Major League Baseball slapped the Houston Astros with an unprecedented punishment for their involvement in a sign-stealing scandal, suspending manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for one year, stripping the team of first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021, and fining the organization $5 million.
Many analysts praised Manfred for the seemingly strong punishment, but Pete Rose didn’t think it was all that bad.
“He didn’t hand down that bad of a punishment,” Rose said on Tiki & Tierney. “The owner of the Houston Astros is the one that handed down the punishment. He fired the guys forever. Manfred gave the guys a year and he took the No. 1 and No. 2 draft choice away from them, and he fined them $5 million. Well, $5 million is like paying the .202 hitter. That’s what they make today.”
As Rose mentioned, Astros owner Jim Crane has since fired Hinch and Luhnow, and the team’s magical run to a 2017 World Series title seems less, well, magical.
Of course, whatever punishment was levied, Manfred likely would have been criticized. That’s the sports world we live in.
“It’s players like me that make his job so difficult,” Rose said. “I like Rob Manfred,” “I think he’s a smart guy. I think he knows what he’s doing. There’s always problems in sports of all sorts. I hope he does well. I’m a baseball fan. All I do is talk about baseball on a positive note every day, 20 days a month, five hours a day. As you know, the last several years, it’s been tough to defend baseball. This is just another black eye for baseball.”