The Ringer discussing winners and losers of the off-season: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2021/...-losers-mets-yankees-padres-blue-jays-red-sox Winner: Ex-Astros Lindbergh: More than a year after Mike Fiers came forward and blew the whistle on the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme, baseball fans still aren’t done dissecting and digesting the scandal. Multiple books about the Astros are due out in 2021, and TV treatments may make their way to our screens. But this offseason cemented what already seemed mostly certain: no former Astros will suffer any serious consequences because of their associations with the team. George Springer, whose at-bats yielded the second-most audible “bangs” on the 2017 team, signed the winter’s most lucrative free-agent deal, a six-year, $150 million pact with Toronto. A.J. Hinch (the manager who failed to stop the sign-stealing scheme) and Alex Cora (the former bench coach who helped engineer it) returned to dugouts as soon as their single-season suspensions were over. The Tigers called Hinch half an hour after the end of the World Series and eventually hired him as their skipper, and the Red Sox brought back Cora in his old managerial role. Former high-ranking Astros front-office members who weren’t implicated in the scandal have migrated to media outlets or other teams. Even disgraced, fired, and suspended ex-assistant GM Brandon Taubman quickly found work as the CIO of a Houston-area “data-driven real estate investing” company devoted to streamlining “previously inefficient processes.” And while former GM Jeff Luhnow—last heard proclaiming his innocence and complaining about MLB’s investigation—hasn’t landed another job in baseball, he seems to be managing just fine. Luhnow and the Astros likely reached a settlement of his wrongful termination suit, and after spending 2020 working with “multiple investment groups targeting investments in baseball, soccer, and e-sports,” he’s serving as the chairman and co-CEO of SportsTek Acquisition Corp., a blank-check business that intends to raise $125 million in an IPO. The Astros’ behavior may have made them heels, but after ducking the boobirds during a season without fans in the stands, they’ve continued to find new ways to win.
