradecraft shenanigans the Astros could pull, then it might have had an impact.  In the digital age where you can be connected and access personnel or databases from anywhere, his firing does a better job of making sure he is not involved in baseball decisions.

It will be interesting who the Astros select as interim GM to finish out the offseason whether it is Special Assistant Kevin Goldstein, Senior Director of Baseball Ops Armando Velasco, or some combination of senior personnel.  Regardless, the Astros scouting, R&D department, analytics group, etc remain whole and will be filtering up the same information that made them Astros, there will just be a different final decision-maker.  Whoever the new top decision-maker in Houston is, its likely they have been under Luhnow’s wing and knows how to make the most calculated decisions.  It seems likely the Astros would promote internally to retain the organizational knowledge that has been developed in Houston.

(Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
(Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images) /

MLB lays the gentle hammer on the Houston Astros

Now let’s talk about the draft picks.  The Houston Astros will lose their 1st and 2nd round picks in 2020 and 2021.  Arguably more important, the Astros will also lose that pool money which will significantly impact their ability to sign over slot talent in the draft (think high schoolers with 1st round talent and strong college commitments).

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The Astros though have been picking at the back of the draft since they are consistently in the playoffs.  Their pools are already smaller than everyone else.  This will force their scouts to look harder domestically and their player development corps to squeeze even more value out of these domestic players to keep the pipeline coming.

The Astros could also redeploy these assets to International scouting.  This is probably the worst part of the entire punishment because it will restrict the types of players the Astros can target in the draft.

Nevertheless, they will continue to target pitchers with high-spin-rates and have aggressive assignments for hitters.  Regardless their current pipeline of talent remains impressive, deep, and untouched from this punishment.

Lastly, here is why this punishment for the Astros doesn’t matter as much as you think.  This team, that just lost in the World Series to the Nationals, and its players like Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, George Springer, Jose Altuve, etc will all receive a combined suspension of ZERO games for the 2020 season.

One punishment not listed for the players is they will be harassed by the media for answers and their thoughts on the scandal and punishment all year.  With the exception of free agents like Gerrit Cole, the Astros core that won 107 games is back and got off scot-free.

It looks like the Astros got it bad but this punishment though isn’t a death sentence at all.  The Astros GM and manager jobs are still very appealing since you get to step right into a perennial contender.  The Astros are the odds on favorite to run away with the AL West and face the Yankees in the postseason again.

Next. Red Sox: Alex Cora escapes punishment... for now. dark

Will it discourage teams from trying to cheat? No, not at all.  Teams will just figure out how to cheat smarter.  The Astros retain their 2017 World Series Title and are positioned to compete every year moving forward.  If they could go back and know what the penalties would be, they’d probably do it all over again.

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