Jump to content

Astros cheat-Lunhow/Hinch fired-Manfred clueless


KhanYouDigIt

Recommended Posts

3 minutes ago, winitall said:

Not a big baseball guy, but does Jim care about any of this? Without much knowledge of the Astros ownership, firing Lunhow and Hinch seems like more of a PR move than anything.  Something that can be pointed to in order to say "Hey we did more than we had to because we care." Then, they can turn around and have Pete keep the status quo and quietly hire Lunhow as a "special advisor" in a year or two once the story dies down.

You're getting at what my sarcasm was intended to get at. It seems at least obvious that Hinch would have resigned had asked, but you fire him to make a statement...only to immediately promote Luhnow's protege as a fill in the baseball ops?

I don't think the Astros front office will change at all.

Edited by ramssuperbowl99
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know how to analyze these penalties.  I talked myself into believing that the Astros would only be fined money and maybe put in the IFA penalty box, as I have no faith in Manfred.  As such, these penalties look much more severe.  But I'm sure they aren't harsh enough in the grand scheme of things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, hrubes20 said:

I don't know how to analyze these penalties.  I talked myself into believing that the Astros would only be fined money and maybe put in the IFA penalty box, as I have no faith in Manfred.  As such, these penalties look much more severe.  But I'm sure they aren't harsh enough in the grand scheme of things.

Here's my rough breakdown, by category:

  • Player Punishments
    • I think you could argue Manfred needed to punish someone, but this gets really murky quickly, and the MLBPA is pretty much already in open strike mode. Having all of these go to grievances that would last into the offseason is not a good move, and I seriously think discipline that we'd consider appropriate would be an all out declaration of war to the MLBPA.

      In a vacuum, I'd say the players who moved the TV closer to the dugout, who hid the TV when Danny Farqhuar figured out what they were doing, and guys who were otherwise "ringleaders" probably deserve something. But even then, it's going to be like 25 games, and he realistically can't suspend the entire team. Overall, 'meh'.
    • Beltran should have been punished though. He's not a player any more.
  • Organization Punishments
    • Realistically, $5MM and 2 years of draft picks is about as severe as you can reasonably predict. Enough to make cheating for a WS a bad move? Nope. But as much as you could expect.
  • Individual Punishments
    • Assuming Cora is banned for life, that will fit. If not, I'll be livid. He ran this show.
    • Taubman gets nothing but thoughts and prayers from me. Realistically he wasn't that involved and basically got banned for generally being a ****head, but again, thoughts and prayers.
    • Hinch for a year seems reasonable. He apologized, and his actions real time show that he wasn't for it, he just didn't do enough to stop it. A second chance here is defensible.
    •  Luhnow not getting banned for life is absurd. There was evidence he knew, he was uncooperative with investigators by saying he didn't in spite of other testimony, and it was his operation. Manfred's own warning said the manager and GM would have their spikes on heads unless this was issued, and instead Luhnow's assistant got banned for him. Complete garbage.

tl;dr, the only thing really absent was a Luhnow banhammer

Edited by ramssuperbowl99
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Here's my rough breakdown, by category:

  • Player Punishments
    • I think you could argue Manfred needed to punish someone, but this gets really murky quickly, and the MLBPA is pretty much already in open strike mode. Having all of these go to grievances that would last into the offseason is not a good move, and I seriously think discipline that we'd consider appropriate would be an all out declaration of war to the MLBPA.

      In a vacuum, I'd say the players who moved the TV closer to the dugout, who hid the TV when Danny Farqhuar figured out what they were doing, and guys who were otherwise "ringleaders" probably deserve something. But even then, it's going to be like 25 games, and he realistically can't suspend the entire team. Overall, 'meh'.
    • Beltran should have been punished though. He's not a player any more.
  • Organization Punishments
    • Realistically, $5MM and 2 years of draft picks is about as severe as you can reasonably predict. Enough to make cheating for a WS a bad move? Nope. But as much as you could expect.
  • Individual Punishments
    • Assuming Cora is banned for life, that will fit. If not, I'll be livid. He ran this show.
    • Taubman gets nothing but thoughts and prayers from me. Realistically he wasn't that involved and basically got banned for generally being a ****head, but again, thoughts and prayers.
    • Hinch for a year seems reasonable. He apologized, and his actions real time show that he wasn't for it, he just didn't do enough to stop it. A second chance here is defensible.
    •  Luhnow not getting banned for life is absurd. There was evidence he knew, he was uncooperative with investigators by saying he didn't in spite of other testimony, and it was his operation. Manfred's own warning said the manager and GM would have their spikes on heads unless this was issued, and instead Luhnow's assistant got banned for him. Complete garbage.

tl;dr, the only thing really absent was a Luhnow banhammer

So true.  Coppolella has to be pretty pissed off right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Luhnow was the best GM in this team's history but sacking him was probably the right move. Hinch, meh. I liked him but the importance of a manager in baseball isn't nearly as big. 

Replacements will have big shoes to fill. Glad this thing is over, this entire scandal was depressing. 

Cora's next. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...