Manfred's comments about Luhnow were pretty clear about it being a cultural issue within the organization...I need to read it more clearly, but I have a very difficult time imagining that the general manager had no idea this was going on....and he was the guy who absolutely could have stopped it.
Altuve, Springer, Bregman, Correa, Alvarez, Brantley, Yuli, JV, Greinke, Osuna, McCullers, Whitley still around? Oh OK. We good.
And how many asterisks do they have on their championship(s)?? You and I may remember them as cheaters, but when everything is said and done no one will look back on the history and say, "hey, they should have an asterisk next to this SB and that SB, etc." They are still 6x SB champs.
If he knew, then I 100% agree. But I could see why the GM would never know - it's not something you'd ever think to investigate, and he's not down in the dugout during games to hear or see any of it. If anyone had told me a year ago that players might be banging on trash cans in a hallway to relay signals, I'd have said you're ridiculous. I got the impression the culture stuff was more in reference to other things like the Taubman thing and the Verlander/Detroit media goof up and things like that.
Crooked or not, Luhnow was the lifeblood of this franchise's resurgence. Nobody does numbers, scouting, and talent evaluation as him. This is brutal. I can't believe Crane fired him.
Damn. Pour one out for the homies Still 100% worth it lol I'd rather this than being the texans of baseball Life is too short to be a fan of loser teams
My next guess...and I have no information to suggest this...is that they lied to Crane about it. He just said in the conference he told them that if it was happening, they needed to "knock it off." And they didn't. If this was my business, I'd fire them too. That's really not a hard decision in this situation from my view. There's too much invested otherwise.
For sure...I didn't see the firings coming, but Crane has to distance himself and save face, it had to be done...It cost them $5MM, picks and the organizations reputation... Not sure they'll be blacklisted, but since they're fired, they won't have a chance to be banned from the MLB since they won't have access to the Houston Astros now... Definitely not a knee jerk reaction, but didn't think it would come down to this...There must be more to this story....
The guy who turned a completely dead organization into the best organization in baseball over about a 5 year period? I think lots of moribund franchises would absolutely line up to hire him. Hinch has a sterling reputation and I imagine will get another chance as well.
