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Looks Like The Houston Astros Are About To Be Met With Fire And Fury, The Likes Of Which Has Never Been Seen

(USA Today)

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred says he and his office have reviewed 75,000 emails relating to the Houston Astros’ electronic sign-stealing scandal. They have interviewed at least three current major league managers, an untold number of players and dozens of major league personnel overall.

All that gumshoe work may not inform the commissioner’s impending punishment of the Astros than 19 words he put forth on Sept. 15, 2017:

“All 30 Clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions.”

The bill for thumbing their nose at the commissioner is about to come due.

Manfred’s office is soon expected to announce penalties resulting from the Astros’ alleged scheme. It appears the Astros cooperated with the investigation, which is wise, since they say the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

But if there’s anything worse than a cover-up, it is blatantly flouting your czar’s edict handed down just days earlier.

The result may be, at least temporarily, an Astros organization that looks a lot different than it did just 10 weeks ago.

I want to see the Astros crash and burn, mostly for reasons that affect my fandom.  The White Sox window is opening – anyone thinking objectively knows that and one road block to reaching the pinnacle of future baseball seasons would undoubtedly be the Houston Astros, so I’ve been following this sign stealing shit closely almost solely because of that.  If they’re gutted like it looks like the might be, the White Sox could have one less power team to deal with in the coming years.  Kinda a loser mentality, but I guarantee the Yankees, Red Sox, Tampa, other orgs that expect success in the coming 5ish years and their fans think the same thing, whether they want to admit it or not.

But it’s important to remember this: the Astros and all of MLB were warned by Rob Manfred to cut the shit long before this story surfaced.  It’s hilarious; within a week of Manfred addressing all 30 GMs to stop cheating in a memo, the Astros were found banging on garbage cans like they’re goddamn Keith Moon.  So as Nightengale’s article says, either Lunhow knowingly let them to continue to cheat or he was dumb enough not to relay the memo to his dugout at all. Either way, Lunhow should be tarred and feathered for giving Manfred the middle finger or being a complete moron.  Doesn’t matter which, either/or is punishable.

So now that it looks like the investigation is coming to its completion, what are a some punishments we can expect?  As I said, I want Manfred to go full scorched earth on them.  Burn them to the fucking ground.  Here are a few things I’ve seen floated around the Twittersphere, some of which could gut them, some of which would just embarrass the fuck out of them:

- massive fines
– loss of multiple 1st round picks
– Lunhow banned/suspended
– Hinch suspended 1/2 year to 1 year
– loss of/ major capping of international spending

and then, the embarrassing part….

… admitting everything publicly

Imagine being Lunhow and Hinch in that situation.  Not fun!

Now if we’re operating on stare dicesis, which we should be (this is America), we’re referencing past offenses of similar nature in order to establish punishment.  Only problem is there aren’t really any past offenses of this nature to reference.  What we CAN reference is the ATL Braves scandal from a few offseasons ago where GM John Cappolella was banned for skirting IFA rules.

Now I may be thinking irrationally because like I said, I want to see the Astros crash and burn, but Cappolella was basically giving LatAm players larger bonuses than allowed under the table.  Slipping them paper bags full of cash or some shit and he was banned for LIFE.  The difference between the two is abundantly clear to me:

1. the Braves scandal didn’t directly affect the outcome of MLB games (at least immediately) and
2. the Astros sign stealing did

That’s why I get the inkling that Lunhow might be fffuuuuccckkkkeeeeddd.  Cheating that affects the outcome of games is almost as bad as gambling on games, IMO.  Not quite, since you’re cheating to win and not throwing games, but almost.  Nevertheless, it looks like we’ll know what happens with Houston soon, and I have a feeling that they’re going to be hurting big time in a year or two.

Kick ‘em off the tour, Doug!