That no players were punished is ridiculous

Love how the sports media is spinning this as "dropping the hammer"

And Pete Rose is laughing his butt off, that none of these players are seeing any discipline.

Absolutely pathetic display of discipline by Manfred.

Player-driven scheme yet no players disciplined.

Who thinks Cora should get banned?

How are the Astros players not punished? They were the ones banging on the trash can and watching the feed. Yes the coaches should know better to allow it but the players were the culprits as well. I don't even know how Astros players can look at other clubs' players in the eyes after this, cheating to get a WS.

“You’re the manager. You’re in charge” - lol exactly

This is going to be an awesome documentary some day

Thank You Jomboy for breaking the original story! If this is the punishment.Than Pete Rose MUST be allowed into the HOF!

i dont like cheaters and i dont think this was far enough players should pay the price as well and they didnt shame on the MLB

So basically the market price for a WS title has been set: 5 million bucks, 4 draft picks and 2 non-player employees........yea I think every team would make that trade every year if they could. The 2017 title absolutely should be vacated. It wont change memories but it will take away that franchise's only title. You cannot let cheaters keep their ill-gotten gains just because a little time has passed. The people of today will remember the truth regardless. The people 75 years from now will not. If a bank robber was caught 3 years later the punishment would not merely be that they arent allowed to work at a bank for a year. The Astros only fired them as a "good PR" move to pretend they arent the scummiest organization in the league. They dont care, they just got caught. You cant suspend the players because some of them play for new teams plus immunity was the reason they agreed to talk. Taking the title away is the only thing that can actually hurt the players at this point. I also think the Astros should have to forfeit all international bonus pool money and the first 15 picks the next two years not just 2. Baseball drafts are 45 rounds and decent players come from lower rounds all the time. 2 picks is like 1 quarter of one pick in the nfl.

I want titles vacated and a financial spending CAP put on both these teams

The leader isn't a leader. I can hardly wait for the coming season. The boo's are coming and it will not stop.

Houston Asterisks. If they’re really concerned about preventing cheating in the future, they should’ve stripped their title.

"Hilarious joke MLB!" - Pete Rose 2020

So they get to KEEP THEIR WORLD SERIES TROPHY? Are you serious. This is so blatant.

If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.

This reminds me of the NCAA’s “Lack of Institutional Control” punishments. Lol Asstros

Championship needs to get stripped away.. done.

Really great post here....UNTIL...."Sweet Caroline" somehow got stuck in my brain....I'll be hearing that all day...Thanks Rich....LOL

the amount of money these players and owners are making and they still need to cheat to win

If no players are being punished ... Then take the world series title from them

5 million dollar fine is like $100 for regular ppl

For 34 years, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I was a Houston Astros fan. Even though the late 90s and early 2000's teams didn't win a championship, they still played baseball the way it was supposed to be played! The hell of it is that I don't know if I should just take a hiatus from baseball until all of the current players are gone or if I should find another team.

I think whenever Beltran or Cora's team comes to visit Wrigley, I wanna see some bats and trash cans!

If your;e wondering how they can hear whistling or trash can banging in a rowdy playoff atmosphere, well, there is a phenomenon in psychology called "The Cocktail Effect" where you are consciously able to focus on one auditory sound or stimulus out of a group of stimuli. This effect can be enhanced if one has been habituated or primed to what that stimulus is. So if the players had been focusing on a banging trash can sound during normal games, they can pick it out of a more difficult environment, one with a more variety of sounds and decibels, with less attention/work.

How much did this really help them, were their BA averages higher than normal?

and they have been fired too.

Illegal + stealing equals 2017 World Series Champions! Baseball can bite me. What a joke.

It's so tough to love baseball (disclaimer: I'm a Mariners fans so I have that working against me every single season). Teams can buy championships, or you're perpetually in "rebuild"...or apparently you got blatant cheaters like the Astros. I have no idea why they're allowed to keep their title based on these events. If Major league wants to send a clear message that this won't be tolerated, vacate the title. Every player involved should be suspended a full year. Let Houston play with their minor league rosters for a season. Anything else is a half measure and just tells teams to be more discreet about cheating.

The commissioner should resign as well. They have done absolutely nothing to prevent this from happening. It was the worst kept secret in baseball for years.

Great job Rob “I’m afraid of the MLBPA” Manfred 👍🏽 Only in Rob Manfred’s world does the child commit the crime and the parents go to jail.

NOT ENOUGH! No player suspensions, no titles revoked? They keep their championship? The WS title is a $50million dollar pay day. Five million fine shame on you MLB. This life long fan just walked away. I'll find something else to do. 162 games of free time. Sad

They have to find a way to punish the players. 2017 mvp Jose altuve, Bregman, springer Correa have a lot of explaining to do.

MLB could do away with the replay rooms and still have replays. It would just need to be up to the manager to decide to challenge (or not) based one what he or his players saw, rather than what his replay guy is telling him.

Simple fix, let the pitchers and catchers wear earphones and microphones.

The Mets got themselves a nice new shiney cheater in Beltran 😲

I love Hinch too and it’s so sad this happened. I doubt he will ever coach in MLB again. I am stunned this happened. I can’t believe it. When this first happened with the Red Socks it was simply “don’t use your watches to communicate sign stealing.” An undisclosed fine. No big deal really. But everyone wants the death penalty against the Astros. Well, looks like Cora is going too.

I’m confused. What was the tangent on replay about? I consider them 2 totally separate things.

Why did it take 2 1/2 years for this to come to light. (?) Mike Fiers who was a pitcher for the Astros in 2017' first reported this back in 2017'. Why no investigation until now.

Just ban every single person involved and strip them of the title

I'm willing to bet other teams had similar setups. At least for a short time period.

They should investigate all mlb team not just one

Houston *'s.

This has nothing to do with replay. The regular game feed is on delay and so cannot be used as a means of transmitting the sign of the upcoming pitch. The Astros installed a separate dedicated camera just for the purpose of stealing the signs.

Would be interested to know what Manfred said about Luhnow. Ex-McKinsey guy pushing the envelope. Big surprise.

WHHHAAT the heck does replay have to do with live feed???

They already fixed replay. It’s now 8 seconds delayed.

Why don't the catchers just change the signs even when there no on on second base?

5 million for a World Series Championship. Not too shabby!

One solution for sign stealing would communication between pitcher & catcher via wireless communications.

What about the fact that both the Astros and Red Sox more than likely were doing this during the postseasons they just so happened to WIN THE WORLD SERIES!

they get replay wrong alot of the time anyways for what ever reason

Can regular people like us get to read Manfred's report? Is it available to the public?

Rich wonders why Hinch did not just tell the players to stop the sign stealing scheme, but I think that the manager or coach is generally not seen as an authority figure anymore in any sport.

I wonder what Kennisaw Mountain Landis would do?..

Replay is not the problem, just have a few second delay in the dugout for both teams. Easy solve

You know how they have animations or whatever on the scoreboard of home games to get the crowd clapping and into it? Why not a bat on a trash can? Other teams could do that

They went light for the Red Sox. They take away the Astros title. They will have to take away the Red Sox title. They dont want to harm their precious Red Sox

The cheating isn't going to stop, period. Nobody has been banned, not one player has been punished yet and until one or both occur.....it's cheating as usual.

Finally at 4:46 someone brings up the point of how would the guys at the plate hear a trash can bang. Has anyone here been in a MLB stadium ever? Anyone ever heard the noise during a 3-2 count pitch? Ever heard the crowd during post season games? Don’t misunderstand my point. It’s been proven to have happened. But how effective might it have been? I think it’s effectiveness is being overblown. And I think the fact that the Astros home record was worse than their road record contributes to that conclusion. It happened, but it wasn’t so magically effective that the batters knew every pitch. Furthermore, don’t ya think if there was that much banging coming from the dugout, someone besides the batter would hear it ? Like the umpire ?

MLB expects us to pay 20 parking, 20 for a beer, 5 a dog and 40 for a non descript reserved seat somewhere down the foul line a mile from the field. To watch my 60M Payroll play a 300M Payroll? No thanks. I'm out. MLB take a seat. Take all the seats.

Maybe instead of removing replay entirely you just restrict teams access to footage. Let the guys in NY have the feeds to determine calls, but that's it.

I would like to know: did this violate any written rules of MLB?

In the past, when the guy at second tried to pass signs to the batter or the batter would try to take a peak at the sign the catcher was showing, the pitcher would send the pitch close enough to say, you do that again and I will not miss my mark. Now they have to use artificial means to get an advantage. He is an idea. No monitors near the dugout or the walkway to the clubhouse. Cannot go to the clubhouse during the game or all monitors are turned off in the clubhouse during the game. Want to study the pitcher, do your homework before the game. It's a shame that drastic measure will probably be put in place because there is no way the Astros are the only team that did this.

Honestly I feel bad for the Houston fans. This was post-Harvey and the city really rallied. They're not to blame. The fans aren't to blame. I'm from Cleveland. I feel for fans. I feel bad for the Houston fans in this case.

Instead of getting rid of replay, just get rid of the replay tech that tells the manager to challenge something. If the players on the field and on the bench feel something should be challenged based on what they saw with their own eyes, challenge it. No more 20-30 second delay to check the replay and see if you should challenge, you have 10 seconds based on what you or your teammates saw to decide if you want to challenge. It would speed things up a tiny bit, and no video temptation would be around to try and cheat. No more ability for batters to go down to some tunnel and cage and look at their last at bat while the game is still being played. No live or near live video during the game. You want to review your last at bat? Do it in your head, ask your teammates if they saw anything. You want video review? You will get the video at the end of the game.

No player involved in this scam better not ever make the hall of fame. What a disgrace.

How are they allowed to still keep a title??? The numbers variance between hitters at home and on the road were ridiculous...

Replay has nothing to do with this WTH? The Cheatstros used the center field camera all game televised use.

Y'all are ripping off my screen name with VoR.

Vacate the wins.

Should have an *next to their championship win

Baseball needs to do a league wide investigation on this issue and find out how deep it goes . Astros & Red Sox have been busted but it sounds like quite a few other teams have done it as well . Former players have said this has been happening for years so let’s hear the full truth

Hinch and Lunhow are now fired by the team minutes ago

Cite the rule broken?

Cora and Guillén on the spot. Ser Chicago White Doc, world series.

It's really dumb to talk about removing replay when what is a much better, forward-looking idea is to change how the pitcher sends signs to the catcher and make it much less apparent to any camera.

Every stadium in the MLB should have people pounding trash cans above the Astros dugout this year. If any of these dudes had a shred of decency, and thought this was as wrong as they claim, they would give up the title. The fact that they haven't tells you all they need to know. They're sorry they got caught. And that's it.

I'm honestly not trying to sound like a bitter dodgers fan but I was hoping for a postseason ban to really put a stop to this in the future

Astros, good job. You found the quickest way to have an entire nation hate your team.

What was Hinch supposed to do, go after his players or take it up with the players’ union? That’s a no-win situation and it’s a joke that the players aren’t being held responsible.

My guess is that scumbag manager smashed the monitor on two occasions after the signals were called incorrectly. Imagine knowing a curveball was coming, or a change up, and you could hit like Altuve. Also the banging was obvious. I believe this cheating continued with a visual indication of the next pitch coming. This whole thing stinks for baseball ⚾️ Players involved should also be severely punished. What about the opposing teams pitchers that got crushed? Managers and players that were fired or sent down to double A? Asterisk *

Who banged the trash can? Players make a lot more than a manager. Altuve, Correa,, Bregman, Springer have reaped the rewards of cheating. Their stats allow them to make more money in the future. Brian Kenny of MLB Network and his show “MLB Now” have been boosters of the Astros. BK is doing his best to protect the Astros by equivocating.

This isn’t harsh enough. There needed to be bans. 100% If Pete Rose got banned for what he did, which had little impact on the game, then these punishments should be worse, they cheated a World Series title.

The players came up with the scheme, the players got zero punishment. What the hell?

This is just a guess but Bregman seems like he would be one of the ring leaders to set up a sign stealing system

Their new name is the Houston TrashCanBangers

Alex Cora...where are you???????

The player's didn't have to go along with the cheating remember the white socks.

Strip the title!!!!!

They blur faces and license plates all the time. They can blur the catchers fingers.

Red Sox and Yankees were also cited for same violation, same year.

True zero tolerance would result in the Astros getting their series win, season games and player stats vacated. If the Sox did the same... same result.

wonder how many players got screwed out of better contract money from losing games due to this. really sucks.

Suspended?banned him for life

How have the players not been banned? Ban everyone for LIFE!!! Stop the cheaters. Think of the fans. Ban them all for LIFE!!!!

Players come up with the idea but none were punished. That's BS everyone of them involved should have received the same one year suspension. Make an example out of all of the players involved making them have to miss a year without pay and it will never happen again

Ok I think the Astros team should be suspended for the entire year of 2020 and vacate the 2017 world series championship.... If this doesn't happen Pete Rose and Barry Bonds should be able to get into the Hall of Fame. Because this scandal is bigger than whatever Pete Rose did and the steroids Barry Bonds took